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bennybarbieri's avatar
bennybarbieri
Copper Contributor
Jan 06, 2025

There are no benefits to being a MS Partner

The absolute absurdity of being a Microsoft Partner is beyond insanity.   Some of us have built businesses around the Microsoft Ecosystem (STUPIDLY I MUST ADD).   And for what?   For Microsoft to block us from our accounts and give zero explanation of the issue?   As I am sure others have seen since there are posts everywhere of other people having the same issues, its mind blowing that Microsoft does nothing to assist its partners who are the ones generating them the revenue.   Supporting their crappy products over and over and over again being the ones on the front lines getting beat up by their customers because of constant outages, constant issues. 

Back in September my account was blocked.   Not one bit of an explanation.   Not one email telling me why.  The only thing I got was a notice saying my visual studio enterprise license was removed.    Upon checking I couldn't find anything.  

I open a support ticket.  And so far, the only thing I have been told is my account has been blocked.   Yet not one person can apparently tell me why?   Not one person can tell me what I need to do to fix it?   Not one person can even get on the phone to assist on this.  

Before I lost numerous customers because of this.  I was selling 30k a month in licenses.  And now because my account was blocked, I have lost access to a crap ton of my development, I have lost access to any and all of the benefits.   I have lost access to basically everything even though when you look at my partner center account.  Every single thing still shows active / approved.   Etc.  

 

My suggestion, if you are considering becoming a Microsoft Partner.   DONT.   SIMPLE AS THAT.

The fact they can block you from doing business, block access to products and services you have paid for.  And give you zero ability to fix it so you lose numerous customers and don't even tell you what happened or what needs to be done to rectify the issue.   Partnering with Microsoft is the single biggest mistake I have made as a business owner.  The second biggest would be that I built my development side of the business fully integrated into the MS ecosystem. Which made it so they cost me countless amounts of money and ability to even do business with my customers.   

1 Reply

  • HDB3's avatar
    HDB3
    Copper Contributor

    I agree with your post, why bother? I am barely still a Partner, when they changed the complexion of the Partner Action Pack subscription to one of several options costing from $397 to well over $8k, it was a slap in the face to long time supporters and subscribers. It appears that the days of providing products to the small IT support business is gone! More money, less meaningful products and no service support. They are driving the partners to their cloud products to sell and get no support on questions regarding on prem support unless you purchased their top tier of products. I listened to the YouTube Microsoft roll out of the new Partner program and it was someone's fantasy idea of what they tell us we need!

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