Coming soon: the 2026 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards
It's almost that time of year again: the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards are quickly approaching. These awards recognize the exceptional work partners deliver across solution areas, industries, and regions. And they celebrate the many ways our partners are driving Frontier Transformation––turning AI ambition into high-impact business outcomes for customers. Winning an award is a meaningful achievement that highlights the transformative influence partners like you have on customers around the world. Nominations open on June 1 and close on July 7. The winners will be announced on November 11, just in time to celebrate Microsoft Ignite 2026. Learn more about the awards at the link, start preparing your organization’s submissions, and be on the lookout for more details coming in mid-May. Learn more about the Partner of the Year AwardsDon’t miss out: Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards nominations are now open!
It's time: the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards nomination window is now officially open until Tuesday, July 7, at 6:00 PM Pacific Time. Nominate your organization today for awards highlighting exceptional work across solution areas, industries, and regions. The 2026 Partner of the Year Awards celebrate the many ways our partners are driving Frontier Transformation––turning AI ambition into high-impact business outcomes for customers. Winning an award is a meaningful achievement that highlights the transformative influence partners like you have on customers around the world—and positions your organization for greater market recognition and new business opportunities. Winners receive benefits such as a customized logo and other go-to-market assets that signify award-winning status, as well as impactful press coverage. To prepare your submissions, we recommend reviewing the following resources before completing your application: Check out the awards website and the FAQ. Read the awards overview and the blog. Review the submission guidelines and the rules and regulations. Get advice from the judges. Winners and finalists will be announced on November 11—just in time to celebrate together at Microsoft Ignite 2026. We look forward to reviewing another amazing set of nominations, so get started today. Don’t miss this opportunity to celebrate your organization’s accomplishments on a global stage! Nominate your organization todayICYMI: Build the skills to strengthen customer conversations with Microskilling
Microskilling supports partners throughout their skilling journey as an autonomous learning modality, offering a holistic, curated experience through short, high-impact videos and podcasts. Read more in the blog: Get started with Microskilling, the autonomous learning modality built to speed dealsImportant: FY26 PRACR close deadlines
We’re sharing the Partner Reported Azure Consumed Revenue (PRACR) deadlines for the close of fiscal year 2026 (July 2025–June 2026) to help you stay on track. These dates are sequential and critical to an accurate year-end close, ongoing submission eligibility, and a smooth transition to FY27. Category Deadline Requirement Owner Notes PRACR submissions June 10, 2026 (EOD) Final cutoff to submit PRACR reports through Partner Center Partner N/A Deal eligibility June 13, 2026 (EOD) Last day to mark deals as “Won” in MSX Microsoft Seller Required before deal registration Deal registration June 14, 2026 (EOD) Deals must be registered in Partner Center and all revalidation and disputes must be submitted by June 14. Deal registration will resume starting July 15, 2026. Partner Only registered deals can be reviewed for approval Exception handling June 19, 2026 (EOD) Final deadline to submit exception requests with full evidence through the PRACR Ops alias Partner or PDM Last exception forum of fiscal year 2026: June 24 Deal review June 26, 2026 (EOD) If deal is selected for further review, final date to submit required documentation Partner N/A No immediate action is required at this time; however, you as a partner are expected to plan and align internal activities to meet the deadlines outlined above. This communication is intended for awareness and planning purposes and partners are expected to align activities accordingly.Partner Blog | Registration is open for MCAPS Start for Partners
Customers are rapidly moving toward Frontier Transformation—the shift to AI and agents embedded as a repeatable, governed operating capability—and they are seeking your expertise to make it real. Customers need Microsoft partners who can turn AI experimentation into scalable ways of working. Partners best positioned for success in FY27 are those with a differentiated capability to operationalize AI with trust and intelligence as the foundation. In April, we shared an early look at the plan for MCAPS Start for Partners, our annual kickoff to our fiscal year, enabling all of us to have a strong start to the year. I am pleased to share that registration for the event is now open. Secure your spot now and register for MCAPS Start for Partners. This is your opportunity to get a fast start to FY27, with the new tools, resources, and investments to support successful growth in the year ahead. MCAPS Start for Partners is designed to create clarity on Microsoft’s priorities, innovation, and investments for FY27, so you can convert this into practice growth, co-sell, and customer wins. It’s the annual moment to align early with Microsoft investments and go-to-market motions so your teams can focus, prioritize, and execute against what will shape customer conversations throughout the year. Join us virtually on Wednesday, July 22, 2026. Bring the leaders who will turn priorities into outcomes across your sales, presales, delivery, and marketing teams. Continue reading hereNavigate changing hosting economics with the Microsoft Datacenter Optimization initiative
Hosting and hybrid cloud business models are under pressure as infrastructure economics change. While the full market impact will unfold through 2027, partners who begin planning now may be better positioned to protect margins, retain customers, and develop more differentiated offers across hybrid and AI‑ready scenarios. The Microsoft Datacenter Optimization (DCO) initiative empowers you to move beyond legacy Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA)‑based operations and build a stronger, more resilient business—modernizing customer environments while unlocking new recurring revenue opportunities across Azure, hybrid, and AI‑ready services. Learning how to navigate these changes is the first step in a multistage journey. Start with the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Partners podcast, available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon. The podcast breaks down how shifting infrastructure economics are shaping the hybrid cloud landscape—and what that means for your long‑term business strategy as a partner. This shift is about more than licensing alignment—it is about building a more resilient, differentiated, service-led business for the future. Explore additional tools and support on the Microsoft Datacenter Optimization page so you can continue to plan confidently and grow with Microsoft. Watch the Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Partners podcastWelcome to the new Partner Skilling Discussion board!
The Microsoft Skilling Community is your hub to stay informed on skilling opportunities, ask questions, and connect with peers across the Microsoft partner ecosystem. Follow the board for updates, get clarity on certifications and role‑based skilling paths, and use shared guidance to accelerate your readiness. We’d love to meet you — say hello and let us know in the comments where you’re joining from!
Foundry IQ and the partner opportunity: Turning domain knowledge into AI advantage
Turning domain knowledge into AI advantage with Foundry IQ The enterprise software landscape is undergoing a fundamental shift. AI agents are moving quickly from experimental pilots into production workloads. As organizations deploy agents at scale, a hard truth is emerging: an agent is only as valuable as the knowledge behind it. General-purpose models can reason, summarize, and generate. What they cannot replicate is the deep domain expertise software development companies have spent years building into products, data models, and best practices. That expertise is what turns an agent from “capable” into “useful” in real business workflows. This is the moment to ask a strategic question: where does your knowledge live in the AI agent economy, and how easily can customers find it when they are building agents? Microsoft Foundry IQ is designed to answer that question. What Foundry IQ means for the partner ecosystem Foundry IQ is a knowledge layer within Microsoft AI Foundry that connects curated, structured knowledge sources to the agents customers build and deploy. Organizations constructing agents in Foundry can browse, evaluate, and attach knowledge sources in the same place they select models and tools. Microsoft is leading with its own investment. Foundry IQ already surfaces product knowledge for first-party services, including: Microsoft Fabric (data pipelines, lakehouses, analytics) Azure Storage (blob, file, queue, and table architectures) SharePoint (collaboration, content management, and search) A growing set of additional Microsoft services For partners, this matters because it establishes a distribution surface inside the workflows where customers design and operationalize agents. Customers already use Microsoft knowledge sources when building. That same integration path is now open to partners, creating a clear opportunity to bring domain expertise into the agent-building experience. Microsoft knowledge covers Microsoft products. Customers also need industry and function-specific expertise that only partners provide. Foundry IQ enables you to meet that need by connecting your knowledge to the moment of highest intent, when customers are assembling the knowledge and tools their agents will rely on. In return, partners can gain: Increased visibility inside the platform where enterprise AI decisions are made A route to customer acquisition at the point of agent creation, not only through a separate sales cycle Stronger integration into the Microsoft ecosystem that can reinforce alignment with Microsoft sellers The ability to consume Microsoft first-party knowledge via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), making partner-built agents more capable without duplicating knowledge pipelines Three partner value paths The opportunity is not one-size-fits-all. Depending on your product architecture and go-to-market strategy, Foundry IQ opens three practical paths. Path 1: Integrate your knowledge where customers are already building Microsoft has populated Foundry IQ with knowledge for Fabric, SharePoint, Azure Storage, and other first-party services. Partners can integrate alongside these sources, becoming discoverable at the moment customers are assembling their agents. This is about showing up where design choices happen, not after the architecture is locked. A financial services organization builds a compliance agent and pulls in Microsoft platform knowledge alongside your regulatory expertise. A healthcare organization constructs a clinical workflow agent and discovers your domain knowledge at the point of need. In this model, your expertise becomes part of the agent’s foundation. Instead of being evaluated later through a separate procurement cycle, it becomes a selectable component in the agent-building workflow. That creates a new distribution channel at the point of highest customer intent. Path 2: Consume Foundry IQ to power your own agents The value flows both ways. Partners building agents, or agent-building platforms, can consume Foundry IQ as a knowledge source through MCP. Consider a partner offering a vertical supply chain platform. By connecting to Foundry IQ via MCP, that platform can: Ground its agents in Microsoft knowledge for Azure infrastructure, data services, and collaboration tools Layer the partner’s proprietary supply chain logic on top Deliver more capable agents without building and maintaining knowledge pipelines for every Microsoft service This is leverage. Partners benefit from Microsoft’s knowledge investment. Customers get agents that understand more of the full stack, from infrastructure through industry workflows. Path 3: Extend your existing knowledge platform with Foundry IQ Some partners already operate knowledge management or intelligence platforms. For these partners, Foundry IQ can expand relevance without forcing a platform rewrite. Foundry IQ and Microsoft Search capabilities can be integrated into your existing solution so you can: Combine your proprietary knowledge graph with Microsoft’s enterprise knowledge surface Deliver a more unified experience without requiring users to leave the platform they already use Evolve a standalone knowledge product into one that is connected to broader enterprise intelligence workflows This path strengthens your role as the knowledge hub while extending the reach of the content you surface. The business case for software development companies Across these paths, the business case tends to show up in three ways: Growth through integration When your knowledge becomes a selectable part of a customer’s agent architecture, each deployment becomes a durable touchpoint. Agents built with your integration can create ongoing product usage and expanded commercial opportunity. Differentiation through domain expertise Microsoft covers the platform layer. Partners cover the domain layer. As reasoning capabilities become more common, curated domain expertise becomes a key differentiator in agent outcomes. Ecosystem leverage through co-innovation Partners who integrate early can shape emerging patterns, build stronger visibility into customer demand, and become a natural choice when customers need domain-specific knowledge connected to their agents. Next steps Microsoft has already committed its product knowledge to Foundry IQ, and customers are using it to build agents. The domain layer is where partners complete the picture. Start with these actions: Identify your value path: Which of the three models aligns with your product and go-to-market strategy? Inventory your knowledge assets: What expertise, data sets, or frameworks would materially improve customer-built agents? Define an integration plan: Prioritize one scenario where your knowledge creates clear customer value and can be packaged repeatably. Engage your Microsoft partner development team: Align on scope and the right technical path to integrate or consume knowledge. The partners who move early can help set quality benchmarks and establish durable placement in the agent-building workflows customers adopt first. Additional resources Microsoft AI Foundry – Build, evaluate, and deploy AI agents Foundry IQ Overview – Learn how Foundry IQ connects knowledge to agents Model Context Protocol (MCP) – Open standard for connecting AI agents to knowledge and tools Azure AI Foundry Documentation – Technical documentation for the Foundry platform Microsoft Partner Network – Explore partnership opportunities and engagement pathExtended service terms enforcement is now in effect
As of May 4, 2026, we've aligned renewal and end-of-term options to create a more consistent and predictable experience. Customers and partners now have clear choices at expiration: renew to a new term, cancel at end of term, or temporarily extend service through a paid extended service term (EST). As a reminder: Subscriptions that meet all three of the following criteria will automatically transition to EST at expiration: Purchased or renewed on or after April 1, 2025 Expires on or after May 4, 2026 Auto-renew is set to off If EST is not a desired end-of-term option, partners can select “cancel” or “renew” before the subscription’s end date. Selecting “cancel” as an end-of-term option means the subscription ends on its expiration date, and the customer will lose access to the service. Partners should prioritize renewal discussions with customers in advance of a subscription's end date and discuss the best option for their business needs before the end of their service to avoid unexpected billing. Learn more about EST, available resources, and how to export a list of EST subscriptions.
