Partner Blog | Partner Center Technical Corner: September 2025 edition
Welcome to the September edition of Partner Center Technical Corner. This month, we’re highlighting new investments in partner enablement, essential security enhancements, and a recap of recent releases. As always, you’ll find the latest roadmap and key Partner Center resources at the end of this post. Advancing partner success: SMB growth and AI transformation Empowering SMB growth through Azure and Security designations: The introduction of dedicated small and medium-sized business (SMB) paths for Solutions Partner designations in Azure and Security marks a pivotal shift for smaller partners. Instead of being measured against enterprise-scale benchmarks, partners now have access to thresholds and scoring models that reflect the realities of SMB operations. Progress is visible in the Insights Workspace, and expanded incentives, like Azure Migrate & Modernize and Azure Innovate, are now directly tied to designation attainment. For partners, this means that innovation and customer impact are recognized at every scale, and the path to growth is clearer than ever. For more information, visit: Solutions Partner for Security Solutions Partner for Azure SMB paths to Solutions Partner designations Continue reading article hereAzure Kubernetes Service Automatic: Fast and frictionless Kubernetes for all
AKS Automatic simplifies Kubernetes by offering a fully managed, opinionated experience that abstracts away from infrastructure complexity, while keeping the full power of Kubernetes at your fingertips. Learn how production-ready clusters and automated infrastructure operations can accelerate your time to delivery and simplify operations for you! Check out the announcement blog here!Updated CSP authorization requirements take effect October 1
Beginning October 1, 2025, the updated Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) authorization eligibility requirements will be enforced. Please note that specific enforcement dates might vary based on current status—new applicant or existing. Distributors should: Use the reseller performance report to identify at-risk resellers, then work with them to meet the new requirements. Find your organization on the distributor search site and validate that the link to your website is correct. By staying authorized, CSP partners can continue to drive upsells and renewals with our suite of go-to-market resources while ensuring that we maintain a highly capable and compliant partner ecosystem. Learn more about the authorization requirements and available resources for CSP partners and download the partner FAQ for more information. Review the requirementsPartner Blog | Evolving our productivity offerings to resolve European competition concerns about Teams
At Microsoft, we believe that collaboration tools are essential to modern productivity. Microsoft Teams has become a cornerstone of how organizations connect, communicate, and get work done. At the same time, we recognize the importance of customer choice and interoperability in a dynamic and competitive digital landscape, as well as our responsibility to work productively with regulators on issues of global or regional concern. In keeping with these values and responsibilities, Microsoft recently finalized an agreement with the European Commission (Microsoft’s “Commitments”) in which we will expand interoperability and data portability resources and make additional changes to licensing and pricing for Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Microsoft Teams. These changes are designed to enhance flexibility, support open ecosystems, and give customers more options to meet their unique needs. Commitments to interoperability and data portability Partners are the trusted advisors who deliver business outcomes for customers and are key to creating business value across the customer journey with their services and solutions, driving real impact. We continue to enable third-party solutions to integrate with our productivity apps. Microsoft’s Commitments formalize and advance our dedication to Microsoft 365 interoperability. Microsoft will maintain our add-in model, allowing communication and collaboration solution providers to access Microsoft 365 and Teams in the same ways as other software development companies that provide add-ins to Microsoft 365 and Teams. Microsoft will maintain the AppSource marketplace as a distribution channel for these add-ins. In addition, to better serve our shared customers, Microsoft will continue to enable other solution providers to embed Microsoft’s Office Web Applications directly within their own solutions through the Microsoft Document Collaboration Partner Program (MDCPP). Continue reading hereBroadcom VMware Licensing Changes: What Azure VMware Solution Partners Need to Know
Broadcom announced a change to their VMware licensing policies that will impact Microsoft partners and Azure VMware Solution customers. These changes require customers to bring their own portable VCF subscriptions when using any hyperscaler platform. This will mean customers must purchase VCF subscriptions directly from Broadcom, or the Broadcom partner Ecosystem, to use with hyperscaler cloud services. While this announcement limits how customers will be able to purchase new VCF licenses it does not impact AVS service availability. Azure VMware Solution (AVS) already supports Broadcom’s model with the AVS VCF BYOL option which enables customers to use AVS with their own VCF subscriptions, and Azure will continue being the best cloud for customers to run their VMWare environments. AVS VCF BYOL option is priced lower than AVS with VCF subscriptions included. This is a licensing change only – there is no product change to the Azure VMware Solution cloud service. Microsoft will continue to offer AVS as a fully managed VCF private cloud service in Azure, providing Microsoft-managed infrastructure and VMware host management including patching and upgrades. This frees up IT staff to focus on more high value tasks including workload modernization and new AI projects. Recommended Actions If you have an existing AVS customer, reach out to them immediately and share the update. Automated updates will be sent by Microsoft to AVS customers on 9/9/2025. Prioritize customers with RIs that expire before January 15, 2026. Suggest extending their AVS RI term with VCF licensing included by exchanging their current RI. They must make this change by October 15, 2025. If the customer asks to move to Azure Native IaaS or PaaS, Dr. Migrate Benchmark TCO can assess, and Azure Migrate can help with their migration needs. For strategic opportunities >$500K please work with the field for additional guidance. How is AVS changing to comply with Broadcom’s policy? Microsoft will discontinue selling AVS with VCF subscriptions included after October 15, 2025. After October 15, 2025, customers purchasing new nodes of AVS will need to provide a VCF subscription purchased from Broadcom. Existing AVS RI customers purchased before October 16, 2025: Customers can continue to operate these AVS nodes without any licensing or product changes through the end of their RI term. For existing AVS VCF BYOL SKU customers, there are no changes. Starting October 16, 2025, any new VMware Firewall deployed will require the VMware Firewall add-on purchased from Broadcom. Purchasing new AVS nodes: Customers can continue to add AVS nodes with VCF included to their existing AVS SDDC, last day of sale is October 15, 2025. New nodes purchased starting October 16, 2025, will require the customer to provide Microsoft with a portable VCF subscription license key. AVS PayGo customers with VCF included: AVS PayGo customers can continue to operate existing AVS nodes without any licensing changes until October 31, 2026. Customers will then be required to provide a VCF license key before November 1, 2026, to continue using AVS. Customers may want to switch from PayGo to Reserved Instances by October 15, 2025. This allows the customer to lock in AVS with VCF included for multiple years and provides RI saving of 30-50% off the PayGo rates. New PayGo nodes starting on October 16, 2025, must use the AVS VCF BYOL SKUs and provide a VCF subscription license key. If Customers want to Trade in RIs Customers that want to trade in their existing AVS RIs can leverage the Microsoft self-service exchange process. They can exchange their RI for a new longer-term AVS with VCF included RI on or before October 15, 2025. Reservation products are interchangeable; customers can also exchange AVS reservations for other types of compute reservations including Azure Dedicated Host, Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Virtual Desktop, SQL Database services, and more. Resources AVS VCF BYOL Pricing: AVS pricing page on Azure.com (coming mid Sept) Azure RI Self-Service Exchanges AVS Docs page for How to use AVS VCF BYOL Broadcom’s Announcement Blog and Microsoft’s Response Blog Important Dates September 9, 2025: Automated emails to be sent to all AVS Customers October 15, 2025: Last day to buy AVS with VCF included October 16, 2025: New AVS Customers and expanding SDDCs will need to use AVS VCF BYOL SKUs and bring their portable VCF subscriptions to AVS. October 31, 2026: End of AVS PayGo with VCF included, customers will convert to AVS VCF BYOL PayGo SKUs and be required to bring a portable VCF subscription and license key to AVS.
M365 Roadmap Management
Wondering if others have tips & tricks on how they stay up to date with the https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap? I find it tedious to stay on top of all the features being announced, switching launch phases, moving target dates, and so on. I was hoping to use the RSS feed in a PowerBI Dashboard or find a solution in Planner similar to syncing the Admin Centre messages, and after some quick searches online could not find an example of anyone doing something similar. I was hoping any members of this community may be able to shed some light on how they approach the roadmap site and what tools if any they use to manage the constant influx of information? TIA!Join the Movement at Azure Dev Summit!
Azure Dev Summit is a chance for you to join a community of developers, architects, and tech leaders building with Azure, .NET, and Microsoft AI. This isn’t just another conference. It is a Microsoft-sponsored celebration of innovation, learning, and connection — and we’re bringing some of the most inspiring voices in tech to the stage. Find out more about the speakers at Azure Dev Summit and make sure to register! https://azuredevsummit.com/AgentCon Southeast Asia 2025 is just around the corner!
AgentCon Southeast Asia 2025 is just around the corner! Be part of this FREE, community-powered AI event where innovation meets collaboration: 📍 Singapore – September 9: avpt.co/AgentConSG 📍 Ho Chi Minh – September 11: avpt.co/AgentConHCH 📍 Cebu – September 15: avpt.co/AgentConCebu Dive into hands-on workshops, experience live demos, and gain expert insights on Copilot, agentic AI, and real-world applications from global tech experts. Whether you're building with Copilot or just beginning your AI journey, #AgentCon is your space to learn, connect, and grow. 🎟️ Secure your seats now for this event organized by Global AI Community! AvePoint Singapore MaivenPoint Microsoft Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology KMC SolutionsGPT-5 in Azure AI Foundry: The future of AI apps and agents starts here
OpenAI’s GPT-5 is available today in Azure AI Foundry. GPT-5 adds advanced capabilities to support agentic workflows, complex code synthesis, and safer, more flexible integrations. Ideal for: Unified reasoning + chat for end-to-end problem solving Agentic task mastery with multi-step tool use and auditable decisions, Frontier coding with minimal prompting Developer controls for depth, speed, verbosity Free-form function calling (no rigid JSON schemas) Safer completions for sensitive prompts Learn more here!GPT-5 in Microsoft 365 Copilot available today!
We’re excited to announce that GPT‑5—OpenAI’s best AI system to-date—is rolling out today in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio across the world. GPT-5 is a significant leap in intelligence and becomes even more powerful when applied to work. Bringing GPT-5 to Copilot on the day of its release is part of our commitment to make OpenAI’s latest models available to customers in Microsoft 365 Copilot within 30 days. Copilot delivers the latest AI innovation, tuned for work and tailored to your business needs—with the security, compliance, and privacy that you expect from Microsoft. Continue reading here
