When it comes to choosing a service provider to partner with in your business, the field is cluttered with countless vendors and possibilities.  With so many options to choose from, finding just the right fit for your organization can be a daunting task.  Even within Microsoft there are many different types of services offered and groups which offer them.  I’m here to tell you how Premier Developer is different.

In the words of our fearless leader Satya Nadella, at Microsoft we want to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.”  In Microsoft Services, this means building a relationship with you so that we can provide ongoing support and services that will help you do more and achieve more.  Each of the groups within the services organization plays a critical role in that relationship.

When people think of Microsoft Services, they often think MCS – Microsoft Consulting Services.  MCS is the group you go to when you want us to build something for you, augment your staff, or lead the effort on a long-term project.  These engagements tend to last several months or even years, and they get scoped out and sold as whole projects.

On the support side of the business, your relationship with Microsoft Services typically starts with a Premier Support contract.  In the past, this gave you a Technical Account Manager (TAM) and a bucket of hours that you could use for support, often primarily reactive phone support (break/fix).  As our customers’ needs evolved, our organization evolved into a more proactive support model focusing on knowledge transfer, business outcomes and shared goals, rather than just reactive support.  Premier resources can provide a wide range of proactive services according to your needs – workshops, chalk talks, health checks – you name it, we’ve got it.  You still get the world-class reactive support you need to solve the problems that come up unexpectedly, but your TAM will also help you analyze your current environment and future plans in order to provide you with prescriptive guidance for proactive services that will help you achieve your goals efficiently.  This provides the support that most IT organizations need, but it’s primarily focused on operational support – keeping the lights on and the trains running on schedule.

Premier Developer is a little bit different.  Our mission is to help you build amazing software.  With a Premier Developer contract, you get an Application Development Manager (ADM) to manage your relationship with Microsoft rather than a TAM.  Your ADM is well-versed in application development practices and will help support you throughout the software development life-cycle, providing architectural advice, insight into new technologies, and general guidance regarding your application development process.  Most importantly, your ADM will connect you with our team of Premier Developer Consultants to provide you with a range of services needed to make your development team successful.   Building robust software nowadays involves a vast array of technologies, and it’s challenging for developers to gain the wide variety of expertise they need to be successful.  Our consultants have years of experience with application development and support, including specializations in Application Life-cycle Management, Performance Tuning, Architecture, .NET development, SQL Server, Big Data, SharePoint, Cloud technologies and many more.  We can help train your developers, tune applications, provide architectural and design guidance – everything you need to write and support world-class software.  As with any other Premier contract, you will have access to the proactive and reactive services mentioned above, but in addition, Premier Developer offers custom services designed to help you and your team be successful throughout every stage of the application life-cycle.

While there are many different teams at Microsoft that deliver services, we are unified as one Microsoft Services by our singular mission to provide value to our customers – to empower your organization to do more and achieve more.  MCS will build it, Premier will support the platform, and Premier Developer will support you throughout the software development life-cycle.  We will help you envision it, design it, develop it, test it, tune it, deploy it and manage it.  We’re your one stop application development support shop!