Microsoft Partners: Gold & Silver Competencies

On November 1st, at our World Wide Partner Conference Microsoft launched the Microsoft Partner Network, which brought with it many new things, including new competencies and associated branding, benefits, requirements, and more. 

This series of blog posts: The Microsoft Partner Network: Gold Competencies & Silver Competencies–Part 1: Branding provides information about various components of the Microsoft Partner Network and these competencies.  

Now there are no longer “Microsoft Gold Certified Partner”or “Microsoft Certified Partner” levels to achieve for companies. Instead a partner company has the ability to achievegold and silver competencies which are named based on how customers buy. 

This provides more opportunity for differentiation for partners, as well as even more opportunity for partners to highlight their specific skillsets and areas of strength. In addition, this naming is more transparent to customers and identifies partners’ core capabilities and expertise.

As an example, a partner with a business focus of Server Platformcould attain either a Microsoft Gold Server Platform competency or a Microsoft Silver Server Platform competency and would earn the ability to use one of the following logos:

Notice that the “silver” and “gold” designations are associated specifically to the competency, not the “Microsoft Partner” or a company name.

You can find our more information on the changes here.

Bill Zack