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To: Steve Ballmer
cc: Richard Fade
From: Joe Williams
Subject: Briefing for Kevin Rollins 1 : 1 in Las Vegas
1. Dell has proposed the following (slides attached)
- Global OEM Pricing & agreement management (same price ww; particularly
for Office and applications)
- Dell positioned as Microsoft’s “Premier Partner” for Windows 2000 launch
(first OEM mention; on stage for all launch events)
- MSN “opportunity” – no hard commitment from Dell yet; details on their
specific requests coming. Activity with others unclear.
- Dell is the hardware provider for any Microsoft ASP service data centers.
- Microsoft advocates Dell to our other ASP partners (other then HP,
Compaq, or other direct competitors to Dell)
- Microsoft & Dell explore joint venture re: E-Consulting
2. What’s missing from Dell’s proposal:
- A commitment to increase our relationship in marketing and sales for
Windows products
- Stake out a video for what MS and Dell bring to the market (working
together), i.e. “Microsoft and Dell; Uniquely qualified to deliver eCommerce
for your business”
- Specific, firm commitment to MSN / Dell.net Partnership
3. Considerations for responding to Dell’s proposal
- Global OEM Pricing request:
We should break this off separately and discuss in the context of Dell’s
increased shipments and market share momentum, which support the requests they
are asking for. Global contract management is OK, best pricing (not “better
than” pricing… this is key to our strategy w/others) on products given Dell’s
volume and momentum is workable. This should be limited to OS and Office where
they lead in volume today. Same pricing across all markets doesn’t recognize
differences in various markets, and we should agree to this. Example: EMEA
Office pricing floor is $150.
-Win 2000 Launch Premier Partner request:
Steve. your comments to Capella (re Compaq’s status} and assignment of
Laurale likely to complicate this.
- Possible angle for Win 2000 Launch: feature Dell in first ’Voice of the
Customer” story heard at launch – “Dell.com runs on Windows 2000. Dell is one
of the Web’s greatest success stories and we are running it on MS and Win2000
today”
Win 2000 Premier Partner status requires a commitment from Dell that
justifies that status …. this has a couple of aspects:
- “Take a stand”- “Kevin, take a stand and we will do great things with
you. If not, that’s fine and we can continue to work together as we have… but
don’t expect partnerships level terms for reseller level commitment“. It’s
untenable for our “Premier Partner” on Windows 2000 to be doing aggressive
market development for another OS (If Kevin protests they are not being
aggressive we should remind him who sponsored Linux World this year etc.)
-”Per system
-”Per system” commitment: if they want the “best” position, they need to
commit as other volume leaders have. Steve, we will not win this later if you
give on price now without this condition.
-We should consider increased funding specifically for Windows 2000 launch
and launch+180days. Matched 1:1 by Dell.
-MSN Opportunity
The opportunity is to work together to create a solution, which helps make
Dellnet more effective in capturing subscribers. We have an interest in those
subscribers participating in our commitment/services, helping us build scale
and ad revenue. This will require a
significant investment from MS, we are happy to do this where we understand
Dell is motivated to drive subscribers to this offering. We are far less
incented to do this if Dell also builds a service on top of AOL, with fights
there that make Dell agnostic about where
the subscriber signs up. From conversations with Paul Bell – SVP Home and
Consumer Sales at Dell, we know that AOL has proposed to build out a “Dellnet
experiment” on AOL for Dell customers. AOL would still bill the subscriber,
but the content and ads would be scrubbed by Dell (ie no Gateway ads, Dell
gets to run ads, all the PC products offers point to Dell). AOL is proposing
the above plus increased $$$ per sub in return for Dell’s partnership
(promotion and advertising), and a more prominent placement on Dell’s
desktop.
- Dell as the hardware provider for Microsoft ASP data centers
How Microsoft moves forward with ASP data centers is still TBD; we are
working on pilot programs only today. If Microsoft decides to establish our
own data center, we would give Dell every opportunity to win that business.
Steve, not sure if you want to say more on this, like “If you will match the
best bid price, it’s yours.”
- Microsoft advocates Dell to our other ASP partners
Some limits need to apply but open to recommend them as part of our
solution – your take on this Steve?
- Microsoft and Dell explore joint venture re: E-Consulting
Main idea behind this is to take the structure of Dell.com running total MS
solution and evangelize this to the general market. “Microsoft and Dell
uniquely qualified to deliver eCommerce for your business”
Fade Comment:
Dell’s proposal has fallen short of asking for meaningful partnership
around joint business development. Their requests are mostly tactical and
support their “reseller” status.
This weak nature of this proposal leads me to believe they want to get as
much as from us as possible, and still do proactive development with AOL on
the custom Dellnet domain on AOL’s service. We should probe to understand this
and help Kevin understand if they want to be a market leader in our products
it takes more than “reseller” behavior to do that.
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