Welcome to the December Partner Release Notes from the Microsoft commercial marketplace! The marketplace is central to how we help you reach more customers, simplify sales, and unlock growth. Dive into this month’s announcements and updates to stay informed about the latest marketplace developments.
IN THIS ISSUE: New healthcare AI models and Microsoft Ignite 2024 highlights
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🚀 Noteworthy Highlights
New Healthcare AI Models Added to Azure AI Foundry Model Catalog
- The Azure AI Foundry Model Catalog now features specialized healthcare AI models from Microsoft and industry leaders. Healthcare industry partners can leverage the new industry “Health and Life Sciences” filter in the model catalog to build innovative solutions, then publish and monetize AI-enabled applications through the marketplace. Click here to learn more and start transforming healthcare today.
🌟 Partner Resources
We’ve curated best-in-class resources to help you get the most out of the Microsoft commercial marketplace! Explore these exclusive resources below:
The latest marketplace blogs, announcements from Ignite, and more
- Partner news from Microsoft Ignite 2024 – Catch up on all the Ignite news for partners in this blog.
- The ISV opportunity at Microsoft Ignite – A Microsoft Ignite recap tailored specifically for software partners.
- Unveiling the future of AI innovation for ISVs – Discover the newest AI tools and offerings empowering software companies to build AI-powered solutions.
- ISV Success: New and expanded benefits for software companies with AI projects – Learn about new AI benefits now available to software partners through ISV Success, including credits for AI development tools, and expanded benefits for ISVs with AI projects.
- Sharing the value of marketplace with your customers - Recap of the marketplace customer breakout session (BRK125) to help you share with your customers why they should purchase your solution through the marketplace.
- Partner Center Technical Corner – Get a closer look at the new Partner Center AI assistant, important security updates, and newly released Partner Center capabilities.
Marketplace Office Hours sessions
- January 16, 2025, 8:30 AM PT: Customer office hours
- This session will cover marketplace and procurement strategies to balance business while unlocking innovation, followed by a Q&A. After registering, you can submit questions in advance or live during the event. While this session is designed for customers, partners are welcome to attend. Direct customers to aka.ms/marketplacecustomerofficehours.
- January 30, 2025, 8:30 AM PT: Multiparty private offers office hours
- This office hour session will cover multiparty private offers on the marketplace.
Mastering the Marketplace (MTM) webinars
Whether you are brand new to the marketplace or focused on growing sales, our Mastering the Marketplace webinars feature a broad range of business and technical session topics to help accelerate your marketplace success. Check out these upcoming webinars, register, and mark your calendars. All times are listed in PT.
- December 19, 2024, 8:30 AM: Channel Partner Office Hours Q&A: Understanding Billing and Payouts for multiparty private offer sales
- If you have questions about multiparty private offer billing and payouts, this Q&A will discuss customer billing concepts and how to use Marketplace Insights to understand your payouts.
- January 7, 2025, 9 AM: Learn how to use the Multiparty Private Offers Campaign in a Box
- January 8, 2025, 9 AM: Creating your first offer in Partner Center
- January 9, 2025, 9 AM: ISV to CSP private offers - experience walkthrough
- This session is ideal for ISVs and CSP partners who are looking to partner and sell their solutions through the marketplace for small to mid-sized customers.
- January 13, 2025, 9 AM: Creating Plans and Pricing for your offer
- January 14, 2024, 9 AM: Unlocking sales through the marketplace
- January 15, 2025, 9 AM: Developing your SaaS offer
For the complete MTM schedule, visit aka.ms/MTMwebinars.
⏰ Recent & Upcoming Events
Microsoft Ignite 2024 recap and highlights
The marketplace continues to be a partner-focused business platform and Microsoft Ignite 2024 provided the perfect stage to showcase how we’re delivering more value to our partners and customers. During the event, we delivered breakout sessions, Hub floor experiences, executive meetings, and much more, all designed to help you unlock opportunities through the marketplace.
Our breakout sessions highlighted the latest marketplace capabilities, benefits, and tips to accelerate your growth. Here’s what we covered:
- With “How to capture the marketplace opportunity” (BRK343), we shared how the marketplace helps you reach more customers, simplify sales, and unlock growth with information about changes to Microsoft’s agency fee, how to identify MACC accounts in Partner Center, and how to sell through Microsoft sales channels.
- In “Activating the channel through the marketplace” (BRK344), we explored a variety of dealmaking scenarios and provided guidance on additional ways to monetize with features like multiparty private offers and professional services.
- With “What’s new in ISV Success – AI benefits for software companies and more” (BRK350), we unveiled new benefits and cash incentives that are now available through ISV Success, as well as how your AI applications can qualify you for accelerated rewards.
- And to help customers better understand the value of marketplace, “More than a storefront, unlocking value through the marketplace” (BRK125) explained how the marketplace makes it easier for organizations to discover, try, purchase, and manage cloud and AI solutions. Plus, a demo on building a custom copilot using a model-as-a-service and ISV solution from the marketplace.
- The Ignite general session for partners, “Driving Growth Together,” featured Microsoft leaders Judson Althoff, Nick Parker, and Nicole Dezen covering how Microsoft is investing in partner success, launching new opportunities for partners to accelerate growth, and helping customers with AI transformation.
If you missed Microsoft Ignite 2024, sessions are now available on demand on the Ignite website and YouTube. It’s not too late to catch up on these sessions and other partner-focused content to learn what’s new in the marketplace, discover the AI and marketplace opportunity, and how you can scale your business with Microsoft and partners.
We’d like to extend a “thank you” to all the marketplace ISVs and channel partners who participated and helped make this engagement a tremendous success! Whether you joined in person or virtually, we’d love to hear your feedback. If you have suggestions on how we can better support you through future events, please share your thoughts directly in the comments.
👋 Share Your Feedback!
We truly appreciate your feedback and want to ensure these Partner Release Notes deliver the information you need to succeed in the marketplace. If you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can continue to improve the content to best support you, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
Thank you!
Microsoft