This year, Microsoft’s annual global partner conference has got a new name- Microsoft Inspire.
Since 2003, the event has been known as Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and it has drawn more than 10,000 partners around the globe.
The name change which was announced five months back in December 2016 did not help much, as it is still confusing to the partners. Other than the name itself and the website, the logistics of the partner conference have not changed.
However, what Microsoft thinks about it is a little different, as the company’s Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Chris Capossela, in a blogpost said “This new name reflects how Microsoft and our partner community inspire each other to innovate and deliver powerful new solutions to customers.”
“This will continue to be the great conference our partners have grown to love, but with a new name that reflects how Microsoft and our partner community inspire each other to innovate and deliver powerful new solutions to customers. The name Microsoft Inspire better represents what this event provides. It is a destination event that fosters partner to partner connections, drives engagement with Microsoft, and surfaces new ideas to help bring our partners’ goals and visions to life and accelerate business while we work as one to deliver the very best solutions to our customers,” said, Microsoft’s Corporate VP, Worldwide Partner Group, Gavriella Schuster.
Another slightly different explanation as mentioned by the company, in a blogpost, is “Formerly known as the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft’s biggest partner event was renamed Microsoft Inspire to align with other flagship conferences, including Microsoft Build and Microsoft Ignite,” this however, does not have much to do with how inspiring partners and Microsoft employees may be to each other.
This is truly possible that the new name is determined by more than one reason. The company wants the naming WPC to fit with Ignite and Envision, while Inspire is suitable as the new name because of the energy it exuberates every season between the partners and of course between partners and Microsoft.