We’re one week away from what I affectionately call the Windows XP Election Day. As you know by now, Windows XP end of support (EOS) is April 8th. For those political wonks amongst us, you’ll fondly note that politicians barnstorm hard the last week for every single vote. It’s called a “get out of the vote” strategy and our current worldwide Modern Partner Tour is akin to that exhausting final push. Voices grow hoarse, staffers catch colds, and we go 7X24 the final week. That’s exactly what’s occurring.
(Pictured: The Auckland Modern Partner Tour Workshop last week)
Election Metaphor
Microsoft calls April 8th “Zero Day,” but as I’ve been dispatched on the Windows XP matter since last May, I’ve always promoted the April 8, 2014 deadline as election day. I’ve organized all our SMB Nation efforts to target this date. For customers, it’s a day where they “elect” to Get Modern. SMB Nation partners are the field operations campaign workers interacting directly with the voters (the customers). After the April 8th EOS date, the geopolitical landscape changes, but it creates a very different opportunity. Continuing the political metaphor, the electorate often doesn’t respond until after a deadline passes. Witness that US budget battle that took place after October 1, 2013 when the new federal government fiscal year started. That is, people get serious when it’s “now time.” So I predict you will actually be busier post-April 8th than before.
Round ‘da World
I recently received an e-mail from a reader that spoke to my heart. Her signature line said “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it!” Right now, we are in the early stages of a 30-country Modern Partner Tour, where we are empowering top resellers to go out and work with customers to leave Windows XP and embrace new devices, Windows 8.1 and Office 365. The tour is focused on only allowing the top 15 resellers per country to attend the executive briefings? Why? Because, like SMB Nation traversing the world, we are all out “doing it” and refused to be interrupted. In the past two weeks, I’ve traveled to five continents and over 30,000 miles (remember the world is only 22,000 miles in circumference) motivating partners to motivate customers to GET MODERN! Today, I’m in London while Sharon Fry is in Mexico City, with much more to come. I’ve covered off on Brazil, Australia and New Zealand already while Jay hit Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. It’s a mad dash to the April 8th “election” and beyond.
