For the first time in a while, Vole dispatched senior executives to the Canalys Channels Forum in Berlin after shunning the event for more than 13 years.
The senior voles wanted to convince the 1,000 plus audience to get behind Copilot - a tech shoehorned into every corner of its software portfolio - and Copilot + PCs.
Business buyers need convincing and so Microsoft must muster salespeople internally and externally to evangelise the tech.
Microsoft EMEA general manager for Device Partner Sales Dimitra Garda told the gathered throngs that companies experimenting with "AI capabilities" because they "enjoy" having "thinking partners and these digital advisors" which are "more effective when drafting emails or preparing for your next sales calls or even having analytics and have the advice of what decision to take.
Copilot + PCs "are the fastest, most intelligent and most secure PCs ever built… in a period where the companies are busy with modernisation and digitisation of their estate with the Windows 11 devices, because they would like to be more secure and more productive and more efficient.
"This is a big opportunity for the whole partner ecosystem, because we need to help the customers to be secure, but also to plan for the future."
Computacenter CTO Paul Bray said his company ran internal pilots of Copilot for Microsoft 365 with its 20,000 employees and was "supporting the adoption process of that from a go-to-market customer perspective."
He added that customers that accelerated device purchases during Covid are "now starting to consider… replacement of that equipment, [and] AI PC has come to the fore."
Bray said that punters were a "lot more enlightened" and "starting to think specifically about use cases and personas."
It would appear that Vole is starting at the top with Computacenter, one of Europe’s largest resellers.
Garda assured the channel that Copilot + PCs are gaining sales. According to Canalys, 20 percent of shipments into the channel were AI PCs – not just Copilot+ – in Q3, but whether customers buy them in huge volumes is another matter.
Garda said that Vole was working with a "broader network of ISVs who are coming and building applications now on NPU processors in order to provide this AI enhanced capabilities.
"And this is growing, okay. I mean… they are driving, developing these applications in all the categories. And then we are working with partners like Computacenter, solution partners who are engaging with this technology. And they would like to be the subject matter experts. They would like to be very close to their customers and advise them and support them of how they adopt the technology. And we would like to support them with pilots, with assets, with training, in order to bring this expertise as soon as possible to the customer side."
Garda added: "We have about 13,000 partners worldwide that are working with Copilot, and they are offering solutions on the Copilot in more than 50,000 customers as we speak, so Copilot is already in action in different types of lines of businesses and applications."
