AppSource Marketplace bugs
Hi everyone, We recently noticed some bugs on the Marketplace, such as the call-to-action button displaying “CTA_Get” instead of the correct label. I’m curious—has anyone else experienced similar issues? It’d be great to know if this is isolated or more widespread. Thanks for sharing your feedback!Sharing the value of marketplace with your customers: Reflections from Microsoft Ignite
Cloud marketplaces are the future of B2B commerce, making it easier for organizations to get the solutions they need. At Microsoft Ignite 2024 in Chicago, the Microsoft commercial marketplace team shared with customers how to unlock the value of the marketplace in the era of AI and updates on the latest marketplace capabilities that help them spend smarter and move faster. Here’s a recap of the customer breakout session, “More than a storefront: unlocking value through the marketplace,” now available on the Ignite website and YouTube, to help you share with your customers why they should purchase your solution through the marketplace. Why cloud marketplaces now? Cloud marketplaces are growing at an unprecedented rate as more organizations than ever are reliant on the cloud. SaaS spending is expected to reach $232B 1 , which is coupled with the increasing investment in AI. McKinsey estimates that 67% of organizations will invest more in AI over the next three years 2 . It’s critical that organizations have a seamless and centralized way to procure and manage these solutions so they can scale and achieve meaningful business value. Yet far too many investments are suboptimized. Zylo reported that license waste was the top challenge for IT professionals 3 . The Microsoft commercial marketplace is one catalog of partner solutions published by software companies and vetted by Microsoft. It’s discoverable through our storefronts (Azure Marketplace and AppSource), within our products like Teams and Azure Portal, and through our group of 35K+ Microsoft sellers worldwide. At the core, the marketplace helps customers simplify B2B commerce by streamlining their entire procurement process. It also enables them to buy how they want to buy – whether that’s directly online, through their preferred channel partner, or with their Microsoft account team. With 95% of the Fortune 500 running on Azure 4 , many of these organizations already use the marketplace. But it’s not just the enterprise that’s finding value. We see customers of every size and from every industry finding success. What’s new in the marketplace? The marketplace helps customers buy with confidence by trying solutions before they buy and knowing solutions are pre-configured to seamlessly deploy and run on Microsoft technology. It helps them increase efficiency by simplifying their vendor onboarding and having partner solutions billed directly to their Azure invoice. It also helps them spend smarter by maximizing cloud investments because the marketplace counts 100% of Azure benefit eligible purchases towards a customer’s consumption commitment. Here are three new features to look for in the marketplace: Multiparty private offer (MPO) expansion- MPO is now available in the US, UK, and Canada. This allows customers to bring their preferred channel partner to the marketplace to procure solutions on their behalf. This capability will expand soon to customers in additional geographies. Professional services- Customers can now transact professional services alongside software solutions in the US, UK, and Canada. Professional services could be vendor assistance with implementation, employee training, or consulting support. Now, these purchases can be included in a customer’s single Azure invoice, further simplifying invoicing. Flexible billing- Soon the marketplace will support flexible billing, or the ability to align charges with a budget cycle or consumption needs. This helps to ensure uninterrupted invoicing cycles with adaptable contract terms or automatic transitions. Look for this capability in early 2025. The power of marketplace for AI transformation Microsoft is the number one provider of AI services in the world, and the marketplace is part of how we extend AI innovation by connecting customers to the solutions they need. AI solutions are the most purchased category by net new customers 4 . We’ve seen a 163% increase in AI offers listed by our software partners and a 7X increase in customers visiting AI and machine learning offer pages on our storefronts 4 . This has translated to a 387% increase in customers purchasing AI offers 4 . This momentum is driven by the benefits customers get by going through the marketplace, including free trials and proof-of-concept options to ensure that solutions align with their needs before committing. Customers also save time by deploying directly from Azure in a secure environment. With the marketplace, customers can get cutting edge AI technologies that help them build with generative AI and models-as-a-service. They can also extend copilot capabilities through connectors and agents or build their own copilots. In addition to Microsoft’s own AI tools for developers, organizations can find a breadth of offerings from leading AI companies like Aisera, Cohere, LangChain, and Pinecone. There are also many SaaS applications powered by AI that are helping customers experience AI transformation in any number of scenarios from marketing and human resources to operations and supply chain. To see how a customer would leverage the marketplace to build a custom copilot for business users at a manufacturing company, check out this demo from the Ignite stage. AI has also been built into the marketplace to improve the customer experience. Our new AI-powered solution discovery is now available in Azure Portal, helping customers intuitively find solutions with natural language. The search result not only returns solutions but also suggests relevant Microsoft technical documentation to help customers make informed decisions. Customer success story We love showcasing how our customers are finding success through the marketplace. TP (Teleperformance) is a multinational company which offers business services for organizations in 100 countries around the world. Watch the video to see how TP has simplified their cloud portfolio management, unlocked discounts on their Azure infrastructure, and increased time-to-market by streamlining procurement processes. The Ignite session includes an interview with Jatin Suri, Global SVP, Cloud Center of Excellence, who goes into more detail about why the marketplace is key to TP’s procurement strategy. Resources for your customers Learn more: Azure.com/Marketplace Download the eBook: aka.ms/MarketplaceQuickGuide Talk to experts:aka.ms/MarketplaceCustomerOfficeHours Check out the video collection: aka.ms/MPCustomerVideos Get documentation: aka.ms/MarketplaceCustomerDocs 1 Custify , The Future of SaaS: Top Trends and Predictions in 2024 and Beyond, July 12, 2024 . 2 McKinsey Global Survey, The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value, May 30, 2024 . 3 Zylo , Unchecked SaaS Sprawl Leads to an Average of $18M in License Waste Annually 4 Microsoft internal data
Managing your marketplace community subscriptions
As the marketplace community continues to grow, I recommend managing your subscriptions to get the content most relevant to your top areas of interest, at the right time. About Labels and Subscriptions: You may have noticed that posts within this discussion forum contain labels such as "Build," "Publish," "Grow," and "ISV Success." These labels are applied to help you identify focused on specific marketplace topics (Building apps for the marketplace, publishing apps, growing your sales of apps on the marketplace, etc.) There are similar labels applied to all blogs on the marketplace blog: "Thought Leadership" - includes content on best practices, interviews with marketplace partners, etc. "Roadmap & Functionality" - any content related to the marketplace roadmap and new features/functionality You can "subscribe" to certain labels based on your areas of interest, which allows for a more customized community experience. For example. on the marketplace blog site, if you are most interested in Roadmap & Functionality content. you can adjust your settings to be notified immediately when new content with this label is published. And if you are interested in other topics, such as ISV Success, you can still subscribe, but just elect to receive notifications less frequently. Starting with subscriptions Refer to this general help article on subscriptions and notifications:Managing Preferences, Subscriptions and Notifications - Microsoft Community Hub If you're not a member of the Tech Community already, create an account at techcommunity.microsoft.com Manage your subscription settings so that you can receive email updates on the content you are interested in. Manage these settings by selecting your profile icon in the top right corner of the community, selecting "My Settings," and selecting "Subscriptions & Notifications. You can also subscribe to the entire marketplace community which will provide you with regular updates on all marketplace discussion topics happening in this forum. To do this, click "follow" in the upper right corner of the marketplace community homepage. Getting Started in the Community: General information about starting on the community can be found via these resources: Getting Started on the Tech Community - Microsoft Community Hub Contributing to the Community - Microsoft Community HubISV Success FAQ: Are their limitations for use of the Azure Sponsorship credits?
Q:Are their limitations for use of the Azure Sponsorship credits (offered as part of ISV Success)? A: Azure Sponsorship must be used within 12 months of joining the ISV Success program. Due to current technical limitations Azure Sponsorship also can not be used on Microsoft Customer Agreements (MCA) or Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) agreements. Azure Sponsorship also can not be used to purchase Reserved Instances (RI) or (Reserved Capacity (RC). Note: this FAQ is relevant to participants in ISV Success. Learn more about ISV Success here.Partner Opportunity to Contribute to the Copilot Roadmap
Microsoft Partners - We're sharing an opportunity with you to contribute to the Copilot roadmap. Voice your company's thoughts on what features and capabilities Microsoft should build to help ISVs build, deploy, and monitor Copilots. Complete this survey (5-10 mins) by EOD 11/22 to influence the Copilot roadmap: https://forms.office.com/r/nv6EPTfYFhFAQ: MACC Decrement for SCE Agreements
Q: My customer is looking at a Marketplace purchase, but their MACC is on an SCE (Server and Cloud Enrollment) agreement and not on an MCA (Microsoft Customer Agreement). Can they transact this under their SCE and still have it decrement their MACC? Is that possible? A: The agreement type does not apply. What matters is the purchase and if it is applicable to the MACC. We have information on this here: Maximize investments with Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC) benefit - Microsoft marketplace | Microsoft Learn
