Wednesday, December 10, 2008

EBS is a Solution with Technologies, Features and Business Value Only Found in EBS

While speaking to a Microsoft MVP, Gold Certified Partner yesterday at a meeting, I was hoping to gain his insight into the value EBS brings to his business and his customers. Instead he proceeded to talk about EBS as a bundled solution, and how he hasn't heard about the value EBS brings to him and his customers.

There was an interesting interview, The 'Buyology' Behind The Way We Shop, yesterday on Talk of the Nation, a NPR show. While the story referenced consumer products, Walter from Kansas City, one of the callers, was "overall offended by marketing", called marketing "legal lying", referred to marketing as manipulation, and mentioned regulation.

My goal is not so evil. I need to raise awareness of the Windows Essential Business Server and communicate its unique value, i.e. product differentiation, to midsize businesses and to the partners serving those businesses. Yes, EBS contains a bunch of Microsoft technology and products you can purchase separately, but it also contains technologies, features and measurable business value you cannot find outside of EBS:

  1. Unified Administration Console
  2. Server consolidation
  3. Over 300 pages of best practices out-of-the-box
  4. Simplified licensing for multiple technologies
  5. Competitively priced

I suspect the misperception that EBS is a discounted, bundled solution is due to market testing some EBS technologies and a price point a couple of years ago. As I have discussed with my peers in the past and studied in many business cases, you can have a great product, but if nobody is aware about the product and/or its value, then market adoption will be weak. Help me get the word out there.

1 comment:

Geoff Allix said...

There's some good points here. I think EBS is seen as a discount package and the extra benefits are ignored/unknown by many. Plus, you do really need some books for Christmas to fill those shelves.