Intellect IT gets Microsoft Gold

Solutions provider, Intellect IT, has completed years of preparation and months of paperwork to receive Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status.

The certification, which represents the software giant’s highest level of partner recognition, is difficult to achieve and set to be scrapped and replaced by 2011. Despite the imminent change, Intellect IT director, Roy Solterbeck, said it was a valuable display of competency for the solutions provider’s customers.

“It’s a show of validity to our customers that we do have a certain level of expertise,” he explained. “Whether we will see a large or even an increase [in revenue], I don’t know if we will. It’s more a matter of when we do go to deals, having [the certification] there proves we know what we’re on about and that we have invested in training.”

Solterbeck said Intellect began preparations to apply for the status several years ago by providing staff with extra training, but only went for the final push two months ago.

“Part of it was the certification process was going to change and seeing as how we had gone that far, we wanted to finish it off,” he said. “This way, we’ve got a year before we’ve got to change.

“It’s got to give us a base because I doubt Microsoft will change the certification process so dramatically that you’d have to go through a whole new process. Yes, we’ll have to do some other things, but hopefully it won’t be a ridiculous amount.”

Solterbeck said gaining Microsoft Gold had already reaped rewards.

“One of the things we did find was one of the surveys gave us some good information and feedback from customers and that’s been quite valuable for us,” he said.