Lotus-Microsoft partnership

[raymondu999]

What I found interesting about the news is that they called it a partnership and not a sponsorship; and that all the sources I've read has said Lotus is teaming up with Microsoft Dynamics rather than strictly Microsoft. A while back when HP had their logos on Lotus (then known as Renault) some people said it wasn't actually HP paying to put their logos on the car - but actually HP supplying Lotus with hardware and software that they use.

Dynamics is Microsoft's competing product to SAP - it's a line of ERP software and one (I think it's only one) CRM solution. Does anyone know if this is the same thing as Lotus were doing with HP as aforementioned?

[ParanoiD]

I guess so.
Partnership is is usually an exchange of services or goods between two entities. In this case I guess Microsoft providing services for Lotus in exchange of : their logo put on the car/livery/etc or some other thing(could be PR/Marketing stuff).

Sponsorship is supposedly Microsoft inject money to help(sponsor) the team operational cost(or whatever cost) in exchange of their logo put on the car/livery/etc or name being used as part of the Team name or some other thing.



Just my $0.02

[banibhusan]

HP doesn't have it's own ERP solution. I feel it's something similar to what Sauber just did with NetApp. NetApp is a high end storage appliance company and Sauber signed a technical partnership in exchange of hardwares. I don't see NetApp's logo on the Sauber car.

Similarly Renault also had a technical partnership with HP, wherein HP will provide high end servers (for extensive data computation) and workstations. Along with that I guess HP also developed a software for Renault to manage their inventories and optimize their internal processes.

[jordangp]

NetApp are partners with Lotus already, the Microsoft deal is in addition to this. They can't both be doing the same thing.

EDIT: The logo is set to appear on the car also

[CHT]

Lotus is doing very well in getting sponsorship. Unilever is a big catch which will be worth a lot.

they did mentioned sponsorship partner.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/14032012/ ... amics.html

"Lotus F1 Team is extremely proud to have attracted Microsoft Dynamics as a business and sponsorship partner," said Lotus F1 CEO Patrick Louis.

I guess one way to find out if Microsoft did indeed pump in money into this is to see if Microsoft will use Lotus F1 in their own marketing campaign.

[kilcoo316]

What I found interesting about the news is that they called it a partnership and not a sponsorship

It'll be a load of marketing w*nk.


As usual; the engineers will get on with their jobs as best they can and try to minimise the harm the project managers and PR "gurus" do to any task.




Oh, and as for sponsorship:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/erp.aspx

[scuderiafan]

It's nice to see so many new American sponsors/partnerships in F1.