It's a question worth asking after Sage Vice President of Channel Management Tom Miller talked about Microsoft losing touch with its partners.

So who is Doug Burgum and why does he matter? Burgum spent 18 years as the chairman and CEO of Great Plains Software, the enterprise software business that Microsoft acquired in 2000 in a $1.1 billion stock swap deal. Burgum then became a Microsoft Senior Vice President working feverishly for six years and five months to make sure the Great Plains partners were well cared for before he decided to step aside in 2007.

It is worth noting that Miller, a 28-year channel veteran, had his own Great Plains solution provider business for six years, then went to work for Burgum and Great Plains, and then on to Microsoft after the acquisition. Miller took the top channel job at Microsoft rival Sage after being recruited by former Microsoft Vice President Jodi Uecker-Rust, now president of the Sage Business Solutions division.

Great Plains gave Microsoft a crown jewel that would have been nearly impossible for the company to build from scratch, namely a midmarket enterprise software solutions channel that was the envy of competitors. That was in no small part due to Burgum and his team's obsessive focus on making sure its partners had enough margin to build a healthy and robust business so they could provide exceptional service to customers.

Burgum had a passion for the entrepreneurial skin that Great Plains partners had in the game. He thought of them as stewards of the company and treated them like customers. Yes, customers.

One reason for Burgum's passion for partners was his own experience as the steward of a family agricultural business that was founded in 1906 and whose mission statement speaks mountains about the man and the company:

To provide superior goods, services, markets, and knowledge to our customers at competitive prices. To aid and assist our customers to prosper in business.

To make a reasonable profit so we can provide: services to our customers, jobs and opportunities for our employees, and an adequate return on investments for our owners.

To be environmentally responsible. To be proactive in the communities where we do business.

That mission statement could be adopted by any solution provider. It is, in fact, the basis of any sound business. Most solution providers fail because they don't keep right at the top of their mission statement that ability to make a reasonable profit so they can provide services to their customers. Think of how many solution providers failed because they gave away their services.

When Burgum gave his official farewell to partners at the Microsoft midmarket partners show, he talked about growing up in North Dakota and his parents, grandparents and great grandparents. And how he bet the family farm on Great Plains Software -- literally. Needless to say, there were more than a few partners that had tears in their eyes. Can you imagine any partner today getting choked up about an executive's departure?

The Burgum experience is instructive in the current economic environment where more than a few companies are trying to cut their way back to health on the backs of their solution provider partners.

Miller says that Microsoft has plainly and simply lost the personal touch with partners that characterized the Doug Burgum era. That personal touch and trust, he says, are at the heart of the Sage channel philosophy, a philosophy shared by Uecker-Rust and Sage Executive Vice President of Sales Paul Johnson.

Miller, who has logged a lot of channel miles, is making a lot of changes to make sure that Sage partners can build a healthy and profitable business. No small part of that is what he calls the basic tenet that partners are customers. That sadly is not always the case in this day and age.

So do you think Microsoft has lost the Doug Burgum partner Mojo?