"These [partners] represent a huge revenue stream for Microsoft," Chapman said. "And in the last six to nine months, we've seen a complete shift in IT confidence. The bottom [of the IT market] is definitely behind us."
More than a quarter of the partners polled anticipate that their revenue will climb by more than 25 percent over the previous 12 months, the SoftwareMinds survey noted, while another 48 percent believe their growth will fall in the 5 to 25 percent range.
That's a major shift from the last dozen months. Of the 1,000-some partners which participated in the study, 43 percent said that they had experienced flat or declining revenue in the 12-month span that ended in June, 2003. Nearly a quarter claimed that they had been unprofitable during that period.
SoftwareMind's data noted that most of Microsoft's partners put the blame on poor past performance squarely on the shoulders of the general economic malaise: 60 percent said that the lousy economic climate was the major factor in poor sales of products and services.
"My suspicion, and it's only a conclusion, not out of the data, is that the partners believe their revenue will grow because they see the economic climate improving," said Chapman.
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