My friend, Nate Beran, just posted a great article about his views on IT partnerships. I recommend you go and take a look yourself if you have any interest in the seemingly endless talk about shipping more and more things away from internal IT departments to 3rd parties.
Here is the salient paragraph for me:
So what does a partnership mean to me now? It is a relationship where an MSP/vendor provides me services I need AND assumes enough of my risk to create a vested interest in my success and growth.
Very good. Very, very good.