Microsoft Ignite 2025 AI announcements: What software developers need to know
Igniting what’s next: What software development companies need to know about Microsoft’s AI announcements at Ignite 2025 The AI landscape took a major leap forward at Microsoft Ignite 2025, and for software development companies and digital natives, the announcements represent a massive opportunity: faster innovation, simplified agent development, access to enterprise‑ready AI platforms, and a dramatically expanded ecosystem to build on. This year, Microsoft introduced the era of agentic AI—and software companies are at the center of this shift. Ignite 2025 formally unveiled Microsoft Foundry, our unified platform for building, governing, and scaling intelligent agents. From new agent runtimes to multi‑agent orchestration, enterprise‑grade knowledge access, and one‑click publishing to Microsoft 365, the momentum creates one clear signal: 💡 AI assistants are becoming intelligent agents—and Foundry is the platform software companies will use to build them. Why Microsoft Ignite 2025 mattered for software companies Across every session, Microsoft doubled down on helping partners accelerate time‑to‑market with agentic AI solutions. Whether you’re building vertical apps, automation copilots, knowledge systems, or developer tools, the new capabilities in Foundry eliminate much of the heavy lifting associated with retrieval, orchestration, compliance, hosting, and model selection. Key themes this year from Azure AI: Unified agent platform across all Microsoft clouds Framework‑agnostic development (bring your own models, tools, or frameworks) Enterprise‑grade governance built into the lifecycle Open ecosystem and interoperability using MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Seamless distribution through Microsoft 365 and Teams Let’s break down what’s new—and what it means for your product strategy. Top announcements for software companies at Ignite 2025 Microsoft Foundry: A unified brand for AI agent development Azure AI Foundry is now Microsoft Foundry—a consolidated platform for building, deploying, and managing intelligent agents. For software companies, this means: One consistent developer experience Shared governance and compliance across products A more integrated ecosystem for publishing and distributing agentic solutions This rebrand isn’t cosmetic—it reflects Microsoft’s strategic shift to deliver a platform built explicitly for the next generation of AI agents. Introducing Foundry IQ: Your enterprise knowledge engine One of the most exciting announcements is Foundry IQ, a new engine that gives agents instant access to enterprise data from SharePoint, OneLake, ADLS, and the web, all governed by Purview. For software companies, this unlocks: Reliable, production‑grade knowledge retrieval without building RAG pipelines Consistent compliance and security models Faster customer onboarding with fewer integration gaps Foundry IQ is a game‑changer for teams who have spent months building retrieval layers or maintaining custom RAG components. Foundry Control Plane: Unified governance for all agents Now in public preview, the Foundry Control Plane enables teams to manage agents across frameworks, clouds, and environments. Highlights: Unified visibility and observability Built‑in security & compliance (Defender, Purview) Fleet‑wide monitoring for cost, health, and risk For software companies offering multi‑tenant solutions or operating in regulated industries, this dramatically simplifies the operational burden of managing AI agents. Agent Framework (public preview): SK + AutoGen, Unified The Microsoft Agent Framework, now in public preview, merges the strengths of Semantic Kernel and AutoGen into a single SDK for building durable, interoperable agents. Software companies gain: A consistent programming model Durable memory Strong interoperability with MCP, A2A, OpenAPI Framework‑agnostic design This is the developer foundation for future AI applications built on Microsoft clouds. Hosted Agents: Enterprise‑grade runtime, no infrastructure needed With Hosted Agents, teams can deploy custom‑code agents directly into a fully managed runtime—no containers, pipelines, or infra setup. What this enables for software companies: Faster deployment cycles Secure, autoscaling environments Simple onboarding for customer‑specific agents Observability and monitoring built in This drastically reduces the operational overhead many software companies face today. Multi‑agent workflows & connected intelligence Ignite 2025 introduced major advancements in multi‑agent orchestration: Built‑in memory across sessions A catalog of 1,000+ Microsoft & partner tools (with private catalogs for software companies) Visual and programmatic orchestration tools Enterprise‑ready coordination for long‑running workflows Foundry IQ for instant knowledge access This allows software companies to design more autonomous, intelligent, and interconnected systems—moving beyond assistants toward true digital workers. Model Router GA + Anthropic partnership expansion There are two major updates for model flexibility: Model Router GA Now supporting 11,000+ models, the router helps developers intelligently choose the best model for each task, optimizing both cost and performance. Anthropic Claude models in Foundry Claude Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.1, and Haiku 4.5 are now integrated into Microsoft Foundry through an expanded partnership with Anthropic. This gives software companies more choice, capability, and model‑agnostic development paths. One‑click publishing to Microsoft 365 & Teams One of the biggest wins for software companies: Agents built in Foundry can now be published to Microsoft 365 and Teams Chat with one click. This means: Access to hundreds of millions of users Unified governance through Microsoft Admin Center Seamless integration with Copilot experiences For software companies, this is a massive new distribution channel. Why this matters for software development companies Ignite 2025 didn’t just introduce new products—it signaled a platform shift. software companies now have: A full-stack platform for agentic applications - From data access to orchestration, hosting, deployment, and compliance. A unified runtime and SDK - Reducing fragmentation and speeding up development cycles. Enterprise reach through Microsoft 365 - Making your agents as discoverable as apps. A rapidly expanding ecosystem - More models, more tools, more integration points. If you’re building AI-powered products, this is your moment. Get hands-on: Sessions & resources for software companies Here are links to top Ignite sessions to dive deeper. Build & Manage AI Apps with Your Agent Factory AI Agents in Azure AI Foundry: Ship Fast, Scale Fearlessly AI‑Powered Automation & Multi‑Agent Orchestration Agent Developer Guide for Foundry Agent Service The Future of RAG with Agentic Retrieval & AI Search What’s next: December Foundry Council Session Join us on Dec 18 for the Ignite Recap session through the Foundry Partner Council. It’s the best opportunity for software companies to: Get deeper into the new capabilities Share partner/DN feedback Join focus groups For more information about the December 18 session, contact foundrycouncil@microsoft.com or visit aka.ms/foundrycouncilNew in App Advisor: Guidance for resale enabled offers (REO)
The latest enhancement to App Advisor introduces guidance for resale enabled offers (REO), helping you understand where reseller-led distribution aligns with your offer strategy. Want to see if REO fits into your sales strategy for 2026? If you're just getting started with REO, you can learn how to: Assess REO as a new sales tool with other negotiated deals in App Advisor Prepare your offer and organization for reseller participation Follow improved, set-up REO steps in Partner Center Scale into new markets with less effort 👉 Go here to read our blog post on how to accelerate your sales growth with resale enabled offers (REO) through guidance in App Advisor.Accelerate your sales growth with resale enabled offers (REO) through guidance in App Advisor
Why start with App Advisor? If you’re looking to expand your sales reach quickly and efficiently, App Advisor helps clarify your options. It provides tailored guidance to help you understand resale enabled offers (REO) and determine whether this pathway to near global scale is right for your marketplace strategy. Microsoft Marketplace offers several ways to grow through partners, and choosing the right one can feel complex. App Advisor simplifies the decision, giving you clear, scenario‑based guidance on REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), multi‑party offers (MPO), and customer private offers, so you can confidently pick the model that aligns with your goals. Grow globally with resale enabled offers Resale enabled offers (REO) open the channel-led marketplace opportunity for near-global scale. Many software companies like you rely on channel partnerships for the sales and implementation of their solution. With this feature, you can enable your channel partner(s) to sell on your behalf, creating a simplified pathway for recurring revenue and growth. For the channel, this helps unlock pre-committed cloud budget in new markets while also helping cut down implementation times as solutions are pre-configured to deploy on Azure. If you’ve been looking for a clearer, faster path to a channel-led sales motion, REO provides the structure and automation to help you grow. ough channels only continues to grow. Why resale enabled offers matter REO changes the way you can sell. It gives you a repeatable resale model inside Microsoft Marketplace to help you break through to new markets without adding overhead while channel partners maintain their customer relationships while getting the added value of Marketplace. The result is a simplified path to recurring revenue: one that aligns offer owners, channel partners, and customers around a more efficient transaction flow. The benefits of REO Resale enabled offers can help grow your bottom line with ease: Authorization to resell is nearly instantaneous, Your reach grows to match your reseller’s markets, Channel partners take on more of the sales execution, You only enable resale once. No repeated setup or engineering work required, Both you and your channel partner earn full Marketplace Billed Sales (MBS) credit, enabling you to maximize Marketplace Rewards benefits. These advantages make REO a strategic lever for you to move toward a broader channel-led distribution model while helping you stay agile, expanding your reach, and avoiding adding extra overhead. How resale enabled offers work You can offer a REO on any SaaS or Azure Virtual Machine (VM) offer. The REO experience is designed to be simple, structured, and predictable for both the offer owner and the reseller. You, as the offer owner, come to an agreement with a channel partner to sell your offer. You authorize this sale in Partner Center (once) and then your channel partner is empowered to sell your offer, either as a customer private offer or as a multi-party offer (MPO). With this additional way to sell, you’ll be able to scale without worrying about hiring more salespeople. Other ways to sell at scale With many great ways to sell through negotiated deals or channel partners within Microsoft Marketplace, it can sometimes be challenging to choose. If you’re not sure which options are right for your marketplace offers, App Advisor can help you choose. To discover the benefits of REO, Cloud Solution Provider (CSP), MPO, and customer private offers, and when to use which, see how to grow with negotiated deals and channel partners here. Ready to unlock channel-led scale? Resale enabled offers can create a faster, more predictable path for software companies that want to expand with ease through channel partners. With simplified resale authorization, broader reach, and shared sales credit, REO makes it easier to activate partners and grow your marketplace presence. Ready to explore your path to channel-led scale? Visit App Advisor to get started.Accelerate your Marketplace success
Selling through Microsoft Marketplace doesn’t have to be complex. In our blog, From listing to sale: Microsoft Marketplace made easy, guest author Kyle Heisner from Suger shares actionable guidance to help you streamline the process—from creating a compelling listing to closing deals efficiently. Explore best practices, proven strategies, and insights that can help you maximize visibility and drive revenue. Read the full article here: From listing to sale: Microsoft Marketplace made easy | Microsoft Community HubDecember 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 Microsoft’s, opening significant opportunities for software companies in SMB and mid-market segments. 🎬 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. 👉 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. ✅ Sign up to receive updates Enhanced Partner Marketing Center - Discover, customize, and launch campaigns faster with intelligent search and AI-powered tools—all 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 – 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. 🛡️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 Microsoft’s ecosystem. Ignite opening keynote Ignite partner keynote: Powering Frontier Partnerships Additionally, we’ve 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 engagement—all 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 practices—plus insights on how to capitalize on evolving programs and co-sell opportunities. PBRK417 Partner: Connect, Plan, Win – 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 you’re 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 they’ve 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. ✨PBRK420 Executing on the channel-led marketplace opportunity for partners See how Microsoft’s 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 what’s 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 ‘Unified for Partners,’ Microsoft’s 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 ‘customer zero,’ with examples of frontier firms driving innovation at scale. ✨PBRK424 Marketplace Success for Partners—from 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: Microsoft’s Security Advantage for Partners Explore Microsoft’s 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: ✨Microsoft Marketplace: Your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents | STUDIO47 Hear from Cyril Belikoff, VP of Commercial Cloud & AI Marketing, sharing the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace—the gateway to thousands of AI-powered apps, agents and cloud solutions—all 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 Microsoft’s 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. ✨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, we’ll explore how Microsoft Marketplace—unifying Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource—empowers organizations to become Frontier Firms by streamlining the discovery, purchase, and deployment of tens of thousands of cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents. ✨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 investments—balancing 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! 🏆 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. What’s Coming Up AI-powered acceleration: Scale faster in Microsoft Marketplace 📆 Thursday, December 04, 2025, at 9:00 AM PST Microsoft Marketplace is no longer just a procurement convenience; it’s 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 📆 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 📆 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. There’s no one-size-fits-all—each 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 📆 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 📆 November 17-20, 2026 Sign up now to join the Microsoft Ignite early-access list and be eligible to receive limited‑edition swag at the event. 💬 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, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!Scale smarter: Discover how resale enabled offers drive growth
Friday, December 5 | 11:00 12:00 PM GTM+1 online event Discover how resale enabled offers (REO) help software development companies scale through the Microsoft Marketplace by simplifying transactions, expanding reach and accelerating co-sell opportunities. Why attend? Simplify multi-party transactions Expand your global reach through resellers Accelerate co-sell opportunities and close more deals Reserve your spot now to start unlocking new growth opportunities🤔Finding alignment with Channel partners as an ISV?
Hi all! We're new to the MS ecosystem. Spent the last 15 years developing products for the Salesforce ecosystem, which is very direct sales heavy. We've launched our app https://marketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/product/Office365/WA200008222 which is a native and robust integration between Salesforce and Microsoft Teams. We listed just this year in March 2025. We're attending Microsoft Ignite for the first time, and it's clear we need to have a channel partner strategy. Microsoft claims there are over 500k partners - my question to the group (especially ISV partners): how do you find channel partners effectively that align to your product and strategy? Where do we even start? We obviously have an affinity towards partners that serve Saleforce and MS Teams customers. Thanks in advance!!AI innovation takes center stage at Microsoft Ignite
Artificial intelligence is transforming how software companies build, scale, and deliver solutions. At Microsoft Ignite, we announced new tools and programs to help developers accelerate innovation responsibly, from AI-powered workflows and unified tools in Microsoft Foundry to Cohere’s language models on Azure. Plus, the global launch of Microsoft Marketplace brings the industry’s largest catalog of AI apps and agents, enabling partners to reach new customers and unlock growth. Explore the latest announcements and learn how to ship faster, scale confidently, and turn AI innovation into business impact. Read the full articleSharePoint Embedded guide for software companies: Use cases make it real for customers
Getting Started: The Foundation Q: "We're a SaaS platform with multiple customers—how do we keep their data separate?" A: The most successful multi-tenant software companies use the owning and consuming tenant approach. Once you have developed your application and it’s ready to be deployed to a customer, customers want to maintain control of their data, use the security configuration they have configured and compliance controls across their entire data estate. What they don’t want to do is store data outside of their tenant. When using SharePoint Embedded, you control the application, your customer controls their data. Software companies create their application in the owning tenant. When you’re ready to bring on a new customer, you simply register SharePoint Embedded on the consuming tenant (your customer). As documents are added through your application, they reside in the consuming tenant and all the security boundaries they have configured. Scale reality check: You can create millions of containers per tenant, with each container holding up to 30 million documents. That's serious enterprise scale. Q: Our customers demand specific geographic data storage and compliance. Can SharePoint Embedded handle this? A: SharePoint Embedded inherits Office 365's data residency capabilities, which often exceeds what most software companies can provide on their own: Geographic controls: Data stays within customer-specified regions Government clouds: FedRAMP support for government tenants or contractors Compliance inheritance: Customers leverage their existing Microsoft compliance investments Game-changer example: Customers need FIPS compliance and ITAR support for government contractors. Rather than building this infrastructure themselves, they leverage Microsoft's existing certifications. Q: What's the real story on costs? How do software companies handle SharePoint Embedded billing? A: When a software company is ready to deploy their app there are two primary billing models: Pass-through model: Customer pays Microsoft directly through an Azure subscription they choose. The software company handles integration, customer handles billing Customers maintain control over their data and costs Works well for enterprise customers with existing Microsoft relationships Software company-standard model: Software companies include SPE costs in their pricing and then invoices the customer Easier for customers, but software companies must manage costs closely. Storage: ~$0.0067/GB/day + API transaction costs + egress costs Works well for SMB customers or all-inclusive service models Success Pattern: Legal sector software companies typically use pass-through, while financial management apps include costs in their SaaS pricing. Document collaboration: it’s all about the user experience Q: Our customers hate our current document editing experience. What changes with SharePoint Embedded? A: The collaboration transformation is usually immediate and dramatic: Before SharePoint Embedded: Web-only editing with limited functionality Version conflicts and manual merging External users need full software licenses Downloading a document to edit it and then re-uploading it increases risk After SharePoint Embedded: Native desktop Office applications with full feature sets Real-time co-authoring with automatic conflict resolution External users collaborate without Office licenses Zero custom integration maintenance Customer impact story: A Construction Cloud customer was frustrated with web-only Office editing. With SPE, their construction teams can collaborate on specifications in desktop Word, cost sheets in Excel, and project presentations in PowerPoint—all simultaneously. Customer satisfaction scores improved immediately. Q: How do we handle external users—clients, contractors, reviewers—who aren't employees? A: This is where SharePoint Embedded really shines for software companies: Guest user support: External users can collaborate using their existing email addresses No license requirements: Guests don't need Office licenses to edit documents Time-bound access: You can grant temporary access for specific projects Granular permissions: External users see only what they need to see, and you control this through existing Entra ID security practices. Real-world scenario: A pharmaceutical customer needs external regulatory reviewers to collaborate on drug approval documents. These reviewers (often using Gmail accounts) can access specific documents, make comments, and track changes—all while maintaining strict security controls and audit trails. Q: What about industries with specialized document formats? Will SharePoint Embedded work? A: SharePoint Embedded handles standard Office formats natively, and provides extensibility for specialized formats: Native support: Word, Excel, PowerPoint can be viewed or edited using the browser or full desktop experience. Custom formats: Through Power Platform connectors and custom viewers depending on how you built the user interface. Industry-specific: Many software companies build viewers for CAD files, proprietary image documents or medical records. This is the real value add for your app. Specialized example: Engineering companies use CAD files and Office documents, relying on custom viewers for technical drawings as well as built-in Office collaboration tools for handling specifications and project documentation. AI and intelligence: The future-forward Q: Everyone talks about AI, but what are software development company customers really using? A: Based on real implementations, customers are getting value from three AI capabilities: In app experience Customers can find information across documents using natural language "Show me all contracts with renewal clauses" instead of keyword searches Provides a robust alternative to the custom search solutions that many find challenging to develop effectively. Document summarization Automatic summaries of meeting notes, reports, contracts Executives get briefings without reading full documents Particularly valuable for legal and consulting software companies Content extraction Automatic metadata extraction from uploaded documents Classification and tagging without manual effort Useful for compliance and organization AI success story: A market research platform uses AI to mine insights from massive survey result repositories. They can identify patterns across client studies and provide competitive intelligence that drives premium service offerings—capabilities that would have required a dedicated AI team to build. Q: How does SharePoint Embedded content fit into the Microsoft AI story? A: Content is king and when it’s stored in SharePoint Embedded you can use the Microsoft AI stack to reason over it. Copilot Studio – Build custom agents that can access and reason over your SharePoint Embedded content, enabling tailored workflows and conversational experiences for your business scenarios. Azure AI Foundry – Use advanced AI models and orchestration tools to analyze documents, extract insights, and apply generative reasoning directly on your embedded content (coming soon). M365 agents – Empower Microsoft 365 Copilot and domain-specific agents to leverage your SharePoint Embedded data securely, delivering contextual answers and automation across apps like Teams, Outlook, and Word. Control flexibility: You can disable Copilot at the container level, so customers only pay for what they use. This lets you offer different service tiers based on AI capabilities. Q: How much prep work do our documents need for AI to be effective? A: The software companies seeing best AI results focus on structured metadata and information architecture fundamentals. Document organization: Clear document types (contracts, reports, specifications) Consistent metadata fields across document types Permissions, sensitivity labels and container architecture reduce the accidental data leakage risk. Users simply add the document to a container through your application and SharePoint Embedded does the rest by automatically indexing the content, which adds it to the semantic index, so you get all the reasoning power in the LLM's. Preparation benefit: Software companies find that organizing their document metadata and permissions before enabling Copilot improved AI accuracy. Customers get better results and more relevant document summaries. Security and compliance: Enterprise requirements Q: Our customers are in highly regulated industries. How do we handle their compliance requirements without becoming compliance experts ourselves? A: This is SharePoint Embedded's biggest advantage for software companies—compliance inheritance: Your customer's compliance = Your application's compliance Following the owning/consuming deployment model provides: Customer's DLP policies automatically apply to containers Their retention policies govern document lifecycles Their audit requirements are automatically met Their security controls protect your application's data Compliance success: Financial services software companies don't need to become SOX compliance experts—they inherit their customers' existing Microsoft Purview policies. Legal software companies get automatic GDPR compliance without building privacy infrastructure. Q: What about audit trails and eDiscovery? Do we need to build this ourselves? A: SharePoint Embedded provides enterprise-grade audit capabilities automatically: Complete audit trails: Every document access, modification, and sharing event is logged eDiscovery Integration: Native integration with Microsoft eDiscovery tools Retention policies: Automatic retention based on customer's existing policies Legal hold: Built-in legal hold capabilities for litigation scenarios Audit reality: Legal sector software companies can provide their clients with comprehensive audit trails for regulatory compliance without building any custom audit infrastructure. Everything is handled through Microsoft's existing compliance tools. Q: How do we handle customers who want to keep control of their data? A: SharePoint Embedded gives customers more control than most software company solutions: Customer tenant: Data stays in the customer's Microsoft tenant, not yours Customer policies: Their security and compliance policies govern the data Software company access: You only access data through APIs with customer-granted permissions Control example: SaaS platform software companies explain to customers that their documents live in the customer's tenant with customer-controlled governance. This made enterprise sales easier because customers maintain complete control over their data. Have more questions or want to talk to the team, contact us: SharePointEmbedded@microsoft.com _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Resources SharePoint Embedded overview: SharePoint Embedded Overview | Microsoft LearnLock 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: As of October 31, multiyear contract durations are available for CSP offers. 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. 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
