Toronto – Microsoft’s first international retail presence in the Yorkdale mall here will also be used to further the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend in Canada.
Solution provider Navantis has already invited 40 of its customers to visit the Microsoft store and select their device of choice.
Related story: Early look inside Microsoft’s first Canadian store
Navantis CEO Randy Lenaghan told CDN that he is leveraging the store as an innovation centre specifically for BYOD challenged customers. “The strategy here is to leverage the numerous form factors on display here by Microsoft and its OEM alliance vendor partners to show people what’s possible,” Lenaghan said.
The other aspect of the BYOD strategy for Navantis is that they can offer better control for the customer along with integrating applications such as Sharepoint and Office 365.
Rob King, director of channel development and marketing at Microsoft Canada, said the subsidiary is looking to recruit up to 100 solution providers such as Navantis as small business specialist and be certified just for the store. Currently King is half way there to achieving this goal.
Take a look at this exclusive video feature on the BYOD aspect of the Microsoft store.