How to get heard by Microsoft and win more together
At Ultimate Partner LIVE Bellevue, May 11-13, some of the sharpest practitioners in the Microsoft ecosystem are coming together to share what works. These are candid, practitioner-led sessions built for senior leaders who need to walk away with something they can use, not a framework to revisit in six months. đď¸ Sessions Worth Your Time đ° Marketplace Meets AI: The New Route to Partner Revenue Cyril Belikoff, VP Microsoft Azure ¡ Jon Yoo, CEO Suger Cyril Belikoff helped architect the unified Microsoft Marketplace and launched the resale enabled offer, which lets channel partners bundle software development company solutions and transact against Azure commit. Within the 1st week of GA, partners were already processing deals at scale. Cyril joins Vince Menzione and Jon Yoo, CEO of Suger, on Day 1 to cover where the AI-driven marketplace motion is heading and what partners need to do now to capture their share of the revenue flowing through it. Cyrilâs advice for the partner still on the sideline is direct: do not try to boil the ocean. Get listed. Create offerings. Figure out 1 or 2 deals, transact them, and see the opportunity. This session gives you the map. đŻ From Attention to Trust: The New Rules of Hyperscaler Go-To-Market Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO Transcends ¡ Leigh Ann Campbell, Principal REV Alliances We are no longer in an attention economy. You are not competing to be seen. You are competing to be trusted, and the shift has a specific mechanism. AI agents are already making procurement decisions using verified signals: co-sell track records, Partner Center data, marketplace history, certifications. The partners building that record now are building an advantage that compounds quickly and is difficult to replicate later. Leigh Ann Campbell has driven over $200 million in influenced and net-new revenue through the Microsoft partner ecosystem. She knows what happens to a referral the moment it lands in Partner Center and what you need to do to make sure it does not die there. Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO of Transcends, brings the broader GTM lens on how the trust economy is changing what buyers respond to and where most partner marketing misses the mark. đ Partner to Pipeline: Activating your GTM Strategy Reis Barrie, CEO Carve Partners ¡ Greg Goldkamp, Sr. Director Microsoft This is the rare combination of a partner who has built real pipeline through Microsoftâs co-sell motion and a Microsoft leader who can tell you directly what gets field attention and what gets ignored. Most software companies approach co-sell as a relationship exercise. The ones generating real pipeline treat it as a system. They know which solution plays are active in the current fiscal year. They show up in seller conversations before a deal is open. They make it easy for a Microsoft seller to bring them in because the pitch is already mapped to what that seller is measured on. This session covers how to build that system, from first registration in Partner Center through closed pipeline. đ From Connector to Catalyst: Todayâs Alliance Manager Erin Figer, Founder CORE Consulting ¡ Christine Bongard, CEO The WIT Network ¡ Steven Karachinsky, CEO ZIRO Erin Figer helped build the co-sell practices at Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud when those programs were still being designed. She brings a reframe that changes how the best alliance teams operate: before you can market with a hyperscaler, you have to market to them. Treat Microsoft like a customer. Understand their priorities, their fiscal calendar, their field incentives. Build the internal credibility that gets you pulled into deals instead of chasing them. Joined by Christine Bongard and Steven Karachinsky, this session covers what the transition from connector to catalyst looks like in practice and what separates the alliance managers who generate revenue from those who manage relationships. đĄ Why the practitioner track matters These are not panel discussions with safe answers. This audience asks direct questions, and the speakers in these sessions are prepared to give direct answers. These sessions run across both days alongside 2 full tracks of mainstage content covering marketplace, distribution, AI strategy, and Microsoftâs channel priorities heading into FY27. đ UP LIVE Bellevue ¡ May 11â13, 2026 InterContinental Hotel, Bellevue, WA đ Exclusive discount for Microsoft partners Use code ULTIMATEVIP50 at checkout for a special discount reserved for Microsoft partners. đ Register for UP LIVE Bellevue Ultimate PartnerÂŽ is the premier independent platform for technology partnership leaders, uniting the hyperscaler ecosystem to achieve their greatest results through partnering. An official Microsoft GPS recognized community.What partners need to know before Microsoftâs new fiscal year
At Ultimate Partner LIVE Bellevue, May 11â13, a lineup of senior Microsoft executives will take the mainstage to share what is shifting, what it means for your business, and how the most aligned partners are responding. Here is who to know. Stephen Boyle, CVP, Enterprise Partner Solutions Stephen leads Microsoftâs enterprise partner sales organization and brings a direct view of how the ecosystem is performing at the highest levels. In his fireside with Vince Menzione, he will share what the most successful partners are doing differently as AI moves from a conversation to a core business motion. For any partner navigating co-sell, enterprise alignment, or ecosystem positioning heading into FY27, this is the session that sets the frame. Alex Zagury, CVP, Global Channel Sales Alex brings a perspective most Microsoft leaders do not have, more than a decade at Cisco where she built a $9B+ partner-managed business and led the integration of the $28B Splunk acquisition. She joined Microsoft to apply that experience to the indirect channel. Her session covers FY27 channel priorities: where Microsoft is investing, what the most successful CSP and indirect partners are doing right now with AI and Copilot, and why the partners who have moved to an outcomes-based model are already seeing compounding growth. Jose Gomez Cueto, General Manager, Americas SMB The $777B SMB opportunity is Microsoftâs largest addressable market, and Jose leads it across the Americas. His session addresses what it means for an SMB customer to become a Frontier Firm, and why MSPs are the critical link in making that happen. He will also share how Microsoft moved faster to bring SMB-specific AI products to market than it ever has before, and what that signals for the rest of FY27. Cyril Belikoff, VP, Microsoft Azure and Industry Clouds Cyril has been at the center of some of the most significant structural changes Microsoft has made to how partners transact. He helped architect the unified Microsoft Marketplace and launched the Resale Enabled Offer, which enables channel partners to bundle ISV solutions and transact against Azure commit. His session addresses where the AI-driven marketplace motion is heading and what partners need to do now to capture their share of the revenue flowing through it. More Microsoft on the Agenda Microsoft leaders Greg Goldkamp, Monica French, Erwin Visser, Mira Ayad, and others will deliver practical, execution-focused content across co-sell, distribution, the SMB channel, and AI strategy throughout both days. This is not a product showcase or a keynote built for an audience of thousands. It is a room of 250+ senior partner executives, 2 days of mainstage and spotlight sessions, and direct access to the Microsoft leaders whose priorities will shape the next 12 months. đ UP LIVE Bellevue ¡ May 11â13, 2026 InterContinental Hotel, Bellevue, WA đ Exclusive discount for Microsoft partners Use code ULTIMATEVIP50 at checkout for a special discount reserved for Microsoft partners. đ Register for UP LIVE Bellevue Ultimate PartnerÂŽ is the premier independent platform for technology partnership leaders, uniting the hyperscaler ecosystem to achieve their greatest results through partnering. An official Microsoft GPS recognized community.Microsoft Marketplace Partner Digest | April 2026
April kickstarts a fast-paced quarter of accelerated opportunity as partners line up new coâsell motions and expand channelâled salesâincluding resaleâenabled offersâto reach more customers across global markets, all while rapidly building and publishing transactable AI apps and agents to Microsoft Marketplace to meet growing customer demand. ⨠Microsoft Cloud AI Partner Program This month brings several important updates to Specializations and Solutions Partner designations, including revised performance criteria for the Small and Midsize Business Management specialization and new skilling options across Modern Work, Teams, and Digital & App Innovation. Microsoft is also evolving specializations to better reflect the shift toward AIâintroducing the Secure AI Productivity specialization, retiring the Adoption and Change Management specialization, and preparing to merge several existing specializations into streamlined, solutionâaligned offerings. Learn more đ Whatâs new in Partner Center MFA enforcement for Partner Center APIs Partner Center is now enforcing multifactor authentication (MFA) for all app + user API calls, with full enforcement as of April 1, 2026. Any requests made without a valid MFA token will be blocked with a 401 response and error code 900421. All APIs already support MFA, so update your systems now to avoid disruptions, strengthen security, and align with Partner Center requirements. Learn more đ Go-to-market with Microsoft Marketplace Microsoft has released a new collection of Azure goâtoâmarket assets built specifically for SMB audiences, giving partners stepâbyâstep guidance, tailored messaging, and readyâtoâuse materials to drive demand in a rapidly expanding market projected to surpass $1 trillion by 2030. This content library equips distributors, resellers, and service providers with everything needed to engage SMB customers at scaleâfrom solution plays and sales resources to campaignâready materialsâhelping partners build pipeline, deepen customer conversations, and grow recurring cloud revenue. Partners can explore the full Azure SMB content collection to activate these assets in upcoming campaigns and accelerate their cloud practice growth. Explore resources to engage Azure SMB customers Reduced Microsoft Dragon Copilot pricing Partners can now access a full library of Dragon Copilot training and goâtoâmarket resources, including sales pitch decks, messaging and positioning guides, demo materials, FAQs, data sheets, infographics, and moreâeach with detailed descriptions to help teams understand how and when to use them. These materials are designed to help Dragon Copilot partners confidently market, sell, and support the solution with consistent, enterpriseâready content. Access Dragon Copilot partner assets Plus, new Microsoft Dragon Copilot partner resources Additionally, Microsoft has announced a reduced list price for the Dragon Copilot perâuser license, effective May 1, 2026, across all current geographies. This update simplifies pricing, expands competitiveness, and retires the separate Physician Practice offer, consolidating all capabilities into the standard license. A new perâencounter consumption model for ambient and generative AI capabilities will also launch on May 1, making usage easier to understand and manage. Together, these changes create a more streamlined, costâeffective path for partners to drive Dragon Copilot adoption and growth. Read the announcement Marketplace offer optimization recommendations in App Advisor Microsoft has introduced a new AIâpowered Marketplace listing optimization capability in App Advisor, giving partners instant, personalized recommendations to improve the clarity, quality, and discoverability of their public Marketplace listings. The tool evaluates listings across six key categoriesâfrom value proposition to grammarâand provides targeted guidance aligned with Marketplace best practices, helping partners iterate faster without manual review cycles. Available free and on demand in the US, this capability enables continuous optimization so partners can strengthen engagement, improve search visibility, and stand out in an increasingly competitive catalog. Get recommendations for your Marketplace offer đĄStay up to date with regular Partner Center announcements đ Marketplace events The Marketplace trainings and events calendar is updated with new trainings, live demos, and partnerâfocused sessions designed to help software companies and channel partners accelerate coâsell, private offers, and Marketplaceâfirst sales growth. Catch up on recent webinars and register for upcoming events that break down proven strategies, best practices, and highlight tools and resources to strengthen your Marketplace motions. Recent events Why Azure belongs in your multi-cloud strategy April 2, 2026 This event helps Marketplaceâaligned software companies understand why incorporating Azure into their multi-cloud strategy can boost customer acquisition, deal velocity, and coâsell success. Partners will hear how to replicate solutions for Azure, tap into Microsoft funding programs, leverage tools that speed timeâtoâmarket, and convert modernization efforts into sustained Marketplace growth đĽ Watch the recording Upcoming events Seamless private offers: From creation to purchase and activation April 15, 2026 (8:30 AM PDT) Next weekâs session with Stephanie_Briceâ and Chr_Brownâ will provide partners an endâtoâend look at how to execute seamless private offersâfrom creating them in Partner Center to extending them across channelâled sales motions such as multiparty private offers, CSP private offers, all the way through customer purchase and activation. With a live demo, guidance on resale enabled offers and flexible billing schedules, and time for Q&A, attendees will see exactly how private offers work in practice to streamline deal execution and accelerate Marketplace business growth. Register to attend Maximize selling with Microsoft and Marketplace ROI April 28, 2026 (8:30 AM PDT) Partners will learn how to simplify their Microsoft coâsell motions, unlock underutilized incentives, and automate manual Partner Center tasks using WorkSpan. Drawing on workflows that have powered more than $5B in coâsell revenue, this session covers how to apply for Azure sponsorship, earn and activate Marketplace Rewards benefits, and use WorkSpanâs AIâpowered platform to drive earlier seller actions and stronger partnership execution. Itâs a practical guide to capturing more value from the Microsoft ecosystem. Register to attend Revisit past sessions and see the full calendar of Marketplace community events for partners and customers. Whether youâre expanding coâsell motions, publishing new AIâpowered solutions, optimizing privateâoffer execution, or tapping into updated programs like Dragon Copilot, the opportunities to reach more customers and accelerate growth continue to expand. As always, we welcome your insights and feedbackâlet us know what topics youâd like to see covered in a future post so we can continue shaping this digest around what matters most to you.How Microsoft Marketplace and ecosystem partnerships are reshaping enterprise go-to-market
Author Juhi Saha is CEO at Partner1, a two-time Inc. Power Partner Award winner and an official Microsoft Partner Led Network. Partner1 helps B2B software and services companies maximize the value of their partner ecosystems and transform partnerships into scalable profit engines. Specializing in channel development and strategic alliances, Partner1 empowers organizations to unlock their partnership potential through expert guidance, partnership program design, and actionable growth strategies. By focusing on partner-driven growth, Partner1 helps businesses, from startups to scale-ups, maximize revenue, accelerate market expansion, and build a lasting competitive advantage. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Key takeaways from recent NYC founder and investor events âItâs no longer the era of go fast. Itâs the era of go faster.â That sentiment, shared by an investor during one of our recent New York City gatherings, captures a broader shift underway in how startups are expected to scale. Speed is no longer just a function of product development or hiring. It is increasingly a function of how effectively companies leverage platforms, ecosystems, and commercial infrastructure that already exist. Over the past several weeks, Partner1 hosted two curated events bringing together founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders to explore how startups are accessing enterprise customers and accelerating growth through partnerships. The conversations centered on a practical question that continues to surface across early-stage and growth-stage companies: how do startups break into enterprise and scale in a market defined by AI, platforms, and increasingly complex buying environments? What emerged from these discussions is a clear pattern: the traditional model of building a product, hiring a sales team, and scaling through direct enterprise relationships is being supplemented, and in many cases replaced, by ecosystem-led growth. Partnerships are no longer a downstream channel decision. They are becoming a primary system through which companies access customers, accelerate revenue, and compete. Across both sessions, with perspectives from leaders at Microsoft, NVIDIA, Plug and Play Tech Center, and investors including Trajectory Ventures, several consistent themes emerged around how this shift is playing out in practice. Marketplace is becoming the default commercial infrastructure Evaluate your Marketplace readiness- understand how Microsoft Marketplace supports discovery, procurement, and scalable growth, and were your solution fits today. One of the most concrete shifts discussed was the role of Marketplace as the commercial backbone for modern software transactions. Marketplace is no longer positioned as an optional distribution channel. It is increasingly how Microsoft goes to market with software companies of all sizes, and how customers expect to discover, evaluate, and procure solutions. This shift is being driven by practical realities. Enterprise procurement has historically been one of the most significant sources of friction in software sales. Vendor onboarding, legal negotiations, billing complexity, and fragmented purchasing processes extend deal cycles and introduce risk. Marketplace addresses these issues directly by standardizing terms, consolidating billing, and pre-vetting vendors through the publisher agreement. These are not cosmetic improvements. They materially change how quickly transactions can occur. During the discussions, the Marketplace opportunity was reinforced with both data and real examples. Marketplace is enabling larger deals, faster sales cycles, and measurable revenue growth for companies that treat it as a core go-to-market motion and speakers shared examples from companies like Neo4j, Pangaea Data and ShookIoT. The examples shared ranged from small, niche startups closing their largest deals through Marketplace to companies significantly expanding their customer base by leveraging Microsoftâs commercial infrastructure. What stands out is that these outcomes are not isolated. They are becoming repeatable. As customer awareness of Marketplace increases, it is increasingly seen as the fastest path to the right solution, regardless of who built it. Several startups shared how their deals languished in procurement and were excited to hear from other companies in attendance around how they successfully used Marketplace to speed up procurement. Rethinking scale: why âMicrosoft is too bigâ is the wrong assumption A recurring concern from founders was whether they are too early or too small to meaningfully engage with Microsoft. This perception is common, but it does not reflect how the ecosystem is evolving. The perspective shared by Microsoft leaders was clear. AI-native startups are not peripheral to the ecosystem. They are central to it. Supporting startups is not about proximity to large partners. It is about helping early-stage companies build faster, reduce risk, and reach enterprise customers sooner. This dynamic was described as a balance. Startups bring speed, specialization, and differentiated AI use cases. Microsoft brings global reach, enterprise relationships, and a mature commercial engine. When aligned, that combination becomes a multiplier. Multiple conversations touched on how Marketplace is where this alignment materializes. It serves as the convergence point between innovation and demand. Whether a company is early-stage or scaling, it provides a consistent path to reach customers and transact at enterprise scale. The implication is direct. Companies should not wait to be âbig enough.â They should start early with Microsoft Marketplace and design for this motion from the beginning. The results will be reduced friction and enable them to reach enterprise customers faster. Co-sell is evolving from access to alignment Many founders approach partnerships with a familiar question: how do we get Microsoft sellers to pay attention to us? That framing is increasingly misaligned with how the system actually works. The more scalable model described in the sessions is based on alignment rather than attention. Becoming co-sell eligible is important, particularly as solutions begin to align with Azure consumption and commercial priorities. However, co-sell eligibility is a starting point. It allows a solution to be recognized within Microsoftâs system and to count toward seller objectives. The more important shift is where growth actually comes from. The fastest growing motion is not seller-led. It is partner-to-partner. System integrators and channel partners already have established customer relationships. They are the ones driving adoption at scale. Microsoftâs investment in channel-led growth reflects this, with partner-led motions representing one of the highest growth vectors. The takeaway for founders is practical: instead of asking how to get seller attention, the better question is how to become easy for partners to sell. Alignment to platform, customer need, and partner incentives drives outcomes more reliably than individual relationships. Partnerships are not a channel. They are a go-to-market system One of the most consistent misconceptions observed across attendees was treating partnerships as a secondary channel, but insights from the panelists as well as conversations during networking sessions highlighted how partnerships function as an integrated system that shapes how companies build, sell, and scale. Marketplace, co-sell eligibility, and partner-to-partner relationships are interconnected. Product decisions influence how easily a solution can be transacted. Marketplace presence influences discovery and procurement. Partner relationships determine how widely a solution can be distributed. This system view is especially important in AI. As solutions become more complex, both buyers and sellers are optimizing for simplicity and speed. Centralized platforms and ecosystems provide a way to meet those requirements. Companies that treat partnerships as a system create compounding advantages. Those that treat them as an add-on often struggle to gain traction, even with strong products. Expanding beyond enterprise: a multi-segment opportunity While many startups initially focus on landing large enterprise customers, the opportunity within the Microsoft ecosystem is broader. Microsoftâs reach extends across enterprise, mid-market, and SMB segments. With the rise of AI and agent-based solutions, there is increasing focus on embedding applications into environments where customers already operate, such as Microsoft 365, and leveraging channel partners to scale distribution. This creates a unified go-to-market path that spans multiple segments. Startups can reach enterprise customers while also expanding into mid-market and SMB through the same ecosystem infrastructure. Channel partners play a critical role in this expansion. They provide access, distribution, and scale that would be difficult to replicate through direct sales alone. For startups, this represents a meaningful opportunity to grow faster and more efficiently across segments. Investor perspective: partnerships as a signal of maturity From an investor standpoint, partnerships are increasingly a signal of go-to-market maturity. The ability to leverage platforms, align with ecosystem dynamics, and accelerate revenue through structured partnerships is becoming a differentiator. Going back to the investorâs comment that âItâs no longer the era of go fast. Itâs the era of go faster. I am going to ask all my portfolio companies about their marketplace strategy.â - this reflects a broader shift in evaluation criteria. Marketplace and ecosystem alignment are not viewed as optional enhancements. They are becoming central to how companies compress time to revenue and scale efficiently. When evaluating companies with similar technical capabilities, investors are looking closely at how founders approach distribution. Companies with a clear strategy for leveraging ecosystems and Marketplace are often better positioned to scale with less friction and more capital efficiency. A practical starting point The guidance shared across both events was consistent and actionable. Start early. Do not wait for a specific stage to engage with the ecosystem. Build on the platform with clear, differentiated use cases that solve real customer problems. Treat Marketplace as a core go-to-market motion. This includes investing in strong listings, clear pricing, and a working knowledge of Marketplace capabilities such as private offers and partner-led transactions. Design for partner-to-partner distribution. Ensure that your solution is easy for others to position, sell, and deploy within existing customer environments. At a fundamental level, the objective is to reduce friction. Companies that are easy to buy, easy to deploy, and easy for partners to sell are the ones that scale most effectively. Enterprise growth is no longer driven solely by direct sales execution. It is increasingly shaped by how well a company integrates into an ecosystem that already has distribution, demand, and commercial infrastructure. For startups building in AI and enterprise software, the question is no longer whether to engage with platforms like Microsoft. It is how early and how intentionally they design for it. The companies that do this well are not simply participating in the ecosystem. They are using it to accelerate outcomes that would be difficult to achieve on their own. Live in NYC on April 21st: Hear from Redis, Datadog, Eden and Microsoft on how strategic Marketplace partnerships are built and scaled in practice Strategic partnerships across hyperscalers, database providers, observability platforms, and application ecosystems are no longer abstract concepts, but important GTM relationships. As customers' infrastructure becomes more complex, they require solutions that are interoperable, scalable, and easy to implement. With the rise of AI, marketplaces have become critical enablers of technology adoption. With each product offering a wide range of integrations, it's the first-party relationships between providers that set these solutions apart, delivering best-in-class support for customers' infrastructure. Partnerships, like those between Microsoft, Datadog, Eden, and Redis, accelerate and derisk enterprise cloud transformations, with the Microsoft Marketplace playing a central role in how services are delivered and scaled. Eden's migration platform, Exodus, enables zero-downtime database migrations, while Datadog is deeply integrated to ensure that these autonomous migrations are fully observed. Azure Managed Redis is a first-party Azure service that is becoming foundational for customers optimizing their data infrastructure for modern and agentic AI workloads. Eden and Datadog's autonomous migration service for Azure Managed Redis is now available on Microsoft Marketplace, making it easy for enterprises to get the most out of new Redis products. As enterprises make this shift, a broader pattern is emerging in which marketplaces are not just procurement vehicles but also enablers of ecosystem execution, particularly in the context of AI. Many AI initiatives fall short not because of model capability, but because underlying infrastructure and data environments are not properly optimized. Migrations, when executed well, become an opportunity to modernize architecture, improve performance, and prepare for scalable AI and agent deployments. Through coordinated partnerships across Microsoft, Eden, Datadog, and Redis, companies are aligning product, sales, and delivery into a unified operating model that accelerates time to value and reduces risk for enterprise customers. This is all before discussing AI as an autonomous agent for deploying new infrastructure via marketplaces. If you want to understand how these partnership models are being built in practice, and how to use marketplaces and ecosystem alignment to unlock growth and AI readiness in your own organization, this event will provide a direct view into how leading companies are executing today. Sign up here and follow for more events with partners for partners by Partner1 and Microsoft. Resources Marketplace readiness assessment Learn more about Microsoft Marketplace:âŻMicrosoft Marketplace overview - Marketplace customer documentation | Microsoft Learn Explore Microsoft MarketplaceâŻMicrosoft Marketplace | cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents Join Microsoft Marketplace community:âŻMicrosoft Marketplace community | Microsoft Community HubMicrosoft Marketplace Partner Digest
March marks a strong quarter of momentum across the Microsoft Marketplace ecosystem, with partners scaling their businesses while delivering high quality customer experiencesâdirectly, through the channel, and alongside Microsoft. From monetizing AI innovation to streamlining post purchase workflows and co-selling motions, partners continue to turn Marketplace readiness into real, repeatable growth. This monthâs digest highlights the insights, updates, and opportunities helping software companies meet customers where and how they choose to buy. Articles worth reading As more partners race to build AI apps and agents, the real differentiator is turning that innovation into recurring revenue through scalable sales motions. Microsoftâs Brady Bumgarner shares how App Advisor helps teams think about monetization well before they publish an offer, empowering partners to launch with confidence and scale faster. đ Learn more about AI app and agent monetization Brady also breaks down how combining Marketplace transactable offers with Azure IP co-sell readiness turns co-selling into a true growth engine. More partners are leveraging the insights and guidance available through App Advisor to build repeatable co-selling muscle memory. đď¸See how co-selling with Microsoft can accelerate your business growth As customers move to AIâfirst architectures, cloud cost optimization is becoming a core decision lensânot just an operational concern. In this post, Justin Royal explores how customers are rethinking cost, performance, and governance as continuous disciplines. For sellers, this has clear implications: customers increasingly expect flexibility in how solutions scale, perform, and are paid for, and those expectations should shape how software companies build, package, and position offers on Marketplace. đ¸ Explore how customers are optimizing cloud spend as AI adoption scales Accelerate your Marketplace growth by delivering a seamless customer experience after the click. Marketplace Fulfillment APIs automate activation, entitlement, and subscription management so you can reduce friction, speed timeâtoâvalue, and scale globally with confidence. Explore how these APIsâand new Microsoft reference codeâhelp product teams integrate faster and support every customer at every stage. đ Discover how Marketplace Fulfillment APIs streamline and automate critical post purchase workflows Marketplace updates Dragon Copilot solutions in Microsoft Marketplace On March 5, we announced preview of Dragon Copilot solutions for Microsoft Marketplace. This enables software companies to build and sell AI apps and agents that integrate with Dragon Copilot, while allowing customers to discover and purchase solutions that work with their existing Microsoft investments. Software companies can build and publish their solutions using one of three offer types: Dragon Copilot Physician Apps and Agents (in preview now) Dragon Copilot Clinical App Connectors (coming soon) Dragon Copilot Radiology Apps and Agents (coming soon) Dragon Copilot is built for care teams including physicians, nurses, and radiologists and is already operating with more than 100,000 clinicians relying on it daily to support care for millions of patients each month. Steps you can take to get started: Read through ourâŻdocumentationâŻon how extensions for Dragon Copilot work and how to build your own Check out theâŻsample repoâŻwith sample code, and more Contact dragon_extensions@microsoft.com to inquire about joining preview đ Learn how Dragon Copilot solutions are modernizing Healthcare Recent events How to build a Microsoft Marketplace channel practice In his recent webinar, Darren Sharpe highlights how partners are increasingly building their channel businesses with Microsoft Marketplace at the coreâusing it as a channel-led, Marketplace delivered growth engine. As buying shifts toward lineofbusiness leaders and decentralized procurement, Marketplace brings together discovery, governance, and enterprise purchasing in one place. Darren shares how partners that align sales, alliances, and operations around Marketplace are better positioned to drive repeatable growth, meeting customers where and how they choose to buy. đĽ Watch on demand Inside Azure IP co-sell: What high-performing software companies do differently Get an insiderâs view of what truly moves the needle for Microsoft Marketplace and Microsoft Azure IP co-sell success. Guest speaker Barbara TreviĂąo breaks down the signals Microsoft prioritizes when assessing submission strengthâhelping software development companies understand what great looks like across architecture, messaging, evidence, and sequencing. Youâll learn why high performing software development companies approach readiness differently, and how that difference translates directly into smoother approvals and stronger GTM impact. đĽ Watch on demand AI-powered automation for Marketplace private offers and IP co-sell Learn how software development companies can use AI-powered automation to simplify buying through Microsoft Marketplace, streamline Microsoft Marketplace private offers, and maximize the effectiveness of co-selling opportunities. Join Jon Yoo, Co-Founder & CEO at Suger, as he explores how reducing operational friction in Partner Center can help you accelerate deal velocity, improve collaboration with Microsoft sellers, and drive Azure adoption. đĽ Watch on demand đ Coming up Partner office hour Build, publish, and optimize Marketplace offers with App Advisor Wednesday, Mar 18, 2026, 8:30 AM PDT Tune in for live demos and proven best practices on using App Advisor, Microsoftâs guided experience for Microsoft Marketplace success! Learn what App Advisor is, how it works, and how it can help partners accelerate Marketplace offer creation. Walk through key stages of the experience from validating value to publishing and optimizing your listing. âĄď¸ Get the meeting details Customer office hours Charting your AI strategy for manufacturing with Marketplace Wednesday, Mar 25, 2026, 9:30 AM PDT Build, buy, or blend? Gain the insights you need as a manufacturer to scale AI apps and agents across the factory floor using Microsoft Marketplace. Weâll go beyond AI theory and focus on practical manufacturing scenariosâconnecting factory equipment, IoT, and enterprise systems into a unified foundation that enables analytics, digital twins, and AI agents. âĄď¸ Get the meeting details In-person events Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2026 Microsoft Marketplace is sponsoring Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, with interactive sessions, booth conversations, and private meetings focused on helping channel partners understand how Marketplace can simplify software purchasing for their customers. Partners can expect to learn how the expansive catalogue of products and services available from thousands of software companies delivered through channel-led sales capabilities are Marketplace enabled and accelerate AIâ and cloudâled sales through Marketplace. đ April 13-16, 2026 đThe Venetian Resort, Las Vegas âĄď¸ See the details and learn how to register Microsoft AI Tour Our series continues, coming to more cities around the globe. Bringing inâperson opportunities for partners to connect with Microsoft experts, explore innovation and get inspired. âĄď¸ Find your city and registerMicrosoft Marketplace at Channel Partners Conference & Expo 2026
If youâre a channel partner, youâve probably felt the shift: customers are relying on trusted advisors like you now more than ever as they transition to an AI-first world. As part of this change, channelâled sales through Microsoft Marketplace have grown rapidly over the past year, fueled by new offer constructs and simplified procurement paths that make it easier for partners to source, bundle, and deliver the cloud and AI solutions customers need, while accelerating deals and expanding their services footprint. To continue to drive momentum with channel-led sales, the Marketplace team is excited to sponsor the Channel Partners Conference & Expo, April 13â16 at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, and connect with the advisors, resellers, and services partners who are delivering value for customers every day. How to engage with Microsoft Marketplace at the event We want to meet you! Throughout the week, Marketplace experts will lead sessions, host conversations at our booth, and support private meetings to help you activate and accelerate your Marketplace strategy. â Join our sessions Keynote interview: Scaling channel impact in an AI-first world with Microsoft Marketplace Tech sponsor session: Unlock the channel opportunity through Microsoft Marketplace Theater session: 5 tips for channel success through Microsoft Marketplace â Visit us onsite Stop by our booth (#1536) to meet experts and learn how partners are using Marketplace to: Pair your solutions with vetted offerings Accelerate vendor relationships Scale faster with bigger deals â Request a private meeting If your team will be in Las Vegas, weâd love to connect. Submit a meeting request here. Register with our sponsor discount code As a Platinum Sponsor, weâre pleased to offer complimentary Expo + Keynote passes and discounted Standard and Premium passes. Use code âMicrosoftâ when registering here. We hope to see you in Las Vegas!Marketplace Partner Digest
Welcome to the February edition of the Marketplace Partner Digest. This monthâs roundup brings together the most important Microsoft Marketplace updates, program changes, and partnerâfocused resources to help you strengthen your coâsell motions, optimize your listings, and accelerate revenue through Microsoft Marketplace. Inside, youâll find insights from Microsoft leaders on Marketplaceâs 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 goâtoâmarket 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 Microsoftâs own Darren Sharpe explores how Microsoft Marketplace has become a core engine for business growthâenabling 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 đ Unlocking the profitability multiplier: Maximizing revenue with Microsoft Marketplace đ 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 đąTry App Advisor for yourself Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program updates SAP on Microsoft Azure specialization âď¸Microsoft is updating the SAP on Microsoft Azure specialization to make it more accessible while maintaining strong capability standards. Key changes: đ˝ Lower ACR requirement: ACR threshold reduced from $30,000 â $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 âď¸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: âTechnical Assessment removed: The Azure VMware Solutions (AVS) Technical assessment requirement will be removed from the skilling requirements â Broadcom Certification requirements removed: The Broadcom certification requirements will also be removed, which were previously checked as a portion of the audit đ Learn more 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: âď¸ Automated completeness checks Inbound co-sell referrals now undergo automated validation to ensure required data is included before they progressâno 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 đ Learn more â 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 connectorâbased submissions of IP co-sell opportunities. This field captures the customerâs 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. đ Learn more Events Ultimate Partner session with Microsoftâs Cyril Belikoff On January 13, Ultimate Partner hosted a livestream conversation where Omdiaâs Chief Analyst Jay McBain unpacked his 2026 predictions across cloud, AI, coâsell, Marketplace, and broader ecosystem shifts, while Microsoftâs Cyril Belikoff, VP of Commercial Cloud & AI Marketing, outlined key Microsoft changes coming in 2026 and how partners can align their goâtoâmarket strategies to stay ahead. đĽ Watch on demand 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. đĄTip: 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 reportsâincluding Earnings, Customers, Orders, Usage, and Revenueâto better understand performance and identify growth opportunities across their Marketplace motions. This session is great for alliance managers, sales operations and finance teams. đĽ Watch on demand Cloud cost optimization for customers Streamed live on January 28, 2026, this sessionâpresented by Kristyn Maddox and Justin Royalâfocused 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. đĽ Watch on demand 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 TreviĂąo, Labra, to get an inside look at signals Microsoft uses to evaluate Marketplace and Azure IP co-sell readiness. đ Microsoft AI Tour February brings a series of inâperson opportunities for partners to connect with Microsoft experts through the Microsoft AI Tour. đFebruary 2026 Tour Locations: đ¸đŚ Riyadh â February 11 đ§đˇ SĂŁo Paulo â February 11 đ˛đ˝ Mexico City â February 12 đŹđ§ London â February 24 đŠđŞ Munich â February 25 đłđ´ Oslo â February 25 đŞđ¸ Madrid â February 26 đ Find your city and register 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 eventsâespecially AI Tour stops and Marketplace office hours.December edition of Microsoft Marketplace Partner Digest
Microsoft Ignite 2025 - Marketplace highlights Microsoft Ignite was packed with announcements and insights for Marketplace partners. From new commerce capabilities to AI-driven innovations, here are some key takeaways: Global expansion of Microsoft Marketplace - Microsoft announced that the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace, which launched in the U.S. earlier this year, is now globally available. This expansion includes new APIs for distribution partners, enabling them to link their own cloud marketplace with Microsoftâs, opening significant opportunities for software companies in SMB and mid-market segments. đŹ Watch a recorded webinar with TD SYNNEX on the power of distribution to accelerate SMB marketplace sales. Global availability of Resale Enabled Offers - This capability allows software development companies to and channel partners to resell software solutions directly through Marketplace, simplifying transactions, expanding reach, and scaling revenue. đ Read more about this announcement and get started Introducing App Accelerate - A unified offer that brings together incentives, benefits, and co-sell support across the Microsoft Cloud. App Accelerate provides end-to-end technical guidance, developer tools, and go-to-market resources so software development companies can innovate and scale. Previews are beginning now, with full availability planned for 2026. â Sign up to receive updates Enhanced Partner Marketing Center - Discover, customize, and launch campaigns faster with intelligent search and AI-powered toolsâall on one connected platform. The current Partner Marketing Center will remain available as the new and enhanced Marketing Center platform launches in early 2026 with 24 campaigns-in-a-box, aligned to FY26 solution plays. ⨠Get ready for the new era of partner marketing Frontier Partner badge â New customer-facing badges recognize top services, channel, and software development company partners that are driving AI transformation with customers and offer them an opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition. đĄď¸Differentiate your AI-first leadership Catch up on Microsoft Ignite sessions Ignite 2025 delivered powerful insights and announcements for Marketplace partners, and now you can catch up on the sessions you missed. Explore these recorded keynotes to learn about new capabilities, partner programs, and strategies to accelerate growth through Microsoftâs ecosystem. Ignite opening keynote Ignite partner keynote: Powering Frontier Partnerships Additionally, weâve compiled recordings of relevant Marketplace partner and customer sessions so you can watch on-demand. Revisit Marketplace-focused sessions and resources. Just look for the ⨠icon below. Partner sessions: PBRK415 Grow your business with Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Find out how the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program helps you grow with new benefits, designations, and skilling opportunities. This session covers updates like the Frontier Partner Badge, Copilot specialization, and streamlined Marketplace engagementâall designed to accelerate your AI transformation journey. PBRK416 Accelerate Growth through Partner Incentives Explore how Microsoft is boosting partner growth with streamlined incentives, AI-first strategies, and new designations like Frontier Distributor. This session covers expanded investments in Azure Accelerate, Copilot solutions, and security practicesâplus insights on how to capitalize on evolving programs and co-sell opportunities. PBRK417 Partner: Connect, Plan, Win â Enhancing Co-sell Engagement Discover how to enhance collaboration, optimize joint efforts, and drive success in shared initiatives. Gain insights into improving interactions with Microsoft sellers and leveraging opportunities, along with guidance on proactive co-selling to align your goals with Microsoft's for sustained growth. PBRK418 Partner: Benefits for Accelerating Software Company Success Learn about the resources and benefits available for software development companies across all stages of the build, publish and grow journey in MAICPP. Whether youâre developing a new agent solution or working toward a certified software designation, there are targeted skilling opportunities, technical resources, and GTM benefits to help. Tap into new investments for AI apps and agents and hear from your peers on how theyâve used rewards such as customer propensity scores and Azure sponsorship. PBRK419 SI & Advisory Partner Readiness: Accelerating the Journey to Frontier Understand how Microsoft is empowering our SI and advisory partners to accelerate frontier firm readiness for our Enterprise customers by driving AI transformation with agentic solutions and services. â¨PBRK420 Executing on the channel-led marketplace opportunity for partners See how Microsoftâs unified Marketplace drives partner growth with resale-enabled offers, creating scalable channel sales and co-sell opportunities. This session shares practical steps to build a sustainable Marketplace practice and leverage the partner ecosystem for greater reach and profitability. PBRK421 Enabling a thriving partner ecosystem: New CSP Authorization Criteria Dive into whatâs new for Cloud Solution Providers, including updated authorization requirements and designations that help you stand out. This session covers steps to choose the right tier, build trust as a customer advisor, and prepare for growth with AI-driven solutions and Copilot offerings. PBRK422 The Future of Partner Support: Customer + Partner + Microsoft Discover âUnified for Partners,â Microsoftâs new support model designed for CSP partners to deliver customer success at scale. This session introduces the Support Services designation, offering faster response times, financial incentives, and integrated tools to strengthen your support capabilities. PBRK423 Partner Execution at Scale with SME&C Explore growth opportunities in the high-potential SME&C segment. This session highlights investments in co-selling, AI-first strategies, and what it means to become âcustomer zero,â with examples of frontier firms driving innovation at scale. â¨PBRK424 Marketplace Success for Partnersâfrom SMB to Enterprise Learn how to build, publish, and monetize AI-powered solutions through Microsoft Marketplace. This session shares a proven approach to align your Marketplace strategy with your sales motion and unlock new revenue opportunities. PBRK272 Accelerate Secure AI: Microsoftâs Security Advantage for Partners Explore Microsoftâs integrated security solutions and learn how to help customers strengthen their defenses in the AI era. This session highlights partner opportunities, resources to grow your security practice, and what it takes to lead as a next-generation security partner. Customer Sessions: â¨Microsoft Marketplace: Your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agentsâ | STUDIO47 Hear from Cyril Belikoff, VP of Commercial Cloud & AI Marketing, sharing the reimagined Microsoft Marketplaceâthe gateway to thousands of AI-powered apps, agents and cloud solutionsâall built to accelerate innovation and drive business outcomes. Discover how customers benefit from faster deployment, seamless integration with Microsoft tools, and trusted solutions, and how partners can scale their reach, accelerate sales, and tap into Microsoftâs global ecosystem. Azure Accelerate in action: Confidently migrate, modernize, and build faster Join Cyril Belikoff for a rapid Q&A that spotlights real-world customer success and the transformative impact of Azure Accelerate. Hear how customers like Thomson Reuters achieved breakthrough results with our powerful offering that provides access to Microsoft experts and investments throughout your Azure and AI journey. â¨BRK213 Microsoft Marketplace: Your trusted source for cloud and AI solutions Discover how the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace is reshaping the future of cloud and AI innovation. In this session, weâll explore how Microsoft Marketplaceâunifying Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSourceâempowers organizations to become Frontier Firms by streamlining the discovery, purchase, and deployment of tens of thousands of cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents. â¨BRK215 Boost cloud and AI ROI using Microsoft Marketplace As organizations embrace an AI-first future, cloud adoption is accelerating to drive innovation and efficiency. This session explores practical strategies to optimize cloud investmentsâbalancing performance, scalability, and cost control. Learn how Microsoft Marketplace enables rapid solution deployment while maintaining governance, compliance, and budget discipline. Build a resilient, cost-effective cloud foundation that supports AI and beyond. Community Recap Partner of the Year Award Winners Congratulations to the winners and finalists of the 2025 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards in the Marketplace category! đ Explore all winners and finalists Fivetran earned the top honor as Marketplace Partner of the Year for its innovation in automating data movement on Microsoft Azure, enabling enterprises to accelerate AI and analytics initiatives. Varonis Systems Inc. and Bytes Software Services were recognized as finalists for delivering exceptional solutions and driving customer success through Marketplace. Whatâs Coming Up AI-powered acceleration: Scale faster in Microsoft Marketplace đ Thursday, December 04, 2025, at 9:00 AM PST Microsoft Marketplace is no longer just a procurement convenience; itâs a strategic revenue engine. Dive into operational readiness, CRM-native automation, seller engagement, trust signals, and AI-enabled acceleration. Whether you're just getting started or looking to optimize your Marketplace motion, this session will provide you with information that will turn your first sale into a repeatable growth engine. Scale smarter: Discover how resale enabled offers drive growth đ Friday, December 05, 2025, from 11:00 - 12:00 PM GTM+1 Discover how resale enabled offers help software development companies to scale through the Microsoft Marketplace by simplifying transactions, expanding reach and accelerating co-sell opportunities. Chart your AI app and agent strategy with Microsoft Marketplace đ Thursday, December 11, 2025, from 8:30 - 9:30 AM PST Organizations exploring AI apps and agents face a critical choice: build, buy, or blend. Thereâs no one-size-fits-allâeach approach offers unique benefits and trade-offs. Tune in for insights into the pros and cons of each approach and explore how the Microsoft Marketplace simplifies adoption by providing a single source for trusted AI apps, agents, and models. Office hours for partners: Marketplace resale-enabled offers đ Thursday, December 18, 2025, at 8:30 AM PST Tune in to explore resale enabled offers through Microsoft Marketplace. This recently announced capability enables software companies to expand into new markets globally, at scale, and without additional operational overhead. Dive deep into the workflow and requirements for these deals. Learn about reporting and best practices from those that are already selling globally with resale enabled offers. Microsoft Ignite will return to San Francisco next year đ November 17-20, 2026 Sign up now to join the Microsoft Ignite early-access list and be eligible to receive limitedâedition swag at the event. đŹ Share Your Feedback! We truly appreciate your feedback and want to ensure these Partner Digests 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, weâd love to hear from you in the comments below!How we talk about the value of Microsoft Marketplace with customers
At Microsoft Ignite 2025, we introduced the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace to our customers as your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents. This brief, 20-minute breakout session talked about how Marketplace is empowering organizations to become Frontier Firms by streamlining the discovery, purchase, and deployment of tens of thousands of partner solutions. You can watch the session on the Ignite site or on YouTube and read the synopsis below to see how our team pitches Marketplace to our shared customers. We encourage you to provide this and our other customer-focused session on cost optimization to your customers! They can watch a Marketplace demo and learn more at Microsoft.com/Marketplace. BRK213 Microsoft Marketplace: Your trusted source for cloud and AI solutions How Microsoft Marketplace empower the shift to AI-first Frontier Firms are leading the shift to AI-first. Microsoft Marketplace, as an extension of the Microsoft Cloud, is empowering this Frontier transformation by connecting our customers to our partner ecosystem. Marketplace is unique in that customers can discover and purchase solutions in our storefront, in Microsoft products, and through distributed marketplaces through channel partners. Marketplace offers the largest catalog of AI apps and agents in the industry (4,000+ and growing), including so many of the leading innovators in this category. Weâre seeing incredible momentum with customers adopting Marketplace: 2X+ sales growth again this year, 75% increase in average spend, and ~2X increase in AI solutions purchased. Microsoft Marketplace value AI apps and agents for every use case Marketplace allows you to choose thousands of AI apps and agents that match your scenario and stack, which simplifies deployment and decreases time-to-value. When you need to ground your AI solution, Marketplace has more than 11,000 models to choose from to ensure you get fast, relevant, and accurate context. You have confidence that solutions integrate natively so that employees can get what they need in the flow of work when using Microsoft products. Comprehensive catalog across cloud solutions and industries As organizations transition to becoming Frontier Firms, it fuels more cloud adoption. Marketplace has the most comprehensive catalog of solutions. Additionally, there are a host of business applications that meet exact needs in functions like HR, legal, and project management. You can access everything from Microsoft â a business partner you know and trust. Solutions come from vetted Microsoft partners which gives peace of mind with purchase. As tech buying responsibilities grow outside of IT, Marketplace keeps teams on the same page while allowing them to get what they need and supports try-before-you-buy scenarios with trials and POCs. Everything your organization buys through Marketplace is consolidated in a single view. Maximize investments with a consumption commitment A Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) commits your organization to a certain dollar amount of cloud spend. When you fulfill that commitment, it unlocks discounts on Azure infrastructure. Microsoft is unique in that we offer a 100% match on eligible solutions through Marketplace with no limit. Today, 85% of Microsoft customers with MACCs are buying through Marketplace. We have 3,800+ eligible solutions and that number grows every day. Integrated experience from discovery to deployment You can find and deploy solutions in our storefront but also in the Microsoft products you know and use every day -- agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, apps in Teams, models in Microsoft Foundry, a host of solutions in Azure portal, and more. Weâre continuing to build out capabilities that allow you to use AI for an even better Marketplace experience. For example, you can now get Marketplace recommendations using Copilot in Azure portal. As we look to make an AI-infused commerce platform, youâll continue to see improvements here. Empower your channel, get the benefits of Marketplace We aim to empower customers to buy how they want to buy, whether thatâs through us and our Marketplace or relying on the channel. If you procure technology through a channel partner, you can bring that partner to source Marketplace solutions on your behalf. One way to do that is through resale enabled offers, which allow partners to work together so software companies can defer the sales and integration of their products to their channel partners. This means your IT provider can better service you. We have several other channel-led Marketplace opportunities in our portfolio, and all a partner has to do is enroll.Ignite 2025: Drive the next era of software innovation with AI
Artificial intelligence is unlocking new possibilities and redefining whatâs achievable. Software companies, startups, ISVs and AI Natives are leading the charge, using AI to speed up delivery, scale effectively, and unlock new business potential. Microsoft empowers software companies to unlock growth through AI-driven innovation, empowers their developers to ship faster and scale through programs, incentive and Microsoft Marketplace. There is clear momentum in AI innovation, led by forward-thinking software companies. For instance, Microsoft Marketplace now offers 4,000+ AI Apps and Agentsâmore than any other marketplaceâas well as additional cloud solutions designed to help customers accelerate their innovation. Software company acceleration at Microsoft Ignite. This week at Ignite, Microsoft is empowering software companies across three key areas: 1. Unlock growth with AI Software companies can access a broad choice of models, tailor them to their use case, and create AI apps and agents that deliver outcomes while using responsible AI to protect data and reduce risk. New announcements: Unified tools catalog in Microsoft Foundry (Public preview) New Microsoft Foundry updates in preview will enable developers to enrich agents with real-time business context, multimodal capabilities and custom business logic through a unified Tools catalog of Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers built with security and governance in mind. The catalog includes Unified tool discovery, deep business integration, new tools for prebuilt AI services, and custom tool extensibility. Managed instance on Azure App Service (Public preview) Enables organizations to move web applications to the cloud with just a few configuration changes, saving the time and effort of rewriting code. Whether .NET web apps are running on-premises or in virtual machines, developers will be able to modernize them into a fully managed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environment and future-proof their infrastructure. The result is faster app modernization with lower overhead and access to cloud-native scalability, built-in security and Azureâs AI capabilities. Cohere joins Microsoft Foundryâs first-party model lineup (Public preview) Cohereâs leading language models (Command A, Embed 4 and Rerank) are now available directly from Azure, giving customers fast, secure, and compliant access without third-party dependencies. Delivered with Azure-native governance, observability, networking, and billing, Cohere on Azure enables organizations to build high-performance retrieval, classification, and generation workflows at enterprise scale. Introducing Anthropic's Claude models in Microsoft Foundry (Public preview) Microsoft and Anthropic are expanding their existing partnership to provide broader access to Claude for businesses. Customers of Microsoft Foundry will be able to access Anthropicâs frontier Claude models including Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Opus 4.1, and Claude Haiku 4.5. This partnership will make Claude the only frontier model available on all three of the worldâs most prominent cloud services. Azure customers will gain expanded choice in models and access to Claude-specific capabilities. 2. Accelerate development Ship faster with AI-assisted workflows, build across clouds and open-source stacks, and use databases that speed data access and analysis to quickly move from prototype to production. New announcements: Systems innovation (Private preview) Remote storage throughput of up to 20 GBps, up to 1 million remote storage IOPS and network bandwidth of up to 400 Gbps, enabling significant performance improvements for the latest Azure VM series. Azure Boost is a server subsystem designed by Microsoft consisting of purpose-built software and hardware that offloads server virtualization processes traditionally performed by the hypervisor and host OS. Various storage and network intensive workloads will benefit the most from these new performance specifications. Microsoft Defender for Cloud + GitHub Advanced Security (Preview) With Microsoft Defender for Cloud and GitHub Advanced Security, you can protect cloud-native applications across the full app lifecycle from code to cloud. This natively integrated solution helps connect software developers and security teams while staying in the tools they use every day; to prioritize the most critical risks exposed in production and fix these risks faster with AI-powered remediation. Azure HorizonDB PostgreSQL (Private preview) A new PostgreSQL cloud database service delivering high speed and elastic scalability for building or modernizing mission-critical applications. Integrated with Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Fabric, Visual Studio Code and more, Azure HorizonDB streamlines development. Modern authentication with Microsoft Entra ID and security features like Microsoft Defender and private endpoints support enterprise-grade protection. 3. Scale with confidence Turn innovation into revenue with Microsoft Marketplace by expanding your reach through the partner ecosystem, unlocking go-to-market benefits, and differentiating with offers that stand out. New announcements: Global release of Microsoft Marketplace (General availability) Microsoft Marketplace â your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents â is now globally available following its launch in the United States in September. All traffic from legacy storefronts (Azure Marketplace and AppSource) is now redirected to Marketplace.Microsoft.com. Featuring the industryâs largest catalog of AI apps and agents, Marketplace extends the Microsoft Cloud, helping customers accelerate their AI-first transformation with tens of thousands of vetted solutions from our partner ecosystem. These solutions integrate easily with Microsoft products, delivering faster time-to-value. Microsoft Agent 365 (Preview) Extend the existing infrastructure that you use for managing people to agents. Agent 365 equips your agents with the same apps and protections, tailored to agent needs, saving IT time and effort on integrating agents into business processes. It includes leading Microsoft security, productivity and collaboration solutions: Defender, Entra and Purview to protect and govern agents; Microsoft 365 productivity and collaboration apps and Semantic Index to accelerate their productivity; and Microsoft 365 admin center to manage agents. We're already seeing great examples from Devin, Genspark, Glean, Kasisto, Manus AI, n8n, ServiceNow, Workday, and more. Unified programs for software companies â App Accelerate (Public preview) Our Partner Program is focused on delivering more value for software companies, and weâve identified an opportunity to simplify the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (MAICPP) offers available to software companies today. We're announcing a new offering for software development companies, available in 2026âcombining incentives, benefits, and co-sell resources across existing offerings such as ISV Success, and Marketplace Rewardsâinto one streamlined pathway for partners. App Accelerate brings together ISV Success, Marketplace Rewards, and more into a single-entry point, creating a unified and simplified experience to help partners accelerate their growth through Microsoft Marketplace. Early access to co-sell benefits (Pilot) As part of our new unified offer, weâre creating an additional route for software companies to access co-sell benefits. This pathway is designed for partners who may not have reached the $100K milestone in Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS) or Azure Consumed Revenue (ACR) but demonstrate readiness in other critical areas. This early access option is nomination-based, with eligibility determined by criteria such as Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), customer traction, and pipeline strength. Resale enabled offers (General availability) Analysts estimate nearly 60% of cloud marketplace business will be channel-led by 2030. With a partner ecosystem of 500K+ âMicrosoft Marketplace is fully embracing the channel-led Marketplace opportunity with the general availability of resale enabled offers. Resale enabled offers enable software companies to empower channel partners to manage their Marketplace listings through a repeatable model designed for scale. This helps software companies break through to new markets without adding overhead while channel partners maintain their customer relationships while getting the added value of Marketplace. Sales of eligible solutions also count toward customersâ Azure consumption commitments, opening the door to larger, more strategic deals funded by pre-committed cloud budgetsâcreating stickier relationships and fueling growth. Featured Ignite sessions Whether you're attending Ignite in person or joining online, these sessions are designed to help software companies build smarter, scale faster, and unlock new growth opportunities. Tuesday, November 18 â 1:00pm PT Agents, apps, and acceleration: Helping software companies grow Explore the opportunity for AI apps and agents. Learn how to build experiences that matter and get best practices from other leading software companies. Wednesday, November 19 â 10:15am PT Benefits for accelerating software company success Discover resources available across the build, publish, and grow journey in MAICPP. Hear how peers are using AI investments and go-to-market benefits to grow. Wednesday, November 19 â 5:00pm PT Executing on the channel-led Marketplace opportunity for partners Discover practical strategies across diverse dealmaking scenarios to grow business and deepen Microsoft partnerships. Keep the momentum goingâexplore more Ignite sessions and activities created with software companies in mind. Letâs create the future together You are redefining whatâs possible with AI. Microsoft is here to help you create the future. Get started Get resources to help grow your software development company Use ISV Success to build faster with AI tools, services, and expert support Publish your solution and reach millions of customers on the Microsoft Marketplace Access App Advisor and get step-by-step guidance to build, publish, and sell your app or agent
