Office 365 Distributed to Channel Via Champion Solutions
Office 365 Distributed to Channel Via Champion Solutions by UCStrategies Staff
MessageOps, which was acquired last month by Champion Solution Group, an IT solutions provider, will be strengthened and used to develop services around Champion's Office 365 business. Other solution providers who work with Office 365 will also be able to deploy similar capabilities.
The Champion CEO and president, Chris Pyle, stated: “This is going to be the de facto standard in managing the Office 365 environment. Partners are going to have to provide services around Office 365.”
Champion, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida, has utilized Microsoft's Office 365 cloud application suite since mid-2011. Around 200 customers have been newly signed to Champion, and consequentially the company has been able to start selling other products and services.
According to Pyle, partners “don't make a tremendous amount of money” on its fees. Microsoft, in comparison, provides partners with a percentage of the subscription price (in the first year, 12 percent is detracted, and with renewals, six percent). Pyle added: “Really where you start making the money is with the services you place around Office 365.”
MessageOps is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is responsible for creating 365 Command; this is accessible by businesses and solution providers who require a series of Web-based administration reporting and monitoring tools. This includes setting mailbox passwords and permissions and synchronization of passwords. It is estimated 365 Command software operates and monitors 375,000 mailboxes.
Customers can receive support and services through 365 Command which is also used by Champion, and this was enabled previous to the acquisition of MessageOps for an unstated price. Pyle said, with regard to the most rapidly increasing part of Champion's business: “We saw how valuable they were and where they were going.”
MessageOps persists as a separate operation and Champion still controls it. The former will offer investment capital to help Champion with new tools and customers. Pyles, commenting on MessageOps personnel, states that: “They're an awesome development shop. We're trying not to get in their way [with Office 365 and Exchange Online].”
However, Champion, in addition to offering its own customers Windows Azure-based 365 Command, will also be providing these management tools to other solution providers currently utilizing Office 365.
More value-added services will need to be offered around Office 365 by Microsoft partners so customers do not simply subscribe through Microsoft to these applications, Pyle stated. He added that: “This is where the smart partners will leverage 365 Command.” (CY) Link