Updates to the Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards! 🏆
The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards acknowledge outstanding successes and innovations by partners in over 100 countries and in a wide variety of categories and industries, including cloud to edge technologies, entrepreneurial spirit and social impact. In 2025 we’re shifting the awards timeline to later in the calendar year to give our partners more time to showcase their innovations and achievements. Watch this space for more updates on nomination details coming later this spring and mark your calendars to celebrate the winners and finalists during Microsoft Ignite. Thanks to all the partners who submitted nominations for this year's awards! Explore the winners and finalists now. Meet the 2024 Partner of the Year Award winnersComing 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 AwardsCongratulations to the 2025 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards winners and finalists
Each year, Microsoft partners redefine what’s possible for customers through innovation, collaboration, and trust built with Microsoft Cloud and AI. Partners impact industries across the globe, enabling organizations to modernize operations, unlock new opportunities with AI, and deliver sustainable growth at scale. The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards celebrate that impact. These awards recognize the partners who have set a new standard for excellence by activating Frontier Firm capability, advancing business transformation, creating customer success, and contributing to positive change in their communities. I’m proud to announce the 2025 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards winners and finalists. This year’s awards span eight global categories that reflect the breadth of innovation across our ecosystem: Azure Business Applications Modern Work Security Industry Social Impact Partner Innovation Business Transformation In addition to the global award categories, we’re recognizing partners from over 80 countries and regions as part of the Country and Region Partner of the Year Awards. Together, these honorees represent the strength and diversity of our ecosystem and the collective innovation that drives us forward. This year, we received more than 4,600 nominations from 100 countries and regions, reflecting the continued momentum and growth of our ecosystem. Every submission showcased innovation, technical excellence, and inclusion as partners bring transformative solutions to market. We’ll celebrate these achievements together at Microsoft Ignite, taking place November 18–21, 2025. I look forward to connecting with many of you there as we recognize success, share insights, and continue to accelerate opportunity and innovation together. Register to attend Microsoft Ignite. You can explore the full list of winners and finalists on the Partner of the Year Awards website, along with stories highlighting partner innovation across Azure, Business Applications, Modern Work, and Security. Congratulations to this year’s winners, finalists, and nominees. Your dedication to customer success and your drive to transform business through Microsoft Cloud solutions continue to define what’s possible when we innovate together.Sign up for Microsoft Partner Incentives performance measurement reports
As part of a larger push to empower you to deliver exceptional business outcomes, we've introduced incentives performance measurement reports, available through email. Delivered during the first week of every month, these reports include presales and post-sales partner performance measurements and earning cap status so you can get essential insights into your engagements across hero investments. These hero investments include Azure Accelerate, AI Workforce: Microsoft 365 Copilot + Power Accelerate, Al Business Process, and Security Activities. Here’s what to expect: Performance requirements pausing policy: Starting on November 15, 2025,* partners who are not meeting performance requirements will be paused from nominating new claims. This applies only to new nominations; in-progress projects will not be affected. Further, partners who have reached their earning cap and have nominations paused will be notified when they are eligible to nominate projects again. Reactivation of nominations: Paused partners will be reviewed each Tuesday by Microsoft to determine if they meet performance thresholds. Those who meet thresholds will be notified by email within two business days after their review and reactivated within seven business days after their review. Earning cap reviews: Partners who are approaching their earning cap and are meeting performance benchmarks will be considered for an earning cap increase based on budget availability and quality of claims. Claim quality can be affected by factors such as accuracy of your activity reporting, number of duplicate claims, and how your investments are leveraged. Increased cap value: If you’re approved for an earning cap increase, you can expect up to 50% above the engagement’s initial cap. Earning cap extension approval is not guaranteed. Earning cap pausing: Partners who have reached their earning cap and did not receive a notification of an increased cap based on review will be paused from submitting new claims and will be notified. This pause applies only to new nominations; in-progress projects will remain unaffected. No partner action is required, and Microsoft will proactively review and communicate decisions about earning caps. Review the updated policy for partner performance measurements and earning caps (available November 1, 2025). Sign up now for monthly reports so you can fuel transformation with expertise and funding and drive faster time to value for your projects. Sign up for monthly reports today! *Starting December 1, 2025, Security Activities will issue monthly partner performance reports, and beginning January 1, 2026, partners not meeting requirements will be paused from nominating new claims.Broadcom 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.Dream it. See it. Ship it.
We’re redefining software creation by closing the gap between idea and execution—bringing AI into the heart of the development lifecycle. Spark empowers developers, builders, and dreamers —— to build and ship intelligent apps from prototype to production using natural language, visual controls, targeted edits, or code. It’s deeply integrated into the GitHub platform and Microsoft ecosystem, enabling users to build quickly and securely. Key features Natural language to app: Describe your idea and watch Spark build it, with frontend and backend capabilities included, all powered by Claude Sonnet 4. No setup required: Data, LLM inference, hosting, deployments, and GitHub auth all included out-of-the-box. Add AI to your apps: Add intelligent features powered by LLMs from OpenAI, Meta, DeepSeek, xAI and more – no API key management needed. One-click deployments: Publish your app with a single click. Build your way: Use natural language, visual editing controls, or code with GitHub Copilot code completions at your fingertips to iterate on your ideas. Create a repository: Get a repository with GitHub Actions and Dependabot incorporated in just a click. Everything stays synchronized so you aren’t trapped in a sandbox. Expand with Copilot agents: Open a codespace directly from Spark to iterate with Copilot agent mode or assign an issue to Copilot coding agent. Learn more Reshare Satya Nadella’s postMicrosoft + Partners Make More Possible: Retail
If in the retail space and heading to #NRF2025 this month, get a sneak peek at how @Microsoft is harnessing the power of data to personalize retail experiences and transform how we shop in the latest blog from Nina Harding, Corporate Vice President of Americas Global Partner Solutions. Don’t miss out on her conversation about industry changes with retail expert and President of IHL Services, Greg Buzek in the companion video! https://aka.ms/AAtnvbk
