Provoke wins seat at online services roundtable

One of 18 international partners chosen

By Hamish Barwick, Auckland | Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Microsoft partner Provoke has been selected for an online services roundtable at the vendor’s Worldwide Partner Conference, currently being held in Washington DC .

The roundtable will be chaired by Microsoft’s global CEO Steve Ballmer. Only 18 international partners were chosen for the event. Provoke was selected due to its early adoption of the vendor’s cloud services and it is the first time the company has taken part in the roundtable.

Provoke CEO Mason Pratt says he is keen to understand more about the global vision for Microsoft online services and wants to gain insights to help drive adoption locally.

“It’s also a chance to feed back what’s happening at a local level and share the highs and lows with regards to the Microsoft partner community.”

Pratt says the chance to meet with other “best-of-breed” partners is invaluable. “It’s also nice to remind the staff that Provoke is seen, both locally and internationally, as an innovator.”

Microsoft’s local partner group director Brent Colbert says Provoke’s place in the roundtable recognises its investment in the cloud.

“They were one of our early partners in terms of selling online services and they’ve been very proactive on that front. Steve [Ballmer] is looking at that roundtable to learn from the [online services] experience and what Microsoft needs to do next.”

Colbert says he submitted five nominations from local partners for the roundtable.

“You need to pitch a few nominations and unfortunately the other four missed out.”