CRN readers have spoken out about a Microsoft blog, which sparked criticism from an on-line messager about the vendor’s treatment of its channel partners.
On 10 September a reader, called 'Nick', posted comments accusing Readify of having too many volunteers and consultants at TechEd.
He wrote on Roger Lawrence’s (Microsoft manager developer evangelism) blog: “This is exactly what is so wrong with Microsoft’s community initiatives in Australia.
"They are squarely concentrated on one company. I have not seen this happening anywhere else in world."
CRN reader, Brendan, has accused Nick of shooting down a local company.
"This is exactly what is wrong with this Industry and Country. As soon as someone builds their company into a leader we must shoot them down,” he said.
“And no I do not work for Readify, I do know them and they do great work within the Industry.”
Others saw both sides of the argument.
An anonymous writer said: “While most of the times Microsoft is great in helping its partners and community. Often this does not happen.
"People/companies get overlooked only because someone from company X is a buddy of a DPE team member. This hurts partners who pay the same fees as the favourable company does.”
While 'Dissapointed' told Nick to 'get over it', and accused Microsoft of cronyism in one post.
He wrote: “Ffs, quit the whining, so there were too many Readify people at TechEd, go to the Indian TechEd and see how many Infosys folks attend, or go to America and see how many Infosys folks attend, point is, they have a lot of people who want to attend TechEd and happen to work at the company, what is Microsoft meant to do, limit attendance from companies that hire lots of people from their core audience base?”
He added: “Other side of the coin, Microsoft Australia is rife with cronyism; hang around the lobby while waiting for an appointment and you will see "pal" after "pal", "mate" after "mate" coming for meetings with the same people.”
Another CRN post by James also accused the software giant of Cronyism.
“Absolutely. My company proposed to do four presentations at TechEd and emailed ideas to one of their so called evangelist. Never heard back.”
“Do they give special favours to Readify. Absolutely. Just look at the buddy buddy thing going on between Readify and Microsoft.”
One anonymous reader pointed out: "It's called "the real world" people! You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's about who you know rather than what. It's everywhere and these events are no different.
“Not saying it's right...just pointing out the reality."
Haven't had your say yet, there's still plenty of time for you to voice your opinion.