Microsoft makes bite-sized services available to partners

Microsoft has tweaked its “Services Ready” deliverables to make the more flexible and affordable for VARs and integrators.

Now the training — which builds on Microsoft’s own services experience —  is offered online and costs $4,000 per “workload.” Workloads being technology areas such as SharePoint, virtualization, desktop optimization, unified communications and soon BPOS migrations–a key subject this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington D.C..

The initial roll-out last year consisted of pricier instructor-led training that required VARs to take three to five days out of their schedule and pay $20,000 per organization to gear up on each workload, said Kristin Johnson, general manager of global delivery and operations for Microsoft Services.

“We heard back that it was inflexible and hard to schedule,” Johnson said at this week’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington D.C.

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