It's a little-known fact that both Southwest Airlines and the (soon-to-be) famous Yee-Haw Pickle Company began life on a cocktail napkin. What better medium to illustrate why Windows Intune should be on your radar as an I&O leader or professional?

Here's how Amazon ruined* my Christmas: after devouring a lovely rib roast with a porcini-spinach stuffing (recipe here in case your stomach is now growling), we all curled up on the couch with hot cocoa, turned on Netflix streaming to watch classic Christmas movies (and past Doctor Who Christmas Specials)... only to get an error message. That's right, in case you missed it, Netflix was down on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in North America for many users due to issues with Amazon's Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service in the US East region. It's interesting to note, that this is at least the third time issues with the ELB service has caused problems for Netflix, with each time, the company making improvements to prevent this from happening again.

I will postpone the name of my 2012 winner for a bit. I first want to thank the great AR professionals with whom I have the pleasure of working! For those outside the technology vendor world, analyst relations is a function vendors use as the liaison between their people and analysts like me. We influence the market and therefore they know they need us to understand their offerings so we can accurately advise our clients.

Not all AR people are good, so the great ones always stand out. Some view the analysts merely as extensions of their marketing initiatives and see their job revolving around trying to “brainwash” the analysts. This is a narrow-minded view of the relationship that never works with self-respecting, intelligent analysts. Take note, vendors: we analysts hate that approach!

Great AR professionals engage us in a more intimate two-way dialog. We need more than just the occasional briefing. We need access to executives and developers. We need to know the roadmap and where executives see the company going. My favorite part of the relationship is to be integral to strategic directions, participating in the development rather than just being informed after the fact. The great ones make this process seamless and enjoyable. We all like to pick on vendors, but we need to engage them as partners. The reason we like to pick on them is because poor AR and other stereotypical behaviors fuel distrust and sometimes downright hostility. Bad vendors give the good ones a bad rap.

I am fortunate to work with some fantastic AR professionals! They make my life easier and I appreciate that! They all share some important attributes:

• They are genuinely warm people. They may be aggressive inside their organizations and possibly even disliked for their ambitious approach, but to us, they clearly want to help us. That benefits their employers more than most people know.

China has always been a problem for Microsoft. With much higher software piracy rates and a less mature enterprise sector than other major international markets, Microsoft has had a hard time reaching its potential in China. However, Microsoft has made a series of announcements in the past three months that will finally give China a place among the company’s top international markets:

• Making China one of the first countries where Windows 8 and the Surface tablet were commercially available (late October).
• Officially launching Office 365 and Windows Azure cloud services in China through partnership with 21ViaNet, an Internet data center player in China.
• Forming a partnership with HTC, Nokia, and all three Chinese mobile operators to make the Windows Phone 8 available (December).