February 2026
Welcome to the February edition of the Marketplace Partner Digest.
This month’s roundup brings together the most important Microsoft Marketplace updates, program changes, and partner‑focused resources to help you strengthen your co‑sell motions, optimize your listings, and accelerate revenue through Microsoft Marketplace. Inside, you’ll find insights from Microsoft leaders on Marketplace’s role in driving partner profitability, key updates to specializations and Partner Center workflows, new App Advisor capabilities to streamline publishing, and a full lineup of upcoming events designed to support your Marketplace and AI go‑to‑market strategies. Whether you're planning your next offer, refining operations, or prepping your teams for FY26 execution, these updates will help you take clear, actionable steps to grow your business.
Microsoft Marketplace as a modern growth engine
A recent Marketplace blog post from Microsoft’s own Darren Sharpe explores how Microsoft Marketplace has become a core engine for business growth—enabling earlier co-sell alignment, accelerating deal velocity, and expanding partner reach through ecosystem channel-led sales motions.
Unlocking scalable growth through Microsoft Marketplace
Register for the February 18 Marketplace office hour: How to build a Microsoft Marketplace channel practice
In his blog post yesterday, Mason McCoy, Director of Partner Experiences at Microsoft, highlighted why Microsoft Marketplace has become a true profitability multiplier for partners. As organizations build AI first strategies, Marketplace is accelerating how partners scale solutions, reach customers, and shorten time to value. To better understand the overall value of Marketplace, we asked Omdia to study the partner revenue opportunity.
The Omdia study found that among partners that sell through Marketplace (compared to direct go-to-market and sales motions):
- 88% report revenue growth
- 75% close deals faster
- 69% secure larger deals
👉 Unlocking the profitability multiplier: Maximizing revenue with Microsoft Marketplace
👉 Explore the full Omdia report
App Advisor updates
Choose the right offer type when publishing your solution
App Advisor now helps partners quickly determine which Marketplace offer type best aligns with their solution, business model, and go-to-market approach. With App Advisor, partners can:
- Receive scenario-based offer type recommendations
- Save time during planning and pre-publishing
- Reduce uncertainty when aligning to the right Marketplace motion
Read how to leverage App Advisor from Microsoft's Brady Bumgarner
Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program updates
SAP on Microsoft Azure specialization
⚙️Microsoft is updating the SAP on Microsoft Azure specialization to make it more accessible while maintaining strong capability standards.
Key changes:
🔽 Lower ACR requirement: ACR threshold reduced from $30,000 → $7,500 over three months.
⚡ Streamlined skilling verification: Required Microsoft learning coursework can now be validated directly within Partner Center, eliminating the need to provide evidence during the third-party audit.
Microsoft Azure VMware Solution specialization
⚙️The skilling requirements for the Microsoft Azure VMware Solution specialization will change in January 2026. Microsoft is updating this specialization to make it easier to obtain.
Key changes:
❌Technical Assessment removed: The Azure VMware Solutions (AVS) Technical assessment requirement will be removed from the skilling requirements
❌ Broadcom Certification requirements removed: The Broadcom certification requirements will also be removed, which were previously checked as a portion of the audit
Partner Center updates
Smarter referral submissions
The first phase of enhancements to the Referrals workspace launched in January and will continue over the coming months. A couple noteworthy updates include:
⚙️ Automated completeness checks
Inbound co-sell referrals now undergo automated validation to ensure required data is included before they progress—no additional partner action needed. This update improves data quality and lays the groundwork for future capabilities such as:
- Real-time referral insights
- Quality scoring
- More intelligent routing
✅ Marketplace purchase intent now mandatory for API-submitted co-sell referrals
As of January 5, the "Marketplace Intent" field is required for all API and connector‑based submissions of IP co-sell opportunities. This field captures the customer’s intention to purchase via Microsoft Marketplace, with accepted values: Yes; No; Have not decided
This change improves data consistency, downstream reporting, and alignment with Microsoft field sellers.
Events
Ultimate Partner session with Microsoft’s Cyril Belikoff
On January 13, Ultimate Partner hosted a livestream conversation where Omdia’s Chief Analyst Jay McBain unpacked his 2026 predictions across cloud, AI, co‑sell, Marketplace, and broader ecosystem shifts, while Microsoft’s Cyril Belikoff, VP of Commercial Cloud & AI Marketing, outlined key Microsoft changes coming in 2026 and how partners can align their go‑to‑market strategies to stay ahead.
Marketplace office hours
Microsoft continues to host regular Marketplace office hours for both partners and customers. We've highlighted the most recent topics below. To register for upcoming sessions and find a list of past events available on demand visit the Marketplace training and events calendar.
💡Tip: Forward these session links to relevant team members within your organization.
Marketplace reporting in Partner Center
Streamed live on January 21, 2026, Justin Royal and David Najour Jr. kicked off the new year with a focused walkthrough of Microsoft Marketplace reporting in Partner Center. The session broke down how partners can use the Insights and Earnings workspaces, which roles and permissions unlock access, and how to interpret the most important reports—including Earnings, Customers, Orders, Usage, and Revenue—to better understand performance and identify growth opportunities across their Marketplace motions.
This session is great for alliance managers, sales operations and finance teams.
Cloud cost optimization for customers
Streamed live on January 28, 2026, this session—presented by Kristyn Maddox and Justin Royal—focused on practical strategies customers can use to optimize cloud cost and improve workload performance. The conversation walked through actionable techniques and Microsoft cost management tools built into Azure portal that help organizations take control of resources, reduce unnecessary spend, and ensure their cloud environments are operating efficiently.
This session is great for FinOps leaders and IT directors.
Upcoming events
Register for the next Partner Marketplace office hour for partners scheduled February 18, 2026
Inside Azure IP co-sell: What high-performing software developers do differently February 25, 2026 Join guest speaker Barbara Treviño, Labra, to get an inside look at signals Microsoft uses to evaluate Marketplace and Azure IP co-sell readiness.
📅 Microsoft AI Tour
February brings a series of in‑person opportunities for partners to connect with Microsoft experts through the Microsoft AI Tour.
📍February 2026 Tour Locations:
- 🇸🇦 Riyadh — February 11
- 🇧🇷 São Paulo — February 11
- 🇲🇽 Mexico City — February 12
- 🇬🇧 London — February 24
- 🇩🇪 Munich — February 25
- 🇳🇴 Oslo — February 25
- 🇪🇸 Madrid — February 26
Partner actions for February
Top 5 actions to take this month
- Align GTM and sales teams on the Omdia Microsoft Marketplace findings to sharpen FY26 Marketplace motions.
- Use App Advisor before publishing any new offers or offer updates.
- Update your co-sell submission workflows to ensure Marketplace Intent is captured.
- Re-evaluate specialization plans in light of updated SAP on Azure and AVS requirements.
- Register for relevant events—especially AI Tour stops and Marketplace office hours.
