IAMCP Puerto Rico

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San Juan, Puerto Rico, 14 de junio de 2007 –-- En el día de hoy la Asociación Internacional de Socios Certificados de Microsoft anunció el lanzamiento del Capítulo de Puerto Rico en las facilidades de Microsoft Caribbean. La actividad contó con la participación de Ambrose Ramsahai, Gerente General de Microsoft Caribbean y Daniel Benmaman Gerente de Cuentas de Socios de Negocio. 

 La Junta Directiva de la IAMCP Puerto Rico incluye al Ing. Ángel L. Pérez, Presidente, al Ing. Néstor Figueroa, Vicepresidente y al Ing. Alberto Lugo, Secretario.

 Los objetivos principales de la IAMCP Puerto Rico son; Mejorar el ambiente para hacer negocios en Puerto Rico para las empresas de tecnología de la información; llevar un mensaje claro sobre las necesidades de la industria a las universidades del país; y apoyar las inicitivas y metas de Microsoft Caribbean.

 Acerca de la IAMCP

La IAMCP es una asociación profesional de socios Microsoft Gold y Certificados organizados en capítulos locales o regionales en todo el mundo. Formada en 1994, la IAMCP proporciona a sus miembros información, capacitación y eventos diseñados para incrementar sus oportunidades de negocio a nivel local. La asociación ayuda a los socios de Microsoft a expandir sus negocios y a establecer alianzas de trabajo con Microsoft; asimismo, brinda un enlace directo a los contactos clave de Microsoft y ofrece un foro para discutir las tecnologías de Microsoft. Actualmente, la IAMCP cuenta con 4,000 miembros en 56 capítulos distribuidos en 24 países. La IAMCP también tiene 39 capítulos en Estados Unidos. Para más información, visite http://www.iamcp.org.           

Sept. 17, 2007 -- Dublin, Ireland -- The International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners (IAMCP) today expressed disappointment in the ruling by the EU’s Court of First Instance in the Microsoft anti-trust suit.  The decision undermines the ability of intellectual property owners to create economic growth for companies and countries – and that preserves a company’s right to improve its products and to benefit from those innovations.   

The IAMCP represents more than 1,000 IT companies in the EU with more than 70,000 employees

IAMCP President Per Werngren said, “The European Union is losing its place as a safe haven for intellectual property and innovation and today’s ruling will only continue that unfortunate trend. Intellectual property rights are a critical way for businesses to fund growth, research and employment, compete fairly in the market place, and have the freedom to meet the future needs of customers with improved products. We strongly believe that politicians should not declare a company’s assets as being free or for sale at a reduced price.”

IAMCP criticized the Court of First Instance for ruling in such a way that re-affirms the primacy of intellectual property rights in the EU. “Our IAMCP members represent a significant part of the European IT industry and have seen this conflict as a shadow over their businesses for nearly a decade,” said Werngren.

According to Werngren, another concern of the decision is the chilling effect of regulatory, legislative, or judicial interference on innovation. “Platform uniformity is important for our members to deliver business solutions to their clients.  If we are forced to support multiple flavors of operating systems each with a different country-imposed set of capabilities across the EU, it could become difficult for our clients.”

IAMCP is the preeminent networking venue for Microsoft Partners in the world. Through more than 80 chapters in 40 countries, this non-profit organization brings more than 3,000 of the top IT companies together to leverage their joint strengths in delivering world class solutions to clients. Last year IAMCP members were responsible for sales of more than 5 billion Euros in IT goods and services. For more information, visit www.iamcp.org.

Springtime for the IAMCP

Springtime signals growth, and the past 3 years have seen extraordinary growth for the IAMCP! We have gone from four countries to 24 countries in just 3 years. Today, we can proudly state that we are an international organization. This year alone we launched chapters in Puerto Rico, Greece, Lithuania and, last week, in France.

We see a very strong interest from journalists, analysts, Microsoft and from partners about the IAMCP! The IAMCP is growing as never before!

Last month we officially launched our regional chapter for Latin America, and I am proud of the calibre of people that are involved. I am convinced that Latin America will be an important growth region for the IAMCP.

This growth has caused us to recraft our Vision and Mission statements to reflect where we are and what we aim to do.

Our new Vision: IAMCP is the global business community for Microsoft partners

Our new Mission: To maximize the business potential of our members

A great task is to communicate our new Vision & Mission to our members, local boards, Microsoft, journalists and to customers! We need to do it together, and I hope to see translated versions in all the languages that we speak within the IAMCP family!

Expanding our business with a fourth pillar…

Our Mission today is ‘delivered’ by three pillars:

- Peer to Peer Networking

- Member Advocacy

- Community Outreach

We are planning to add a fourth pillar that will be ‘Growth and Education.’ In order to shape this new pillar, I seek your help. I would appreciate if you will give me your thoughts and ideas about this new exciting pillar that we plan for next year!

Communication & Events…

We aim to be more structured in our communication, and I have appointed Ms Sandra van Leeuwen, who already sits on the International Board, to be Chair of Communication. This means that she will define an overall IAMCP communication plan and will work together with the rest of the International, regional, and local boards to improve our rhythm of communication. She highly appreciates your thoughts on this. Send them to sandra.van.leeuwen@rpm-car.com.

Sandra also will be responsible for non-WPC International and Regional Events such as Convergence and TechEd. We see a potential to expand our presence in these events, and the first step is to appoint a person responsible for this on the International board. Sandra will coordinate with Microsoft for the event participation, and interact with the Tier 2 Regional boards that will have ownership of the regional activities.

Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver…

We are approaching the time of the year when many of us will meet at WPC. This year it will happen in Denver between 8 and 12 July.

IAMCP highlights will be:

-          IAMCP Invitational Golf Tournament at Arrowhead Golf Course on 8 July

-          The big membership meeting on 9 July (just prior to the WPC Welcome reception)

-          Our booth will be six times larger than ever before!

-          An IAMCP lounge will serve as the natural meeting place for our members

Getting better…

As you know, we are launching our IAMCP Chapter Scorecard, with some teething problems, but we are fine tuning it in order to make it an important tool.

As a member of the IAMCP, you can expect regular activities in your local chapter with a frequency of meetings and connections with Microsoft. It is important that we teach each other how to run local chapters successfully, and our best practices are a gold mine to dig into!

I want to hear more from you. How can we do better as we shape the IAMCP for the future?

Best regards,

Per Werngren, President of IAMCP