Microsoft releases progammes and tech for partners

Microsoft is investing more into its partner ecosystem with new technologies and programmes.

These investments are particularly aimed at helping to further advance and develop the company's partner engagement around cloud. They include additions to Teams, Dynamics 365 and Azure as well as the company's co-sell programme.

Microsoft's One Commercial Partner group corporate vice president Gavriella Schuster says, "Customers and partners alike continue to move to the cloud and accelerate their digital transformation, leading us to new and different levels of partnership.

"Our portfolio of programmes, offers and resources for companies partnering with Microsoft is transforming to help them capitalise on this opportunity.

Additions to products and programmes

When it comes to Microsoft Teams, the company has added extensions and additional help for partners.

Launched two years ago, Teams now has 13 million daily active users and 19 million weekly active users, according to Microsoft.

To aid these users, Microsoft has added new features for every worker, including new ways to support healthcare organisations and firstline workers.

Furthermore, additional new partner integrations include support for contact centers, compliance recording and cloud solution providers, Microsoft states.

For Dynamics 365, Microsoft has added updates to the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator and two new integrations for the product that address the automotive and financial services industries.

In addition, the Business Applications ISV Connect program is generally available, with new development tools and guidance, marketplace resources, joint field engagement processes and go-to-market support.

A new service, Microsoft has released Azure Lighthouse, which gives partners a single control plane to view and manage Azure at scale across all their customers.

According to the company, this provides a better managed Azure experience with higher automation and efficiency, resulting in greater visibility and security for customers. This marks the first time Microsoft has architected a solution at this scale, with partners and for partners, the company says.

Also for the Azure product offering, the new Azure Migration Program (AMP) helps customers speed up their migration to Azure, Microsoft says.

AMP offers proactive advice and tools to help mitigate risks and address common issues associated with moving workloads to the cloud, says the company.

Developing the partner ecosystem

Microsoft has also made investments into its co-sell programme that launched two years ago.

This includes making Microsoft Security competency generally available, adding five advanced specialisations and making new advancements in marketplace.

The new competency allows partners to market their expertise and provides access to benefits designed to enable business growth and profitability, according to the company.

The specialisations include Windows Server and SQL Server Migration to Microsoft Azure, Linux and Open source Databases Migration to Microsoft Azure, Data Warehouse Migration to Microsoft Azure, Modernisation of Web Applications in Microsoft Azure, and Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure.

As for the advancements in marketplace, this includes additional pricing models, a rewards programme and a new route to market are rolling out in July for companies that publish transactable offers in Microsoft's expanded commercial marketplace, Microsoft says.

The pricing models include monthly and annual SaaS billing, flexible, custom-metered billing options, standard contracts, and free SaaS trials that convert to paid engagements.

Microsoft's co-sell program has $9.5 billion in annual contracted partner revenue since its launch, according to the company.