Our Clients : Case Studies

Microsoft Developer and Platform Evangelism (MSDPE) Group

MSDN Connection

Challenge

Prior to the portal, developers' outreach was largely conducted through offline events such as user groups discussions and meetings. It was both manpower and resource intensive and the situation was further complicated with each subsidiary running their own outreach program. Feedback was not necessarily channeled and disseminated efficiently and events were often perceived as one-off campaigns.

Solution

earth9 was tasked to develop the MSDN Connection Portal for Asia in 2003 which included incorporating a number of existing Microsoft infrastructures. The online portal allows the regional Microsoft DPE team to pool resources together, maximize manpower, achieve consistency in campaign management yet allow localization, eliminate duplication of effort, capture developers' profiles, fine tune programs quickly and most importantly build a dependable developers community. What was initially a pilot program for the Singapore and Malaysia markets was eventually expanded to include 10 Asia Pacific countries within a year.

Results

There was a 40% savings in new acquisition costs The campaign was so successful that its KPI of acquiring 16,000 new members was met in just 3.5 weeks versus the projected 3 months.
The success of the portal prompted Microsoft to extend the relationship with earth9 to include the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region in 2005.
earth9 now manages the entire MSDN Connection Portal on an on-going basis and rolls out enhancements every quarter.