Lock in marketplace terms for up to five years with multiyear contract durations
Co-authored by Trevor_Yeats We’re excited to announce that the Microsoft marketplace now supports multiyear contract durations—enabling customers and partners to lock in terms and pricing for up to five years. New options include four and five-year terms for SaaS and Professional Services, and two, four, and five-year terms for Virtual Machine Software Reservations (VMSR). These contract durations are available globally across all marketplace-supported currencies. The value for your customers and for you With multiyear contract durations, customers can buy with confidence knowing they will have stability and continuity of service, making it easier to plan and forecast expenses and lock in substantial savings that often come with longer contracts. Partners benefit by supporting customers’ budget needs, strengthening customer relationships, reducing administrative burdens, and growing reliable revenue streams. “Our customers value five-year contracts for the stability and long-term value they provide. With multiyear contracts now available in Microsoft marketplace, we can better align with their operational timelines, reduce renewal cycles, and focus on building lasting relationships—while driving predictable revenue.” Sue Wilkinson, Global Director of Partners, IFS How it works To enable multiyear contract durations, software partners must take the following steps: Create a public offer with multiyear contract durations. Partners must ensure their public offers include extended contract terms before they can create private offers with those durations. Partners have two options: Update an existing public plan to support new options for extended durations (i.e., four and five-year options for SaaS offers and two, four, and five-year options for VMSR), or Create a new public plan that includes multiyear contract durations. Create private offers with multiyear contract durations. Once a public offer with multiyear contract durations is published, partners can configure private offers that leverage those durations. Notes: Existing customer agreements cannot be modified mid-term to extend contract length. Customers must cancel their current plan and purchase a new one that includes the desired extended duration. Multiyear contract durations for CSP offers will be enabled later this summer. Until then, partners can create new offers without opting to resell through CSP to take advantage of extended contract durations. Creating multiyear contracts with flexible billing schedules Partners can create private offers that combine multiyear contract durations with flexible billing options—like quarterly, semiannual, or bimonthly—making it easier to align with customer needs and streamline sales. “Microsoft’s recent launch of multiyear contracts and flexible billing has been a game changer, simplifying the buying process and enhancing the customer experience. We can now build private offers in the Microsoft marketplace in a more natural way that mirrors our contracts in the platform.” Sue Wilkinson, Global Director of Partners, IFS Learn more about flexible billing schedules and capturing the marketplace opportunity. Eligibility for multiyear contracts and how to get started Any company who is part of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program can sell on the marketplace with multiyear contract durations. Details are provided in our documentation, but at a high-level: Be a member of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program (it’s free to join) Sign the marketplace publisher agreement Publish your public offer with multiyear contract durations. Sell private offers with multiyear contract durations. In addition, we have many support resources for partners depending on where they are on their marketplace journey. For example, software development companies can join ISV Success, within the Partner Program, for tools and resources that help them publish their solution and maximize reach through the marketplace. Learn more by visiting: Microsoft commercial marketplace transact capabilities FAQs: https://aka.ms/multiyear-FAQs
Exploring Azure AI Agent Service: A developer's guide
The world of AI is evolving rapidly, and at a recent TechConnect at the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council, we explored the game-changing potential of Azure AI Agent Service. This session was packed with insights for AI developers, cloud solution architects, and technical decision-makers eager to push the boundaries of agentic AI. If you're looking to simplify development, deployment, and scaling of enterprise-grade AI agents, this service is a must-know. In this blog post, we’ll summarize key topics covered during the session and provide insights into how Azure AI Agent Service can streamline your AI development process. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, this is an exciting opportunity to learn how AI agents can autonomously execute business processes with minimal human intervention. Introduction to AI Agents The session kicked off by defining AI agents and their capabilities. Unlike traditional chatbots, AI agents are goal-driven and can autonomously execute business processes. They can reason over provided business logic, integrate with external data sources, and orchestrate actions to achieve specific goals. This marks a significant shift from simple conversational AI to intelligent, task-driven agents capable of decision-making and execution. Simplifying Development with Azure AI Agent Service Building AI agents traditionally involve working with frameworks like LangChain and Semantic Kernel and AutoGen which require developers to manage state, context, orchestration, and scaling. Azure AI Agent Service eliminates these complexities by offering a fully managed service with: Out-of-the-box tools for faster development Flexible model selection to fit diverse use cases Enterprise readiness with built-in security and scalability This means developers can focus on business logic rather than infrastructure concerns, accelerating the development cycle significantly. Function Calling and Code Interpreter Tools One of the standouts features of Azure AI Agent Service is function calling, which allows agents to interact with external systems by executing predefined functions. The session showcased how developers can: Define and use function calling to connect AI agents to other systems Utilize the code interpreter tool to enable AI agents to generate data visualizations and perform analysis These tools empower developers to create more dynamic and responsive AI agents that can process and present insights effectively. Extending Agent Knowledge with File Search AI agents are only as good as the information they can access. Azure AI Agent Service includes a file search tool that allows agents to tap into external data sources such as product catalogs, knowledge bases, or proprietary documents. This significantly enhances an agent’s ability to answer complex queries and perform in-depth analysis. Real-Time Information with Bing Search For scenarios that require real-time, up-to-date data, the Bing Search tool is a game-changer. The session demonstrated how this tool enables agents to fetch and analyze current web data for use cases like competitive analysis, market research, and trend monitoring. With seamless Bing Search integration, AI agents can stay relevant and informed in an ever-changing world. The training session wasn’t just about concepts, it was packed with practical demonstrations, live coding examples, and troubleshooting tips. You can watch the full session to help you: Understand the core capabilities of Azure AI Agent Service See live implementation of function calling, file search, and Bing Search tools Learn best practices for deploying scalable and secure AI agents Ready to Explore Further? Don’t miss out on the chance to deep-dive into agentic AI to enhance your AI development skills and streamline agent deployment. Check out the recording of the session to take your AI projects to the next level and unlock the full potential of Azure AI Agent Service! About the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council: The Azure AI Foundry Partner Council is a dynamic and collaborative initiative designed to foster innovation and drive advancements in artificial intelligence. This council brings together a diverse group of industry leaders, technology experts, and strategic partners who are committed to leveraging the power of Azure AI to solve complex business challenges. Through the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council, members are empowered to push the boundaries of what is possible with AI, ultimately driving progress and delivering value to their organizations and customers. Call to Action Learn more about how Azure AI Agent Service: Revolutionizing AI Agent Development and Deployment Start trying Azure AI Agent services in Azure AI Foundry or Start building with the SDK documentation Dive deep into enterprise knowledge extensibility in Azure AI Agent Service Learn how to design, customize and manage AI applications with Azure AI Foundry Learn how to empower data-driven decision making with Microsoft Fabric Watch this recorded breakout session from Ignite 2024 to learn more about how companies are automating key business processes with Azure AI Agent Service Watch this live demo at Ignite 2024 to learn how customers are going beyond chat-based interactions Nominate to join the Azure AI Foundry Council via aipartnerteam@microsoft.comUnlocking the power of co-sell: what to expect in the upcoming webinar series with Rubrik and Tackle
For ISVs, partnering with cloud providers is a powerful growth engine, opening doors to new customers, expanding market reach, and driving revenue. Co-selling is a key lever in this partnership, enabling ISVs to align with cloud providers like Microsoft to accelerate growth, strengthen relationships, and close larger deals. However, developing a successful co-sell practice doesn’t just happen overnight—it requires strategic alignment, scalable resources, and a deep understanding of partner incentives. To help you navigate this journey, Rubrik and Tackle are teaming up for a two-part webinar series designed to help you build, operationalize, and scale a strong co-sell strategy with Microsoft. In these sessions, you’ll learn how to: Develop a scalable co-sell strategy aligned with Microsoft’s goals Streamline your co-sell motion with workflows, CRM alignment, and deal-sharing strategies Strengthen relationships with Microsoft sellers and aligning with Azure’s consumption goals Led by Rubrik Head of Global Cloud Alliances Jasmine Kronk and Tackle’s co-sell experts, this webinar series will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to co-sell with confidence. Here’s a preview of what you’ll learn in each session: Session 1: Building a Winning Strategy to Accelerate Growth with Microsoft Date: February 24, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To successfully co-sell with Microsoft, ISVs need a clear strategy that aligns with Microsoft’s priorities, streamlines collaboration, and maximizes growth opportunities. In this session, experts will share key insights on how to operationalize co-sell, build strategic relationships, and leverage marketplace to accelerate revenue. Here are the top takeaways from this session to help you build a winning a winning co-sell strategy: Use Co-Sell as a strategic GTM motion. Co-selling with Microsoft is not just a checkbox activity; it's a fundamental go-to-market (GTM) strategy that can drive growth, increase deal sizes, and accelerate sales cycles. ISV should leverage co-sell partnerships to shorten sales cycles and close larger deals. Understand the value proposition. To succeed in the Microsoft ecosystem, ISVs must clearly define their unique value proposition. Aligning your solution with Microsoft’s priorities, like driving Azure consumption, creates mutual benefits and strengthens co-sell opportunities. Operationalize co-sell for scale. Streamlining internal processes is key to scaling co-sell efforts. This includes integrating CRM systems, defining deal-sharing criteria, and maintaining a structured approach to pipeline management. Regularly sharing deal updates, tracking performance metrics, and ensuring cross-team alignment helps optimize efficiency and collaboration. Measuring key indicators, such as deals won and revenue impact, ensures ongoing success. Build relationships with Microsoft stakeholders. Establishing a network of advocates within Microsoft is critical for driving future co-sell opportunities. By building trust and understanding, you can create an environment where Microsoft reps actively refer and promote your solutions to customers, ultimately generating more leads and sales. Leverage marketplace as a growth engine – Combining co-sell efforts with marketplace sales streamlines procurement for customers, improves accessibility, and accelerates revenue generation. Session 2: How to Operationalize and Scale Your Co-Sell Motion with Microsoft Date: February 26, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To scale their co-sell motion, ISVs need a structured approach that integrates co-selling into their overall GTM strategy, fosters alignment with Microsoft stakeholders, and prioritizes high-impact opportunities. In our second session, we share key strategies for operationalizing co-sell, from creating scalable resources to building cross-functional support. Here are the top takeaways to help you drive repeatable success and accelerate growth: Co-sell as a strategic element: Co-selling should be treated as a fundamental part of your go-to-market strategy, not just a one-off tactic. It’s about embedding co-sell into your broader sales approach to drive sustained growth. A strategic co-sell motion can accelerate sales cycles, increase deal sizes, and create longer-term partnerships. By making co-sell a core component of your GTM plan, you ensure it aligns with your broader business objectives and supports scalable growth over time. Align product-market fit: For co-sell success, your product must seamlessly integrate within your partner’s ecosystem and address critical customer pain points. It’s not just about having a solution that works technically, but one that directly ties into your partner's goals and creates clear value for the customer. This ensures both parties can demonstrate the solution’s unique value, which not only drives immediate sales but fosters repeatable success and strengthens your co-sell partnership. Understand mutual incentives: Co-selling is most effective when both parties benefit. To maximize this, you need to understand your partner’s motivations—whether that’s driving Azure consumption, hitting specific adoption targets, or achieving quota goals. By aligning your co-sell strategy with these priorities, you create a win-win dynamic that fosters stronger collaboration and accelerates the deal process. Recognizing and addressing your partner’s evolving incentives ensures that both sides remain motivated to drive deals forward. Create scalable co-sell resources: To sustain and scale co-selling efforts, it’s critical to build reusable resources and processes. This includes developing playbooks, one-pagers, email templates, and other assets that can be quickly deployed across teams and regions. With these resources, sales teams spend less time creating new materials and more time engaging meaningfully with partners. Scalable resources streamline operations, maintain consistency, and support seamless collaboration, which ultimately drives more efficient and impactful co-selling motions. Prioritize high-value accounts: Rather than spreading your co-sell efforts across a broad spectrum of clients, it’s more effective to focus on high-value accounts. Start by identifying where your ideal customer profiles overlap with your partner’s customer base, and build upon these existing synergies. This focused approach allows you to dedicate time and resources to deals with the highest potential for revenue growth. It reduces wasted effort on low-impact accounts and increases your chances of closing more significant, higher-value deals with your partner. Join us to master co-selling Whether you’re just getting started with co-sell or you’re looking to optimize existing efforts, these sessions will provide actionable insights you can immediately apply to your strategy. Register now to secure your spot and take your co-sell strategy to the next level!Growing on the marketplace through Azure sponsorship and multiparty private offers
In this installment, I had the opportunity to chat with Ben Goodman about Silverfort’s journey and their partner success story. About Ben: Ben Goodman - Head of Alliances and Corporate Development, has over 25 years of sales, design, and implementation of advanced information technology. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ [JR]: Tell us about Silverfort. What inspired the founding? What products and services do you offer? [BG]: Silverfort, established in 2016 by cybersecurity experts Hed Kovetz, Yaron Kassner, and Matan Fattal—alumni of the Israeli Defense Forces' elite Unit 8200—addresses a vital gap in identity security. Drawing from their extensive experience, they recognized that traditional Identity and Access Management (IAM) tools are insufficient in protecting against identity-based threats across diverse environments. This realization led to the development of Silverfort’s Unified Identity Protection platform, which ensures secure authentication for all users, resources, and protocols across both on-premises and multi-cloud environments. The platform extends modern identity security controls, like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), to previously unprotected assets such as legacy applications, file shares, non-human identities, and industrial/medical systems. Its innovative technology layers identity protection over existing authentication protocols without modifying or installing anything on these systems. Silverfort consolidates identity security across siloed cloud and on-premises solutions, delivering consistent protection and preventing attacks leveraging compromised credentials—responsible for 82% of data breaches. Additionally, it helps organizations meet regulatory and cyber insurance requirements, making it an essential solution for businesses worldwide. [JR]: Can you tell us a bit about the application(s) you have available on the marketplace? How does it work? [BG]: The Silverfort Unified Identity Protection Platform enables enterprises to gain real-time protection against identity-based attacks that utilize compromised credentials to access enterprise on-prem or cloud resources without requiring any agents or proxies. It is integrated with Defender, Copilot for Security, Entra ID, Sentinel and Teams and natively integrates with all existing IAM solutions, to extend secure access controls such as Risk-Based Authentication and MFA across all on-prem and cloud environments. This includes assets that could never have been protected in this manner before, such as homegrown/legacy applications, IT infrastructure, file systems, command-line tools, machine-to-machine access, and more. Silverfort continuously monitors all access attempts by users and service accounts, and analyses risks in real-time using an AI-based engine to enforce adaptive access policies. [JR]: How has Microsoft supported you along your journey? [BG]: Silverfort has been involved with several Microsoft programs like ISV Success, Marketplace Rewards, Microsoft for Start-Ups Pegasus Program, and MISA, which have all played a part in our journey thus far. As an active partner in the Microsoft co-sell Program, Microsoft's partnership has been immensely helpful and continues to play a key role in our company's success. From working together to producing enterprise joint customers, to providing constructive feedback on our product, we are thrilled with the ongoing support we have received in the co-Sell program. Silverfort is also part of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Alliance (MISA), which has allowed the company to gain visibility with customers as well as within Microsoft. By being part of MISA, Silverfort is participating in events and ‘go-to-market' activities together with Microsoft. [JR]: How does your organization align its business to enable positive impact for your customers and communities? [BG]: Silverfort is a horizontal solution that applies to many industries and verticals. Our focused industries are Manufacturing, Telecom, Healthcare, Financial Services, Local Government, Oil & Gas. Silverfort is dedicated to promoting effective identity security across diverse verticals, ensuring that organizations of all sizes can protect their environments from identity-based attacks. Our platform provides comprehensive security solutions that address the unique needs of each industry, helping customers to strengthen their overall security posture. By securing sensitive systems and identities, Silverfort enables businesses to operate securely and confidently in today's complex identity threat landscape, allowing them to build trust and resilience across their ecosystems. [JR]: What are you most proud of in your journey building/leading your organization? What’s next for you? [BG]: We take immense pride in several key achievements throughout our journey. We are particularly proud of developing an innovative platform that unifies identity protection, addressing critical security gaps across diverse systems and environments to combat identity-based threats. Another source of pride is the collaborative and positive company culture that we have built across our company. Inspired by our CEO's experiences living on a kibbutz, Silverfort's DNA emphasizes teamwork, transparency, and mutual support among employees. Additionally, we take great satisfaction in establishing Silverfort as a leader in the identity security market, providing seamless and effective protection for businesses across various industries. Looking to the future, we plan to focus on enhancing our existing products and expanding the platform’s capabilities to provide comprehensive and end-to-end identity security. [JR]: What Microsoft programs or benefits have you leveraged to help grow sales of your application(s) on the marketplace? [BG]: The Azure Sponsorship credits available through Marketplace Rewards has enabled us to secure large deals by helping customers make purchases through the Azure Marketplace and apply the credits as a rebate toward their Silverfort purchase. [JR]: Channel Partners (e.g VAR’s) are an important part of the ecosystem - how have you used Microsoft programs or benefits to unlock opportunities with Channel Partners and grow Marketplace sales at the same time? [BG]: The combination of Azure sponsorship and MPO (multiparty private offers) has allowed us to collaborate with channel partners and agree to move transactions for their deals to transact via the marketplace. We can use Azure sponsorship offers to minimize margin erosion when coming to the pointy end of negotiations with the end-customers procurement teams. Where MPO isn’t available in countries, especially across APAC, Silverfort has come up with an interim mechanism to recompense Channel Partners for their margin for deals that are done directly in the marketplace. We look forward to Microsoft accelerating the rollout of the MPO program more broadly so that it becomes easier to work with channel partners to unlock new opportunities and land bigger sales via the marketplace. [JR]: What has contributed to your marketplace success? [BG]: Microsoft’s monthly P2B (propensity to buy) rating has allowed us to leverage customer’s MACC agreements to position the purchase of Silverfort. The individual guest tech blog has allowed us to showcase Silverfort and where we fit into the industry and how we help customers to have a more secure environment. The Azure Marketplace feature & Solution spotlight has increased the awareness of Silverfort as a whole. [JR]: Azure sponsorship credits can be earned via participation in ISV Success and/or Marketplace Rewards. These credits can be used in a variety of ways such as being used as a deal sweetener to help close more deals with customers. How have you used these credits? [BG]: We have a strategic initiative using Azure credits to close large deals through the marketplace. They have helped us close some of our biggest deals of the year. We have our sellers tell the end-customer (or the channel partner as the case may be), that we are offering the end-customer 10% of the ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) as a rebate for them to buy through the Azure Marketplace, instead of buying direct or through a VAR alone. We encourage using multiparty private offers or just a straight Azure Marketplace purchase - then once the deal gets closed, we issue the 10% Azure credits to the customer (up to $100K). [JR]: Cloud marketplaces are increasingly relying on resellers - with this in mind how do Azure sponsorship credits play a part in your Channel Partner ecosystem? [BG]: We collaborate with channel partners (e.g. VAR’s) on the opportunities they bring us to position transacting via the Marketplace under MPO. Where MPO isn’t available, we also discuss an interim mechanism we have to recompense the channel partner for their margin if the deal is transacted via Marketplace. This interim approach, until MPO becomes available in that country, is especially important to use in countries that are strong channel partner-centric environments While both the above points empower Silverfort, Microsoft, and channel partners to continue sell collaboratively, and so that channel partners are not cut out the loop - the Azure sponsorship credits are a useful a mechanism to help incentivize a channel partner to look at the transacting the deal via the marketplace (with or without MPO). It allows us to jointly agree on positioning and using the Azure credits as a bargaining chip in deal-making negotiations with end-customers procurement, to minimize margin erosion – thereby helping Silverfort, Microsoft, and channel partners to unlock new opportunities and land bigger sales, and for them to be done via the marketplace. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Join the marketplace community today! Just click "join" on the upper right corner of our marketplace community page. You can also subscribe to the community to stay updated on the latest stories of how these inspiring leaders carved their career paths, what lessons they learned along the way, and more. Resources: Join ISV Success Join the marketplace community Learn more about Marketplace RewardsExpand your business with ISV to CSP private offers in the marketplace
The insights shared in this webinar ("ISV to CSP private offers - experience walkthrough") shed light on how these resources can significantly contribute to growing your sales with the partnerships between ISVs and partners in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program through the commercial marketplace. According to recent research from Canalys, software sales through hyperscaler cloud marketplaces are predicted to reach US$85 billion by 2028 Most importantly, channel partners are playing an increasingly important role, and Canalys expects more than 50% of marketplace sales to flow through the channel. Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and CSP partners have a unique opportunity to collaborate and unlock the potential to sell to small and mid-sized customers. For ISVs, by partnering with the CSP partners, ISVs can scale effectively to sell and reach customers and reach new markets globally based on the CSP partners customer- base. For CSP partners, you can expand your portfolio instantly leveraging our comprehensive marketplace catalog and meet your customers’ needs in an agile way by packaging your solutions and services across the Microsoft first party solutions and the ISV solutions through our marketplace. ISV to CSP private offers empower ISVs the ability to scale and unlock repeatable revenue opportunities with partners in the CSP program via the marketplace. ISVs can collaborate with CSP partners and effectively share margins using CSP private offers through the marketplace. Using ISV to CSP private offers, ISVs can specify the margin and duration to create a wholesale price for your partners enrolled in the Microsoft CSP program as Direct Bill partners or Indirect Providers. When your CSP partner makes a sale to a customer, Microsoft makes its payments to you off the wholesale price after applying the standard commercial marketplace agency fee. As a CSP partner, you can discover all the margins available to you via Partner Center portal or API. For any sales you make through the marketplace, you receive your bill from Microsoft. You can continue to set your customer price and invoice your customer outside of the marketplace. Please see an example flow below and learn more about the CSP partner experience with private offers at Discover margins configured by ISVs. Any partner who meets the following criteria can participate in partner-to-partner selling through our marketplace using CSP private offers. ISV CSP Required Enrolled in the Microsoft commercial marketplace Must have a transactable offer with public plan(s) available to participate in ISV to CSP private offers. (no free/contact me, BYOL, on-prem, HW or professional services offers) Have target CSP partners to sell with Direct Bill or Indirect Provider partners in the CSP program Ability to manage customer pricing, billing, etc., which needs to be handled by the CSP partner outside of the Microsoft commercial marketplace Manage target customer(s)’ Azure Plan and CSP subscription(s) Have target ISVs to sell with and willing to share margins Optional The publicly transactable offers can be opted into CSP to be resold to all or specific CSP partners To get started, ISVs and CSP partners can follow these best practices: define your strategy, identify target partners and offers, develop compelling go-to-market plans, engage with target partners, and continuously monitor and optimize your performance. By doing so, you can effectively scale your business and achieve success in the marketplace. ISV CSP Define strategy and identify target partners/offers Define your channel strategy via marketplace: Transactable public offers Target customers and partners Channel sales GTM and margin strategy Define your marketplace strategy and target ISVs and offers Connect with target ISVs and align on GTM plan, support, etc. Define seller enablement strategy Understand how ISVs selling with CSPs in the marketplace works Reseller your offers though CSP partners Marketplace Insights reporting Payout schedule Understand CSP marketplace overview Get ready for operational process Enable ISV to CSP private offers process and start to sell with margin sharing ISV extends margins to CSP partners using ISV to CSP private offers CSP partners can receive margins from ISVs through the ISV to CSP private offers For the CSP partners, our approach is to provide a consistent experience across Microsoft 1st party solutions and marketplace 3rd party solutions from ISVs, helping simplify your operational processes. CSP partners can leverage APIs or the Partner Center and Azure portal user experiences to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. Each option comes with its own set of benefits and considerations, enabling CSPs to choose the approach that best aligns with their business model, providing flexibility. To access the recent webinar on this topic, please visit this link. For more information or to learn about additional webinars, please visit aka.ms/CSPPO, aka.ms/CSPPO_FAQ, and aka.ms/masteringthemarketplace .Pexip’s success tip: lead with marketplace-first sales
One company’s advice for how ISVs can find success through the Microsoft commercial marketplace: Lead with it! That’s what Anders Løkke, VP Product Marketing & Strategy at Pexip, shared during a recent interview at Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago. Pexip, a Norway-based video technology company, was recognized as one of the marketplace Partner of the Year Award finalists in 2024 for their marketplace adoption. In the Microsoft Ignite interview, Anders talked about how Pexip has found success by leading with marketplace-first sales and engaging with customers early in the sales cycle about the benefits of buying through the marketplace. “I would give advice to other partners wanting to get into it: start by leading with marketplace,” he said. “Don’t bring it in in the late end of a sale. Lead with the marketplace transactional capabilities and possibilities because it will benefit both you and the customer.” Anders, who is a marketplace community member, also talked about marketplace as a “strategic move” for Pexip that allows them to reach customers where they are. “It’s more about being able to serve the customer where the customer wants to buy. As I said, their procurement behavior changes, and we see [the marketplace] greatly reduces the cost of procurement, it simplifies their vendor management, asset management, everything,” he said. Because of the marketplace, Pexip can sell to customers where they don’t have a presence. Their offers are also Azure benefit eligible, so customers with Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACCs) can use those commitments towards Pexip solutions and maximize discounts on their Azure infrastructure. Hear more of Pexip's story in the full interview available on the Microsoft Ignite website or on YouTube. Find Pexip’s solutions on Azure Marketplace. Learn about the benefits of marketplace for ISVs. More about Anders from his Microsoft Ignite speaker biography: "Anders, Vice President of Product Marketing and Strategy at Pexip, holds over 25 years of experience in the IT and AV industries. He has been leading Pexip’s Microsoft alliance GTM efforts for over eight years, collaborating closely with Microsoft at both field and corporate levels. Additionally, for more than five years, Anders has spearheaded the initiative to enable Pexip’s digital B2B sales strategy, facilitating the company’s sales through the Azure Commercial Marketplace. Pexip is recognized as a top-tier ISV partner and was a finalist in the 2024 Global Partner of the Year awards in the Commercial Marketplace category."Activating channel opportunities through the Microsoft commercial marketplace
Microsoft commercial marketplace supports partners in addressing customers’ cloud needs through various deal-making scenarios. In the Ignite session titled “Activating the Channel Opportunity Through the Marketplace,” Alison Buggia, Principal Product Manager at Microsoft; Jason Rook, Senior Director of Product Marketing for the Commercial Marketplace at Microsoft; and Rob Phillips, Senior Director of Microsoft Sales at Presidio, explore how to activate the ecosystem with partner-to-partner selling opportunities. They share valuable insights into leveraging the Microsoft commercial marketplace to drive business growth. Key Points: Microsoft commercial marketplace is experiencing significant growth, with over 100% year-over-year growth in marketplace-billed sales, a 43% growth in the number of ISV solutions that are IP co-sell eligible, and 110% growth in customer cloud commitment spend. This indicates a robust and expanding platform that offers substantial opportunities for partners. There are three primary ways to unlock this growth and sell through private offers: CSP private offers, multiparty private offers, and professional services private offers. Each of these offers unique benefits and can be tailored to different business models and customer needs. Benefits: CSP Private Offers: CSP Private offers allow channel selling at scale. They help partners unlock scale, maintain customer billing relationships, and provide comprehensive solutions. This allows ISVs to work with partners in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program and resell their products through them to reach more customers. It also allows Cloud Solution Provider partners to leverage partnerships with ISVs and continue to serve customers through the Microsoft commercial marketplace. This is particularly beneficial for reaching a global customer base and leveraging existing partnerships. Multiparty Private Offers: Available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, multiparty private offers help partners leverage cloud commitments and maintain customer relationships, leading to larger deals. This is a significant opportunity for partners to access pre-committed cloud budgets and drive substantial sales. Professional Services Private Offers: Available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, selling professional services through the Microsoft commercial marketplace creates new selling opportunities, simplifies invoicing and payment for customers, and enables partners to offer complete solutions on a single platform. This streamlines the sales process and enhances customer satisfaction by providing a more seamless procurement experience. Marketplace Rewards Program: This program offers benefits like Azure Sponsorship, press release support, and customer case studies to help partners grow their marketplace business. These incentives can significantly boost your marketing efforts and enhance your visibility in the marketplace. Opportunities for Growth: The rapid growth of the marketplace presents a significant opportunity for partners to expand their customer base and increase sales. By leveraging private offers, you can reach more customers and simplify the sales process. Multiparty private offers provide a substantial growth opportunity by allowing partners to harness the entire power of the Microsoft ecosystem and drive larger deals. This can lead to increased revenue and stronger customer relationships. The Marketplace Rewards program provides additional incentives and support to help partners grow their business and achieve success. By participating in this program, you can access valuable resources and support to enhance your marketplace presence and drive sales. Actionable Steps for ISVs: Enroll in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program: This is the first step to becoming eligible for private offers and accessing the benefits of the marketplace. https://aka.ms/MAICPP Get Transactable: Publish an app that is transactable in the marketplace and complete the necessary steps in Partner Center. This will enable you to start selling through the marketplace and leverage the benefits of private offers. https://aka.ms/ISVSuccess Focus on Azure IP Co-Sell Incentivized Status: Achieving this status will unlock co-sell opportunities and allow you to leverage cloud commitments. Co-sell requirements - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn Educate and Equip Your Sales Teams and Your Channel Partners: Ensure your sales teams understand the benefits of the marketplace and how to promote it to customers. This will help drive sales and increase customer engagement. https://aka.ms/PartnerMPOCampaign Leverage Marketplace Rewards: Take advantage of the benefits offered by the Marketplace Rewards program to enhance your marketing efforts and grow your business. Manage marketplace rewards - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn Actionable Steps for Channel Partners: Enroll in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program: This is the first step to becoming eligible for private offers and accessing the benefits of the marketplace. https://aka.ms/MAICPP Enroll in Commercial Marketplace and Multiparty Private Offers: Channel partners must enroll in Microsoft commercial marketplace then complete a tax and payment profile in Microsoft Partner Center. Need help? contact channelready@microsoft.com https://aka.ms/MPO-channel-partner-onboarding Leverage Marketplace Rewards: Take advantage of the benefits offered by the Marketplace Rewards program to enhance your marketing efforts and grow your business. https://aka.ms/MarketplaceRewardsforChannelPartners Leveraging the growth opportunities presented in the Microsoft commercial marketplace, you can accelerate growth for your business and achieve success in the digital marketplace. You can watch the full Ignite session, “Activating the Channel Opportunity Through the Marketplace,” and learn more about driving growth through the marketplace.
5 Key Takeaways from the Marketplace Summit UK: Maximizing Marketplace Success
The Marketplace Summit UK, #MarketplaceSummitUK, brought together over 350+ Microsoft partners, including ISVs, system integrators, and channel partners, to explore and capitalize on the rapidly growing opportunities within the Microsoft commercial marketplace. Here are 5 takeaways from the keynote which shared marketplace opportunities and insights from Jason Rook- Senior Director, lead for channels sales for the marketplace, Andy Whyte- CEO, MEDDIC, Nick Ross- UK&I Channel leader, Wiz, and Amit Sinha- President and Co-Founder, WorkSpan.
