I was pretty jazzed when I found out my good friend Owen Allen (check out his rich blog... since 2003!) joined the partner team. He's someone who is already very passionate and has been working in this space for a while. You may know him if you're in the Pacific Northwest doing is technical sales thing or if you're in the Puget Sound SharePoint User Group as the Microsoft sponsor. He's been doing SharePoint since the CMS days and spent a lot of time as an "Insider." He's a great guy and someone who will help the SharePoint ISV partners get the help they need to be successful both with the SharePoint team, the Microsoft Field, and especially with customers. One thing I've noticed more as I've spent more time with customers and more time with ISVs (Independent Software Vendors (basically guys who make SharePoint tools and solutions), is their biggest problem is awareness. People don't know what they don't know, and there simply isn't a lot of buzz around SharePoint solutions and tools. There are those that we see at various events around the globe, but there's a small handful of SharePoint ISVs that rolls off people's tounges, but this list hasn't changed as new products and solutions have been released. I recently heard about an SI (systems integrator) who had built a solution, but was going to stop evangelizing it and go back to doing consulting 100% and revisit in the spring. Sad. Some SharePoint instructors and consultants would say SharePoint doesn't need any "Add ons," but essentially I think those guys are missing the point that SharePoint truly is a platform and both the user experience, the dev experience, and the IT experience can all be TONS better with partners (and the money is well spent as these solutions meet requirements). They aren't all created equal, and their solutions will only get better with time. At the SharePoint conference we were told there were over 2500 SharePoint partners. It's a very rich ecosystem, and I can imagine it getting much richer as Owen joins the ranks.