Technology changes usually proceed at a rate far slower than expected by those of us who spend a lot of time living with them. It took the tax and accounting market years to adopt Windows and it has been slow to move to the cloud.

Whatever the body count at Microsoft's recent Inspire conference, it was clear the event did not inspire a lot of Dynamics VARs. Inspire replaced the Worldwide Partner Conference, which kicked off in booze-soaked fashion in New Orleans in 2003.

Small might not be beautiful for Microsoft in handing out reseller awards. But the Inner Circle for 2017 seemed less concentrated in the largest VAR world than we have seen in sometime. Not that mom and pops are making the list—Crestwood Associates made the cut for the first time with $13.9 million in revenue and was the smallest.