A day at the Microsoft Surface Partner Briefing

By Sam Thrower

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending the Microsoft Surface Partner Briefing. A quarterly, first hand opportunity to hear from some of the key players within the Microsoft Surface team about the latest product information and the potential opportunities for the months ahead. It’s been a pretty incredible 5 years for Microsoft Surface on their device journey and from the sounds of it, this is only the beginning …

It was a great day at the Everyman Cinema in Canary Wharf and I came away feeling enlightened with lots of valuable insights into where we’re going next on this incredible Surface journey, insights which I will share with you below….

1. The user experience is paramount. When it comes to product development, no stone is left unturned. For every good idea comes 999 bad ones says Pete Kyriacou, an engineering specialist who offered a rare insight behind the scenes. With all ideas considered within the Surface development, it’s this attention to detail and the drive to deliver an ultimate customer experience that makes Surface stand out. So when that one eureka moment does arrive, it’s your customer at the heart.

How the Surface Pro begain it's early development

2. Start thinking about the modern workplace. – it’s the now and the future. If you haven't already, ensuring that you are supplying a modern and mobile workplace needs to be at the forefront of your considerations. With the spend on the modern workplace expected to reach 3 trillion by 2020 (yes 3 trillion!!!), there's money to be made. Built for Microsoft 365, beautifully innovative hardware and loved by employees and IT departments - Surface should be the driver when it comes to talking with your customer about tech modernisation.

A closer look at how Surface can dive a modern workplace

3. Surface is a truly Microsoft 365 device. If your customers are already purchasing Microsoft licencing, then why wouldn’t they be wanting to couple that with a device that is the best expression of Microsoft 365? If you need more support to promote this solution, then talk to us. If you aren’t a DMP, but think you should be, we want to hear from you as well. We will soon be improving our demo device offering so your potential customers can take a closer look at the Surface devices - especially if they’re already purchasing Microsoft licensing. 

If you're a current cloud reseller, start thinking Surface as a Service. You may have seen us speak about this in recent weeks, but it's a motion that’s happening now. Predictable capital expenditure and devices that are kept up to date on a single monthly bill. It's something that your Cloud customers will be used to, so start talking to your customers about Surface as a Surface. If you’re not, someone else will be.

To help you with the Surface as a Surface motion we will soon be launching our new Surface Calculator. You bundle up the Surface accessories and any other products you or your customer requires (including your own services) and we come back to you near enough instantly with a monthly price and talk you through the end to end process – watch this space.


If you’re eager to find out more, visit here or take a look at our MS Mix page 

There's plenty in it for you! With brand spanking new partner incentives set to launch throughout the next year there won't be a better time to start selling Surface, so keep your ears to the ground and your eyes peeled. For the moment we have some Surface Pro offers for you to take advantage of

If there’s one more thing I’ve learnt, it’s that there is customer demand waiting to be capitalised on. The Surface opportunity is building and it’s time for you to take advantage with

For more information about anything Microsoft surface related, email surface@westcoast.co.uk or visit www.westcoast.co.uk/surface