Discover why to build AI apps and agents with Microsoft and sell through Marketplace
Customer demand for AI is accelerating fast. And your company's AI app or agent should be there to meet it. In this fiscal year, Microsoft has already seen 2x growth in customers purchasing AI products through Microsoft Marketplace, while also being the largest catalog of AI apps and agents in the industry. Building AI apps and agents isn’t just about model performance or speed to market. It’s about meeting your customers’ needs when they have them. For software companies, success depends on whether your AI solution is secure, compliant, responsibly designed, and ready to scale in real-world work environments. That’s why App Advisor starts by showing the many reasons why building with Microsoft is the right foundation for AI apps and agents. Why building AI apps and agents with Microsoft is different Microsoft, named an AI Leader by Gartner, brings together AI innovation, Responsible AI, and enterprise-grade security into a single, integrated platform. This matters when you’re quickly building AI-powered experiences and agents that your customers can trust. When you build with Microsoft, you’re building on an AI-native platform designed for production use: Industry-leading AI and agentic capabilities supporting Gen AI, RAG, ML, predictive analytics, and multi-modal agent workflows, Integrated developer tools to help teams ship faster that you already use and trust (like GitHub Copilot, Visual Studio, and Microsoft Foundry), Seamless integration across the Microsoft stack to make it easier to connect data, services, and user experiences without stitching different systems together. This foundation helps you focus on what you’re building. Microsoft handles the complexity behind the scenes. Build confidently from day one, stay up to date with AI best practices Building with AI doesn't have to be risky. Data access, model behavior, governance, and compliance all matter more when AI and agents are embedded directly into customer workflows. Microsoft approaches this with end-to-end security and Responsible AI practices that are integrated throughout the development lifecycle. That's why App Advisor and Microsoft keep you up with the speed of designing with AI: Principles to design your own AI Center of Excellence, Sessions focused on the future of AI and agents in the AI Tour, Resources and webinars, like the AI envisioning sessions, to keep you current. This is especially critical for software companies selling into regulated or security-conscious industries. Security isn't an afterthought. You’re building on a platform where they’re already part of the system. How App Advisor can help answer questions about building AI apps and agents The first step in App Advisor is intentionally focused on clarity. Instead of jumping straight into tooling or publishing requirements, it helps you evaluate: Why Microsoft is the right platform for AI apps and agents, How building with Microsoft assists in development, scaling, and customer trust, What kinds of opportunities exist in the Microsoft Marketplace and how to maximize on them. However, App Advisor doesn’t stop at discovery or development. The same experience that helps you build AI apps and agents also supports growth through the Microsoft Marketplace—giving you access to global customers, streamlined procurement, and enterprise-ready distribution. From first line of code to go-to-market readiness, the platform is designed to support sustainable, scalable growth with confidence. Ready to build your AI app or agent? When you start with the right foundation, everything that follows moves faster—and with less risk. Start with the fundamentals: realize the potential of building with Microsoft with curated guidance in App Advisor We look forward to seeing your AI app or agent on Microsoft Marketplace!Migrating your AWS offer to Microsoft Marketplace - AWS to Azure service comparisons
As an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), expanding your Marketplace offer's reach beyond AWS Marketplace by replicating to Microsoft Marketplace offers exciting opportunities to grow your customer base. With millions of customers across a global network of businesses and industries, Azure presents a thriving platform to enhance your app’s visibility and functionality. This post is part of a series on replicating apps from AWS to Azure. View all posts in this series. Boost your growth and access more customers by replicating your AWS app to Azure and selling through Microsoft Marketplace. This guide will compare commonly used AWS and Azure components, highlighting differences, to help you replicate your app quickly and easily to prepare it for publishing on Microsoft Marketplace. Future posts will dive deeper into each component area. To ensure a seamless app replication, start by reviewing the marketplace listing requirements. Understanding the key differences between AWS and Azure will help you transition and optimize performance on Azure while benefiting from its unique advantages. This guide will outline these differences, highlight similar services, and offer steps for a seamless replication or migration. You can also join ISV Success to get access to over $126K USD in cloud credits, AI services, developer tools, and 1:1 technical consults to help you replicate your app and publish to Marketplace. The benefits of replicating or migrating to Microsoft Marketplace Migrating to Marketplace unlocks a wealth of opportunities for ISVs. The Azure ecosystem offers several advantages, including: Global reach: Azure’s vast global network of data centers ensures high availability and low-latency access to your application for customers worldwide. Cost efficiency: Azure’s flexible pricing models and cost management tools allow ISVs to optimize their cloud spending. Scalability: With Azure’s powerful compute and storage options, you can scale your application effortlessly to accommodate growing demand. Security and compliance: Azure’s comprehensive security tools and certifications help you meet industry-specific compliance standards, ensuring that your application is secure and trusted. Meet where your customers are: Deploy into customer subscriptions, making your solution more integrated to customer workload. AWS vs. Azure AWS and Azure are the top cloud platforms with diverse services for developers and businesses. Below, we will highlight key areas where AWS and Azure differ—and how to leverage Azure services—when moving your Marketplace offer from AWS to Microsoft Marketplace. Microsoft Marketplace capabilities In Azure, ISVs can leverage metered billing to charge customers based on actual usage, similar to AWS's pay-as-you-go model. This flexible pricing model is ideal for SaaS solutions. Partner Center offers tools for setting pricing models, tracking usage, and adjusting billing. It also provides anomaly detection to help partners identify unexpected usage and ensure transparent billing. When creating SaaS offers in Marketplace, ISVs can define plans with various pricing strategies, such as usage-based or flat-rate billing. These plans, or SKUs, can be customized through free trials, BYOL (Bring Your Own License), or vCPU-based pricing for virtual machines. Both Azure and AWS allow flexible, metered billing based on usage. Azure also provides the ability to set customer discounts or negotiated pricing. Using Partner Center, you can configure and manage these offerings, providing flexibility for customers and partners to scale as needed. Like AWS Control Tower, Azure Lighthouse enables service providers to manage multiple customer Azure environments securely and at scale, offering enhanced visibility, control, and automation. For usage-based monthly billing, you can choose from predefined or custom pricing options (using metered billing APIs). Predefined options like per core, per node, or per pod let Microsoft bill customers based on hourly usage, billing them monthly. Learn more about usage-based pricing here: Setting Plan Pricing. Mapping AWS services to Azure services Your Marketplace offer may use multiple AWS services, and you can build the same offer using Azure services. However, this requires careful mapping to ensure your application functions seamlessly in the Azure environment. Here’s a quick overview of how popular AWS services map to Azure:: Networking: AWS VPC → Azure Virtual Networks (VNets) Compute Services: AWS EC2 → Azure Virtual Machines (VMs), Azure App Services (for web apps) Storage: Amazon S3 → Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage (for big data) Identity Management: AWS IAM → Entra ID Containers: EKS and Elastic Beanstalk → AKS and Azure App Services Serverless: AWS Lambda → Azure Functions Databases: Amazon RDS → Azure SQL Database, Azure Cosmos DB (for NoSQL) Azure for AWS professionals provides you with a more comprehensive mapping of different services. Let's take a deeper look into each of these areas. Cloud architecture and networking One of the primary differences between AWS and Azure lies in their cloud architecture and networking models. AWS uses Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) to create isolated networks, while Azure employs Virtual Networks (VNets). Both services perform similar functions, but they have different terminologies and setups. For instance, in Azure, you'll be working with VNet Peering, Network Security Groups (NSGs), and Azure VPNs for secure networking. The goal is to map your AWS VPC setup to Azure VNets with ease. AWS needs a Nat Gateway for egress access whereas Azure does not need a Nat Gateway for default egress. AWS Subnets are pinned to Availability Zones (AZs) whereas Azure Subnets span across the AZs. Compute services: EC2 vs. Virtual Machines (VMs) AWS EC2 instances are one of the most widely used compute services, allowing you to run applications on virtual servers. In Azure, the equivalent service is Azure Virtual Machines (VMs). While both offer scalable compute resources, the key differences are in the range of VM sizes, configurations, and the management interface. When migrating from AWS EC2 to Azure VMs, it's important to assess the appropriate Azure VM sizes and configurations that match the performance of your EC2 instances. Additionally, Azure VMs support Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, which provide more automation for resource management. For those who have utilized EC2's Auto Scaling feature, Azure provides similar functionality through Azure Scale Sets. Storage: S3 vs. Blob Storage For object storage, AWS uses Amazon S3, while Azure uses Azure Blob Storage. Both services serve the same purpose — storing large amounts of unstructured data — but the underlying configurations, security features, and cost structures differ. While migrating from S3 to Blob Storage, it’s important to review your storage needs and adjust your application accordingly. Azure Blob Storage offers Cool and Archive tiers, which can be a great way to optimize storage costs for infrequently accessed data, and Azure's data redundancy options ensure high availability and durability. The Azure Storage Explorer tool also makes it easier for ISVs to manage their data after migration. Identity and Access Management (IAM) & billing: IAM vs. Entra ID IAM services on AWS and Azure differ in how they manage roles and permissions. AWS uses IAM for users, roles, and policies, while Azure uses Entra ID for IAM across cloud services. AWS organizes accounts through AWS Organizations, with IAM used for role-based access control (RBAC) and policies for service access. Azure’s structure involves Subscriptions and Management Groups, with Entra ID managing identity and access. Azure uses RBAC to assign roles at various levels (Subscription, Resource Group, Resource) and Azure Policies for governance and compliance. Azure Entra ID integrates with Microsoft services, like Office 365, SharePoint, and Teams, supporting identity federation, multi-factor authentication, and RBAC for granular permissions. It enhances governance and security across platforms. Azure handles billing management via subscriptions providing access to resources and can be reassigned to new owners. It offers three classic subscription administrator roles for resource access and management for billing and resource access. Container management: Elastic Beanstalk vs. Azure App Services and EKS vs. AKS For containerized applications, AWS offers Elastic Beanstalk for easy application deployment and management. Azure’s equivalent services include Azure App Services for simple web application hosting and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for container orchestration. While Azure App Services is more suitable for traditional web applications, AKS provides a robust and scalable solution for microservices and containerized applications, similar to AWS’s Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). ISVs who are accustomed to Elastic Beanstalk for deploying containerized applications will find Azure App Services or AKS a seamless alternative, with Azure offering rich integrations with DevOps pipelines, CI/CD workflows, and container registries. Serverless: AWS Lambda vs. Azure Functions Both AWS and Azure support serverless computing, which allows developers to run code without managing servers. AWS offers Lambda, while Azure offers Azure Functions. Both services allow you to trigger code in response to events, such as file uploads or API calls. The key difference is that Azure Functions integrates deeply with other Azure services, such as Azure Logic Apps and Azure Event Grid. If your application leverages AWS Lambda, you will find that Azure Functions can serve as an excellent equivalent. Azure also provides Durable Functions, which extend Azure Functions for stateful workflows. Migrating from AWS Lambda to Azure Functions typically requires mapping your event-driven functions and configuring their triggers in the Azure ecosystem. Databases: RDS vs. Azure SQL and Cosmos DB When it comes to databases, AWS offers Amazon RDS for relational databases, and Amazon DynamoDB for NoSQL. Azure provides several alternatives, including Azure SQL Database for relational storage and Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL storage. Both platforms support database scalability, automated backups, and high availability. If you are using Amazon RDS with services like MySQL or PostgreSQL, you can migrate to Azure Database for MySQL or Azure Database for PostgreSQL. Similarly, if you are using AWS DynamoDB, Azure’s Cosmos DB offers a global, scalable NoSQL database with low-latency access. Messaging: AWS SQS vs. Azure Service Bus Messaging services are crucial when your application handles high-throughput, asynchronous communication between different components. AWS offers Simple Queue Service (SQS) for messaging and SNS for pub/sub notifications while Azure offers Azure Service Bus and Azure Event Grid. Azure Service Bus provides similar functionality to SQS but offers additional capabilities like advanced message routing, dead-lettering, and sessions for handling ordered messages. If your application relies on a queuing mechanism for inter-service communication, you’ll want to map AWS SQS to Azure Service Bus. For event-driven architectures, Azure Event Grid can connect different services and trigger actions across Azure services. Security: Protecting your application on Azure When migrating from AWS to Azure, security is paramount. Both platforms offer strong frameworks to protect data, apps, and infrastructure. Azure provides a suite of integrated security services to maintain high security while enabling cloud scalability. AWS offers AWS Shield and WAF for DDoS and web application firewalls, while Azure offers Azure DDoS Protection and Azure Firewall for similar threat prevention. Azure Security Center monitors your security posture, and Azure Sentinel provides cloud-native SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) for threat detection and response. Microsoft Defender for Identity and Azure Entra ID Identity Protection integrate with Entra ID, ensuring your app security is tightly linked to user identity and governance. Compliance: Meeting regulatory standards on Azure Ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations is crucial for many ISVs. Azure provides a robust compliance framework that aligns with global standards to meet the most stringent requirements. Whether your application deals with sensitive data or operates in highly regulated industries, Azure’s comprehensive compliance offerings can help you achieve the necessary certifications. Azure complies with key standards such as: GDPR HIPAA SOC 1, 2, and 3 ISO 27001 and other ISO standards FedRAMP Azure provides tools like Azure Policy for governance and Azure Blueprints for complex regulatory requirements. It offers a similar set of compliance certifications to AWS, with a stronger integration into Microsoft enterprise tools, easing compliance for businesses in regulated sectors. For apps handling sensitive data, use Azure Security and Compliance Blueprint to ensure regulatory adherence. Azure’s Compliance Manager helps track and manage compliance, simplifying the process of meeting industry standards. Key resources SaaS Workloads - Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework | Microsoft Learn Metered billing for SaaS offers in Partner Center Create plans for a SaaS offer in Azure Marketplace Metered billing with Azure Managed Applications Set plan pricing and availability for an Azure Container offer in Microsoft commercial marketplace - Marketplace publisher Configure pricing and availability for a virtual machine offer in Partner Center - Marketplace publisher Overview - CSP marketplace - Partner Center Azure for AWS professionals - Azure Architecture Center Azure networking documentation Microsoft Entra ID documentation - Microsoft Entra ID Azure security documentation Azure compliance documentation Azure Storage Documentation Hub Microsoft Azure container services documentation Azure serverless - Azure Logic Apps Migration examples Get over $126K USD in benefits and technical consultations to help you replicate and publish your app with ISV Success Maximize your momentum with step-by-step guidance to publish and grow your app with App AdvisorReplicating your AWS application to Azure: key resources for software development companies
Azure offers a broad global footprint, strong security and compliance foundations, flexible cost options, and the ability to deploy your solution directly into a customer’s subscription for tighter integration with their environment. While Microsoft Marketplace expands your reach instantly by connecting your solution to millions of customers across Microsoft’s global ecosystem. It also provides deeper integration with Azure services and a unified experience that makes it easier for organizations to discover, purchase, and deploy your app. You can scale with channel-led sales by extending your reach through an ecosystem of 500K+ partners through a variety of sales models. With ISV Success, you can also accelerate replication with cloud credits, AI services, and hands on technical guidance. Understanding how AWS and Azure services align — across networking, storage, identity, regions, and marketplace requirements — helps ensure a smooth replication process. This post highlights key resources that compare AWS and Azure components, outline migration considerations, and guide you through preparing an Azure‑ready version of your application. Essential guides for AWS‑to‑Azure replication To get started, here is a curated set of resources that cover architecture differences, identity, security, networking, regions, and marketplace publishing — all designed to help you build an Azure‑ready version of your existing AWS application. App replication foundations Advantages of replicating your app from AWS to Azure Guide to replicating your app from AWS to Azure Quick‑start toolkit for AWS‑to‑Azure replication Architecture & service mapping AWS to Azure service comparisons Storage migration paths AWS‑to‑Azure network design Region selection for AWS developers Identity & Security Identity and Access Management AWS‑to‑Azure security model comparison Marketplace Enablement Publishing and selling through Marketplace Step-by-step curated guidance through App Advisor These resources provide a complete starting point for understanding how to replicate your AWS‑based application to Azure, from comparing services and configuring infrastructure to preparing your Marketplace listing and extending your multi-cloud reach. Want more? Start coding in minutes with code templates, solution architecture, and how-to articles to start coding in minutes? Visit the AWS to Azure replication code library in the Quick-Start Development Toolkit.
Microsoft Ignite 2025 AI announcements: What software developers need to know
Igniting what’s next: What software development companies need to know about Microsoft’s AI announcements at Ignite 2025 The AI landscape took a major leap forward at Microsoft Ignite 2025, and for software development companies and digital natives, the announcements represent a massive opportunity: faster innovation, simplified agent development, access to enterprise‑ready AI platforms, and a dramatically expanded ecosystem to build on. This year, Microsoft introduced the era of agentic AI—and software companies are at the center of this shift. Ignite 2025 formally unveiled Microsoft Foundry, our unified platform for building, governing, and scaling intelligent agents. From new agent runtimes to multi‑agent orchestration, enterprise‑grade knowledge access, and one‑click publishing to Microsoft 365, the momentum creates one clear signal: 💡 AI assistants are becoming intelligent agents—and Foundry is the platform software companies will use to build them. Why Microsoft Ignite 2025 mattered for software companies Across every session, Microsoft doubled down on helping partners accelerate time‑to‑market with agentic AI solutions. Whether you’re building vertical apps, automation copilots, knowledge systems, or developer tools, the new capabilities in Foundry eliminate much of the heavy lifting associated with retrieval, orchestration, compliance, hosting, and model selection. Key themes this year from Azure AI: Unified agent platform across all Microsoft clouds Framework‑agnostic development (bring your own models, tools, or frameworks) Enterprise‑grade governance built into the lifecycle Open ecosystem and interoperability using MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Seamless distribution through Microsoft 365 and Teams Let’s break down what’s new—and what it means for your product strategy. Top announcements for software companies at Ignite 2025 Microsoft Foundry: A unified brand for AI agent development Azure AI Foundry is now Microsoft Foundry—a consolidated platform for building, deploying, and managing intelligent agents. For software companies, this means: One consistent developer experience Shared governance and compliance across products A more integrated ecosystem for publishing and distributing agentic solutions This rebrand isn’t cosmetic—it reflects Microsoft’s strategic shift to deliver a platform built explicitly for the next generation of AI agents. Introducing Foundry IQ: Your enterprise knowledge engine One of the most exciting announcements is Foundry IQ, a new engine that gives agents instant access to enterprise data from SharePoint, OneLake, ADLS, and the web, all governed by Purview. For software companies, this unlocks: Reliable, production‑grade knowledge retrieval without building RAG pipelines Consistent compliance and security models Faster customer onboarding with fewer integration gaps Foundry IQ is a game‑changer for teams who have spent months building retrieval layers or maintaining custom RAG components. Foundry Control Plane: Unified governance for all agents Now in public preview, the Foundry Control Plane enables teams to manage agents across frameworks, clouds, and environments. Highlights: Unified visibility and observability Built‑in security & compliance (Defender, Purview) Fleet‑wide monitoring for cost, health, and risk For software companies offering multi‑tenant solutions or operating in regulated industries, this dramatically simplifies the operational burden of managing AI agents. Agent Framework (public preview): SK + AutoGen, Unified The Microsoft Agent Framework, now in public preview, merges the strengths of Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into a single SDK for building durable, interoperable agents. Software companies gain: A consistent programming model Durable memory Strong interoperability with MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Framework‑agnostic design This is the developer foundation for future AI applications built on Microsoft clouds. Hosted Agents: Enterprise‑grade runtime, no infrastructure needed With Hosted Agents, teams can deploy custom‑code agents directly into a fully managed runtime—no containers, pipelines, or infra setup. What this enables for software companies: Faster deployment cycles Secure, autoscaling environments Simple onboarding for customer‑specific agents Observability and monitoring built in This drastically reduces the operational overhead many software companies face today. Multi‑agent workflows & connected intelligence Ignite 2025 introduced major advancements in multi‑agent orchestration: Built‑in memory across sessions A catalog of 1,000+ Microsoft & partner tools (with private catalogs for software companies) Visual and programmatic orchestration tools Enterprise‑ready coordination for long‑running workflows Foundry IQ for instant knowledge access This allows software companies to design more autonomous, intelligent, and interconnected systems—moving beyond assistants toward true digital workers. Model Router GA + Anthropic partnership expansion There are two major updates for model flexibility: Model Router GA Now supporting 11,000+ models, the router helps developers intelligently choose the best model for each task, optimizing both cost and performance. Anthropic Claude models in Foundry Claude Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5 are now integrated into Microsoft Foundry through an expanded partnership with Anthropic. This gives software companies more choice, capability, and model‑agnostic development paths. One‑click publishing to Microsoft 365 & Teams One of the biggest wins for software companies: Agents built in Foundry can now be published to Microsoft 365 and Teams Chat with one click. This means: Access to hundreds of millions of users Unified governance through Microsoft Admin Center Seamless integration with Copilot experiences For software companies, this is a massive new distribution channel. Why this matters for software development companies Ignite 2025 didn’t just introduce new products—it signaled a platform shift. software companies now have: A full-stack platform for agentic applications - From data access to orchestration, hosting, deployment, and compliance. A unified runtime and SDK - Reducing fragmentation and speeding up development cycles. Enterprise reach through Microsoft 365 - Making your agents as discoverable as apps. A rapidly expanding ecosystem - More models, more tools, more integration points. If you’re building AI-powered products, this is your moment. Get hands-on: Sessions & resources for software companies Here are links to top Ignite sessions to dive deeper. Build & Manage AI Apps with Your Agent Factory AI Agents in Azure AI Foundry: Ship Fast, Scale Fearlessly AI‑Powered Automation & Multi‑Agent Orchestration Agent Developer Guide for Foundry Agent Service The Future of RAG with Agentic Retrieval & AI Search What’s next: December Foundry Council Session Join us on Dec 18 for the Ignite Recap session through the Foundry Partner Council. It’s the best opportunity for software companies to: Get deeper into the new capabilities Share partner/DN feedback Join focus groups For more information about the December 18 session, contact foundrycouncil@microsoft.com or visit aka.ms/foundrycouncilAccelerate your sales growth with resale enabled offers (REO) through guidance in App Advisor
Why start with App Advisor? If you’re looking to expand your sales reach quickly and efficiently, App Advisor helps clarify your options. It provides tailored guidance to help you understand resale enabled offers (REO) and determine whether this pathway to near global scale is right for your marketplace strategy. Microsoft Marketplace offers several ways to grow through partners, and choosing the right one can feel complex. App Advisor simplifies the decision, giving you clear, scenario‑based guidance on REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), multi‑party offers (MPO), and customer private offers, so you can confidently pick the model that aligns with your goals. Grow globally with resale enabled offers Resale enabled offers (REO) open the channel-led marketplace opportunity for near-global scale. Many software companies like you rely on channel partnerships for the sales and implementation of their solution. With this feature, you can enable your channel partner(s) to sell on your behalf, creating a simplified pathway for recurring revenue and growth. For the channel, this helps unlock pre-committed cloud budget in new markets while also helping cut down implementation times as solutions are pre-configured to deploy on Azure. If you’ve been looking for a clearer, faster path to a channel-led sales motion, REO provides the structure and automation to help you grow. ough channels only continues to grow. Why resale enabled offers matter REO changes the way you can sell. It gives you a repeatable resale model inside Microsoft Marketplace to help you break through to new markets without adding overhead while channel partners maintain their customer relationships while getting the added value of Marketplace. The result is a simplified path to recurring revenue: one that aligns offer owners, channel partners, and customers around a more efficient transaction flow. The benefits of REO Resale enabled offers can help grow your bottom line with ease: Authorization to resell is nearly instantaneous, Your reach grows to match your reseller’s markets, Channel partners take on more of the sales execution, You only enable resale once. No repeated setup or engineering work required, Both you and your channel partner earn full Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS) credit, enabling you to maximize Marketplace Rewards benefits. These advantages make REO a strategic lever for you to move toward a broader channel-led distribution model while helping you stay agile, expanding your reach, and avoiding adding extra overhead. How resale enabled offers work You can offer a REO on any SaaS or Azure Virtual Machine (VM) offer. The REO experience is designed to be simple, structured, and predictable for both the offer owner and the reseller. You, as the offer owner, come to an agreement with a channel partner to sell your offer. You authorize this sale in Partner Center (once) and then your channel partner is empowered to sell your offer, either as a customer private offer or as a multi-party offer (MPO). With this additional way to sell, you’ll be able to scale without worrying about hiring more salespeople. Other ways to sell at scale With many great ways to sell through negotiated deals or channel partners within Microsoft Marketplace, it can sometimes be challenging to choose. If you’re not sure which options are right for your marketplace offers, App Advisor can help you choose. To discover the benefits of REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), MPO, and customer private offers, and when to use which, see how to grow with negotiated deals and channel partners here. Ready to unlock channel-led scale? Resale enabled offers can create a faster, more predictable path for software companies that want to expand with ease through channel partners. With simplified resale authorization, broader reach, and shared sales credit, REO makes it easier to activate partners and grow your marketplace presence. Ready to explore your path to channel-led scale? Visit App Advisor to get started.Becoming a Frontier Firm: Accelerate custom app development with Quick-Start Development Toolkit
The theme of Ignite was undeniable: Frontier firms are transforming business with investments and projects developing AI apps and agents. And these aren’t just businesses using AI - they’re companies developing and monetizing AI apps and agents. The numbers are clear - here are a few compelling stats from a global study commissioned by Microsoft with the International Data Corporation (IDC) about Frontier firms: 67% are monetizing industry-specific AI use cases to boost revenue 58% use custom AI, and in the next two years, that will increase to 77% Those building agentic solutions will grow 3x in the next two years ROI is 3x higher for Frontier firms than slower adopters It’s no longer a question. Companies who get ahead, make and sell AI apps and agentic solutions. But it can be difficult to develop at the speed of AI. To answer the challenge of streamlining and shortening the development cycle, we’ve improved the Quick-Start Development Toolkit to help your team start coding in minutes. Getting simple guidance for custom application development To help your team go from idea to coding in minutes, we've introduced the Quick-Start Development Toolkit. Teams were spending too much time with false starts or hunting for AI app or agent code templates. With expert developer guidance, we created the Quick-Start Development patterns - a package that includes a sample solution reference diagram, custom code templates for your dev team to download and customize, and high-value resources to address common development challenges. We’ve also made it easier to find the right development pattern for your needs. Answer a few questions to see how to develop an AI app We’ve built an interactive wizard that makes it easy for software companies to go from thinking about AI or agentic solutions to solve a problem directly to creating custom code. The process is easy: Go to Quick-Start Development Toolkit Click on “Find the right pattern for your needs” Answer a few simple questions about your priority scenario, environment, and tools Land on a development pattern designed to help your team start coding in minutes With development patterns ranging from flexible AI app or agent development with Microsoft Foundry to multi-agent custom automation to integrating your data with Microsoft Fabric Unified Data Foundation, you’ll find a development pattern to get started on your next AI app or agent. Not the right fit? Keep looking at focused patterns, all created in partnership with Microsoft experts. If your project has a different focus, like migrating or replicating an AWS app to Azure or integrating Microsoft Security to an app, the Quick-Start Development Toolkit has development templates for these, too. Take the confusion out of how to make an app and then publish and monetize it After you're done developing, realize full ROI on your app or agent and help other companies advance their Frontier level by publishing and selling it on Microsoft Marketplace. Within each development pattern, you can get curated guidance from App Advisor to package, publish, and sell your app. Ready to get started with your next AI app project? Visit the Quick-Start Development Toolkit today!SharePoint Embedded guide for software companies: success factors, positioning & key insights
Welcome to the definitive Q&A guide for software development companies exploring SharePoint Embedded for their SaaS applications. This blog series addresses the most frequently asked questions from our thriving software company community, drawing from real-world implementations across partner organizations spanning financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and technology sectors. Whether you're building a multi-tenant document management platform, modernizing legacy systems, or creating industry-specific collaboration solutions, this guide provides practical insights into SharePoint Embedded's unique advantages for software company scenarios. From multi-tenant architecture patterns and customer data isolation to Office integration strategies and competitive positioning, we've compiled the essential knowledge you need to accelerate your development and go-to-market success. SharePoint Embedded represents a paradigm shift for software companies who have traditionally faced the choice between building complex storage infrastructure or compromising on enterprise-grade features. With its consumption-based pricing model, API-first design, and native Office integration, SharePoint Embedded enables software companies to deliver enterprise-ready document experiences while focusing on their core business logic and customer value. Q: What are the key success factors I should focus on as a software company using SharePoint Embedded? A: Based on our analysis of successful software company implementations, there are three critical success factors: Building a scalable document management platform is complicated and detracts from the business logic you want to focus on with your solution. Users are demanding modern collaboration tools that Microsoft Office provides at scale. SharePoint Embedded gives you the foundational tools and features that integrate with your solutions, providing you a competitive advantage. Software development companies can unlock significant value by building on SharePoint Embedded. Its distributed architecture empowers software companies to deliver scalable, multi-tenant solutions, ensuring each customer’s data is securely isolated within dedicated containers. By leveraging SharePoint Embedded, software companies can guarantee that compliance and data residency requirements are met directly in the customer’s own Microsoft 365 tenant, streamlining regulatory approvals and building customer trust. The platform’s flexible, consumption-based billing model aligns costs with actual usage, supporting growth and simplifying budgeting for both software companies and their customers. At the same time, software companies retain full control over their application code base, allowing them to innovate and differentiate their offerings, while Microsoft manages the underlying infrastructure, security, and compliance features. Q: How do I position SharePoint Embedded against competitors in sales situations? A: SharePoint Embedded offers unique competitive advantages across different competitor categories: Against Pure Storage Solutions: Native Office Integration: Unmatched co-authoring and collaboration experiences Enterprise Security: Built-in compliance and governance vs. costly add-on features Microsoft Ecosystem: Leverage customers' existing Microsoft investments Software company-Focused APIs: Purpose-built for integration vs. consumer-focused APIs Against Building Custom Storage: Faster Time to Market: Significantly reduce development time Enterprise Features: Compliance, security, and scale built-in Office Integration: Impossible to replicate the native Office experience independently Global Infrastructure: Microsoft's global scale without operational overhead Against SharePoint Online: True Multi-Tenancy: Better customer isolation and independent scaling Consumption Pricing: Costs align with customer success vs. per-user licensing API-First Design: Developer-friendly vs. SharePoint customization complexity No Limitations: Independent scaling without site collection or storage quotas Q: Is the content stored in SharePoint Embedded AI ready? A: When you ingest documents into SharePoint Embedded, they are automatically added to the platform’s search and semantic indexes. This seamless integration ensures that your content is immediately available for advanced AI capabilities, such as intelligent search, document automation, and content summary. As a result, users can quickly benefit from AI-driven insights and enhanced discovery, making collaboration and workflow automation more powerful and efficient across their teams. AI Ready by Design: SharePoint Embedded provides secure, structured, and highly accessible data storage, ensuring content is ready for AI integration from the start. Robust APIs & Easy Integration: The platform’s powerful APIs and seamless Microsoft ecosystem integration make it simple to connect content to AI services like Azure AI Foundry and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Advanced Capabilities: Organizations can enable advanced search, automation, and generative AI scenarios, leveraging their information in new, intelligent ways. Enterprise-Grade Compliance & Security: Content remains protected with built-in security and compliance, crucial for enterprise adoption of AI-powered workflows. Empowering Business Value: This foundation allows businesses to unlock added value from their content and drive smarter, more efficient operations. Q: What are the key talking points that resonate with enterprise customers? A: For software development companies, these value propositions drive success with enterprise audiences: Onboard your application: Easily deploy your solution through the Microsoft Marketplace to your customer tenant. Content lives in your customer's tenant: Software companies can leverage built-in compliance and security features to speed up enterprise sales cycles and meet stringent requirements. You control the billing: Software companies can grow alongside their customers, with consumption pricing that supports expansion and rewards success. Your customers security posture is honored: When your solution is deployed to customer tenants, it will inherit all the security, compliance and governance they have configured. Content is always maintained in the geo they specify. Risk Reduction for software companies: By utilizing Microsoft’s infrastructure and security, software companies can reassure enterprise customers and minimize operational risk. Q: How do I get started building a POC for my software development companies' solution? A: Follow this proven software company-focused POC approach that has delivered success across our partner ecosystem: Getting started is easy: Install the Visual Studio Code extension and start a 30 day trial of SharePoint Embedded. For longer development cycles that allow you to simulate a real production environment, configure SharePoint Embedded without any storage or throughput limitations. Software Development Company Development Lifecycle for Re-Platforming on SharePoint Embedded Phase 1: Technical Foundation – Begin by establishing a secure, multi-tenant architecture using SharePoint Embedded’s container model to ensure robust customer data isolation. Integrate with Microsoft Office experiences to provide seamless co-authoring and collaboration, a key customer demand. Validate authentication flows for enterprise-grade user security and conduct thorough performance testing to guarantee fast, reliable document access at scale. Phase 2: Business Alignment – Move beyond technical validation to align your solution with real-world customer scenarios. Test end-to-end workflows and migrate sample data from legacy systems, ensuring the platform meets customers’ expectations for business continuity. Collect hands-on feedback from customer users to refine user experience and validate your pricing model based on projected usage, addressing concerns around cost predictability and ROI. Phase 3: Production Readiness – Prepare your solution for launch by executing a comprehensive security and compliance review, leveraging Microsoft’s built-in controls to address enterprise requirements. Perform scale testing with production-sized datasets and user groups to ensure reliability under peak loads. Establish monitoring, alerting, and support processes to deliver a consistent operational experience. Finally, enable your sales and onboarding teams with go-to-market resources, ensuring a smooth transition for customers migrating to your new platform. Key Success Metrics That Address Customer Demands: Verified customer data isolation for privacy and compliance High user adoption of Office integration, satisfying customers’ desire for familiar productivity tools Consistent fast document loading, meeting performance expectations Validated cost model based on real usage, delivering value and transparency to customers By following this development lifecycle, software companies can re-platform on SharePoint Embedded with confidence, addressing top customer demands for security, scalability, seamless Office integration, and predictable costs—all while accelerating time to market and driving adoption. Q: How can I gain additional customers by having my app in the Microsoft Marketplace? A: Listing your app in the Microsoft Marketplace opens the door for software companies to reach new customers and increase sales by leveraging Microsoft’s ecosystem and global reach. The Marketplace acts as a powerful channel to showcase your solution to millions of enterprise buyers who trust Microsoft to deliver secure, reliable products. Technical Resources to Drive Adoption: ISV Success Program – Get expert guidance to optimize your app for Marketplace visibility and customer engagement, ensuring your solution stands out and is ready for enterprise adoption. Solution Architect Reviews – Receive feedback from Microsoft experts to ensure your product meets the needs of customers and is positioned for growth in the Marketplace. Preview Access – Early access to new features helps you differentiate your app, attracting customers looking for cutting-edge solutions. Software Development Company Documentation – Access to tailored implementation guides ensures your SaaS offering is Marketplace-ready and easy for customers to deploy. Go-to-Market Support to Accelerate Sales: Marketplace Listing – Promote your app to a global audience, driving qualified leads and expanding your reach beyond your existing customer base. Partner Development Managers – Benefit from dedicated business support and introductions to new customers in strategic verticals. Co-sell Opportunities – Collaborate with Microsoft’s sales teams for joint selling, increasing your exposure and boosting sales potential. Industry Programs – Join vertical-specific programs and events to connect directly with customers seeking solutions in your area of expertise. In summary, Microsoft Marketplace empowers software companies to accelerate customer acquisition and drive sales growth by providing broad exposure, technical and business support, and opportunities for collaboration with Microsoft’s network. Have more questions or want to talk to the team, contact us at SharePointEmbedded@microsoft.comBuild enterprise-ready AI agents with confidence: Microsoft AI agent envisioning series
In today’s fast-paced software landscape, keeping up with new technologies and frameworks to build secure, scalable, and enterprise-ready AI apps and agents is more critical—and more complex—than ever. The Microsoft AI Agent Envisioning Series is a four-part webinar experience designed to equip software development companies with the frameworks, tools, and strategies needed to build, publish and monetize AI agents using Azure AI Foundry and the Microsoft Marketplace. Whether you're launching new solutions or evolving existing ones, this series will help you accelerate development, ensure compliance, and scale with confidence. Why Attend? Software companies are racing to deliver intelligent, autonomous solutions that scale. But building commercially viable AI agents that are secure, compliant, and enterprise-ready is no small feat. That’s why we created the Microsoft AI Agent Envisioning Series—a webinar series designed to help you build, publish, and monetize AI agents using Azure AI Foundry, with your preferred coding practices and standards. What You’ll Gain Each session delivers step-by-step guidance, technical best practices, and business strategy to help you: Architect AI agents for real-world business impact Package and publish your solution on the Microsoft Marketplace Build trust with enterprise customers through security and compliance Monetize with confidence using proven go-to-market frameworks The Sessions *It is not required to take the sessions in order. Session 1: Introduction to AI Agent Opportunities and Azure AI Foundry Explore the evolution from general LLMs to specialized agents. Learn how Azure AI Foundry simplifies development and unlocks new monetization paths. Session 2: Architecting AI Solutions for Marketplace Monetization Use the Marketplace Lean Canvas to define your agent’s value. Learn how to optimize cost, select models, and align pricing with customer outcomes. Session 3: Publishing & Releasing Your AI Agent Solution Get your solution marketplace-ready. Learn how to configure SaaS and container offers, meet compliance requirements, and find your buyers. Session 4: Winning Customer Confidence with Trustworthy AI and Production-Ready Architecture Dive into the Azure Well-Architected Framework for AI. Learn how to implement observability, tracing, and enterprise-grade security. Built for Software Development Companies Whether you're building net-new agents or transforming existing apps, this series will help you: Accelerate development with Azure AI Foundry templates and SDKs Ensure compliance with SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO 27001 Publish confidently with Partner Center and Marketplace certification Scale globally with Azure’s infrastructure and co-sell programs Ready to Build AI Agents That Scale? Join us and get the frameworks, tools, and strategies to build AI agents that enterprises trust, IT departments approve, and customers love. Register now for the AI Envisioning Day to access all the sessions and start your journey from idea to customer impact.
M365 Developers Update | June 2025
Spotlight Bring the AI capabilities of Copilot into your apps and agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot APIs Learn More Dive deeper into the latest wave of updates to Copilot Studio, now with powerful new tools for multi-agent systems, enterprise data access, custom AI tuning, and more. See all updates Explore the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, an evolution of Microsoft Teams Toolkit, designed to help you build agents and apps for Microsoft 365 Copilot and beyond. Read the docs Introducing the Agent Store: A centralized, curated marketplace within Microsoft 365 Copilot to browse, install, and try agents tailored to your needs. Start browsing Learn Use the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK to build agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Teams, and more using models provided by Azure AI Foundry. Watch how Try the latest version of Dev Proxy, now with the capability to help you understand language models’ usage and costs in your applications. Get the latest Learn more about Athena, an AI-powered collaborative agent, how it was built, and how to create your own version of Athena right within Microsoft Teams. Read now Keep up to date On Demand: Catch up on all of our breakout sessions from Build Get started YouTube: Tune in for tutorials on the latest dev tools Subscribe now LinkedIn: Get the latest news, product announcements, demos, and more Follow us Community Calls: Learn from our experts on a variety of Microsoft 365 platform topics Join a callM365 Developers Update | May 2025
Spotlight Learn how you can build advanced agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot by leveraging the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK. Join the session Get an in-depth look at building agents in Copilot Studio, with a special focus on the latest innovations and what's ahead. Add to schedule Discover how you can add more knowledge to Microsoft 365 Copilot with Copilot connectors and actions. See more details From Copilot Studio to Visual Studio and Azure AI Foundry, join this session to discover the various ways you can build agents for Microsoft 365. Register now Learn Explore how to build Microsoft Teams collaborative agents as virtual colleagues with Visual Studio Code. Sign up Join us for a session on building advanced copilot Studio agents by integrating Azure AI Search, the Azure model catalog, and Model-Context Protocol (MCP) into your agents. Learn more Build task -specific declarative agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot using advanced recipes in Copilot Studio. View session See how you can build agent in Copilot Studio with deep integration into Azure AI Foundry services. Explore more Tune into this breakout session to learn how to build declarative agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Save to favorites Keep up to date Microsoft build labs- Learn how to use all of the latest dev tools in our hands-on labs. Sign up Updated Teams AI library- Create even more powerful agents for Microsoft Teams. Read how LinkedIn- Get the lates news, product announcements, demos and more Follow us Community calls- Learn from our experts on a variety of Microsoft 365 platform topics. Join a call
