Certified Software Designations: FY26 Benefits Updates

Thanks for your participation in today's Marketplace Office Hours! Below is a list of the topics and questions covered during the session, with associated timestamps: 

Presentation – FY26 investment updates of software development companies – at 2:44. 

Presentation – Value of Solutions Partner with certified software – at 3:50.

Presentation – FY26 Update in Partner Incentives – at 12:08.

Presentation – FY26 Updates in Marketplace Rewards – at 19:48.

Presentation – FY26 Updates in co-sell – at 26:41.

Presentation – FY26 Updates in Go-To-Market benefits in Solutions Partner with certified software – at 30:17.

Live Q&A – started at 33:07.

Question – Can a solution be designated for multiple industries? – answered at 33:18.

Question – Are the go to market assets you outlined customizable? Should we only add our logo, or can we also update colors/styles for our brand? – answered at 34:20.

Question – What are the performance requirements for achieving a certified software designation? – answered at 35:03.

Question – Do the customer evidence cases need to be publicly published, so we submit a URL to the published article? – answered at 37:50.

Question – What are best practices for leveraging customer propensity scoring? – answered at 38:50.

Question – Are the solution certifications at partner level or solution level? As in the number of transactions/net new customer adds need to be unique for every solution we publish? – answered at 40:16.

Question – How can MPO partners access these Azure credits? – answered at 41:48.

• Go to aka.ms/CSDResources for the certified software designations resources.
• Reach out to the alias for incentive questions CSDOps@microsoft.com

Question – What’s the process for submitting claims and how long does it take? – answered at 44:14.

• If you have any questions on the process for submitting incentives, go to: aka.ms/MCIPartnerActivtiesClaimsGuide
• Reach out to azurepartneroffering@microsoft.com if you have any additional questions.

Feedback – This is great. This is definitely the “box” we belong in. One very important benefit I believe you should offer is Microsoft E5 licenses and Copilot. If this was offered, we could focus 100% on being an ISV and getting the app certification. – discussed at  45:29.

Question – Any tips on running a successful GTM campaigns from your work with certified partners to date? – answered at 47:33.