78 – Focus on Coming Out of This Year, Better Than Before.

Welcome to the 78th episode of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering™. For this episode, I was delighted to welcome a friend and former colleague, Linda Rendleman. I met Linda many years ago when we both worked at Microsoft, and her career as a woman in technology has blossomed over the last few years. Linda Rendleman has served as Vice President, North American Device Partner Solution Sales at Microsoft since August 2020. In her role, she leads the strategy, relationships, and business operations of the company's device solutions and partnerships to support building devices that consume our cloud, innovating with device partners, and transforming how we sell devices and services with partners.  Linda focuses on helping channel partners capture more opportunities by rethinking how work is done and leverages aggregated solutions to increase business agility, work productivity, and operational efficiencies.  I was excited to feature Linda to discuss her award-winning career as a woman in technology, her new role, her team's priorities and how the market is thinking differently now about devices.  DEVICES ARE THE GATEWAY TO THE CLOUD With so many of us working from home with the pandemic, using a first-class, modern computing device is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Selecting devices with excellent audio, video, and computing is essential. Linda's team works with OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to design and build devices that best utilize the cloud with next-gen delivery models to transform the Modern Workplace. Her Team's Priorities: Champion the value of a modern device, both in commercial consumer and education channels - why a modern device is essential.Attaching client office and server perpetual licensing to those devices for businesses that aren't yet ready for the cloud.Closely align with OCP (One Commercial Partner) counterparts to support our partners in their Microsoft CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) attach motions.Transformational initiatives around selling the Commercial