Hmmm… Very interesting and very much like the MSFT Solution Provider/Partner program but not run by MSFT (another hmmmm..).  I think a way to make this really successful will be to engage the local (geographic) Microsoft offices and have them hand pick local solution provider integrators and then build them up as consumer solution providers.  Have the local Solution Partners Do what Cisco did with Linksys.  Transition from Corp to Consumer.  As for the Alliance, they should pick (create) a few clean slate start up’s and fund them and nurture them through an incubation period, giving them a very specific goal re demographics and market share (sell a very specific, repeatable solution, which sounds like their plan anyway _. 

The timing is great as the A/V shops are dropping like flies (Sound Advice just went down in West Palm and more are really struggling) and people are not 100% sold on services via Best Buy.  The local A/V tools are clueless about the digital synthesis (PC centric Entertainment/Automation/Surveillance and Productivity all in one ecosystem)so they cannot deliver or enve envision the change in the market place.  As such, MSFT should encourage local SMS&P;‘s to diversify and step into this vacuum and this will actually generate more interest in MCIA.  Getting MSFT SMS&P;’s to step into the consumer/commercial automation market (just like how Cisco stepped into the home market, oh, btw, it is just moments away before they step all over the home automation arena…) is just as inevitable as getting them to transitioning into the dynamics (ERP/CRM) space (not sure how to make that analogy for A/V people but the PC people will know what that means). 

Finally, once everyone is on board you can then hook them into the massive MSFT marketing/lead generation machine, thus streamlining the whole process (imagine everyone working off the same “page” or portal to sell the latest offering for a Home Digital Ecosystem, kinda like how Microsoft partners now operate off their Partner Sales portal.  Here we would have a classic pincher movement where we are promoting on two fronts, the alliance from a pure play, startup perspective and local MSFT practices that are promoting consumer/commercial services for Digital Entertainment and Automation while at the same time promoting Windows Home Server and the synthesis of productivity computing and entertainment computing…

At the end of the day the PC people will be in the best position to make this alliance succeed. What they need to do is suck in as many PC centric partners/services providers by geography (starting in major cities in each time zone), get them to sell the tight coupling of Productivity computing with Entertainment/Automation (Lifeware has done this until blue in the face in the Cedia Market and people STILL DO NOT GET IT), but most importantly start focusing on service offerings that put emphasis on digital artifacts, content, content fetch and organization, for the 3 major content categories (the “3 C’s” lol… that’s a pun on someone’s marketing effort…) 1. Entertainment Content, 2. Productivity Content and 3. Surveillance Content.  MCIA has to get more functional and stop trying to convert - Nurture start up’s and partner with existing MSFT SMS&P;companies.  Otherwise, It is like the opening scene from “2001 Space Odyssey”... There was one monkey with a bone (the tool) and another that took it on the head “the A/V guy”.  The monkey’s with the bone’s are now the ones managing all the content (the “3 C’s”) here in the 2100 century cuz they GOT the tool and used it well   the other monkeys, well they are just gone…