When cloud apps become a weak link: How FortiAppSec Cloud in Microsoft Marketplace bridges the gap
In this guest blog post, Srija Reddy Allam, Cloud Security/DevOps Architect, Fortinet, discusses the increase of attacks targeted at web applications and APIs and how FortiAppSec Cloud in Microsoft Marketplace provides a layer of adaptive security to address the challenge.3 key technical debt types before scaling with AI – CAST’s perspective via Microsoft Marketplace
In this guest blog post, Greg Rivera, VP of Product, CAST, details how CAST Highlight in Microsoft Marketplace identifies the three types of technical debt and prioritizes portfolio-level issues to effectively drive remediation and build a stable foundation for scaling with AI.How partners can lead Frontier Transformation in FY27
As organizations move from AI experimentation to business-wide transformation, Microsoft partners are uniquely positioned to help customers innovate, operate, and grow. In the FY27 MCAPS Start for Partners keynote, Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and CVP, Global Channel Partner Sales, shares how Microsoft is investing in partner capability, go-to-market acceleration, co-sell engagement, and Microsoft Marketplace opportunities to help partners deliver greater customer value. From new AI-focused skilling and specializations to expanded incentives and Marketplace investments, the FY27 updates provide practical resources to help partners build differentiated offerings, drive adoption, and scale growth in the agentic AI era. Read the full blog and explore the FY27 partner priorities: ➡️ MCAPS Start for Partners FY27 blog Help amplify this important announcement across your networks: Nicole Dezen on LinkedIn Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program on LinkedIn Microsoft Tech Community post Microsoft Partner on X Microsoft Partner on FacebookGain an early view of the Microsoft priorities shaping FY27
As AI innovation, agentic applications, and Microsoft Marketplace opportunities continue to reshape customer demand, early alignment has never been more important. This Microsoft Marketplace community article explores why MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22 is a key moment for Software Development Company (SDC) partners, ISVs, and Marketplace publishers looking to align with Microsoft’s FY27 priorities. Learn how Microsoft Marketplace investments, co-sell opportunities, app modernization initiatives, and emerging AI trends can influence your growth strategy, solution roadmap, and customer engagement plans for the year ahead. The article also highlights practical steps partners can take now to strengthen Marketplace readiness, identify areas for differentiation, and translate Microsoft priorities into actionable business outcomes. If your organization develops, sells, or publishes solutions through Microsoft Marketplace, this timely read will help you prepare for the opportunities shaping FY27. 👉 Read the full article: Why MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22 Matters for Software Development CompaniesWhy MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22 matters for software development companies
Every new fiscal year begins with questions. Where is customer demand heading? Which technology investments matter most? How can software companies build solutions that stand out in an increasingly competitive Microsoft ecosystem? Software development companies, Marketplace publishers, architects, and developers across our partner community express a common theme: everyone is looking for clarity. Customers are moving quickly from AI experimentation toward operational AI adoption. New opportunities are emerging around agentic applications, modernization, and Microsoft Marketplace growth. At the same time, partners want to know where Microsoft is investing and how they can align their business for success. That is exactly why MCAPS Start for Partners on July 22 matters. This event is designed to help partners start FY27 with a clear understanding of Microsoft priorities, customer demand, and the opportunities ahead. More importantly, it is an opportunity to align early, before the year gains momentum and before critical decisions are made across solution development, go-to-market planning, and Marketplace strategy. The conversation we keep hearing from partners Over the last year, many software companies have invested heavily in AI. Teams have built proofs of concept, launched copilots, explored automation, and experimented with agents. Those efforts have created valuable learning, but customers are now asking a different set of questions. Instead of asking what AI can do, customers are asking how AI can create measurable business outcomes. They want solutions that can be governed, operationalized, and scaled across teams and business units. They want trusted platforms that protect data and intellectual property while helping them move faster. This shift represents something larger than a technology trend. It reflects what Microsoft describes as Frontier Transformation: the movement from isolated AI experimentation toward AI and agents becoming part of repeatable business operations. For software companies and Marketplace publishers, that creates a significant opportunity. The partners who can help customers operationalize AI, modernize applications, and deliver scalable outcomes will be positioned to lead customer conversations in FY27. MCPS for Partners provides an early look into how Microsoft is thinking about this transformation and where partners can create value. Why early alignment matters One lesson learned from working with software partners is that timing matters. The strongest partners rarely wait until priorities become widely understood. They start early. They align their product roadmap, Marketplace strategy, sales motions, and technical investments before demand peaks. MCAPS Start for Partners is designed to provide that early alignment. During the event, Microsoft leaders will share perspectives on FY27 priorities, innovation areas, investment focus, and growth opportunities. Partners will gain visibility into topics including AI innovation, agentic applications, Marketplace growth, co-sell opportunities, security, cloud platforms, and business applications. For developers and technical leaders, this means understanding where customers are investing and how emerging capabilities may influence future solution architectures. For Marketplace publishers, it means learning where discoverability, go-to-market alignment, and Marketplace motions can create growth opportunities. For business leaders, it means connecting Microsoft investments to practical execution plans that support long-term growth. The Marketplace opportunity is becoming more strategic Customers increasingly want streamlined procurement experiences and trusted solution sources. At the same time, partners are looking for scalable ways to expand reach and accelerate customer acquisition. That makes Marketplace more than a publishing destination. It becomes a strategic go-to-market channel. Organizations attending MCAPS Start for Partners will hear how Marketplace fits into broader partner growth strategies and how Marketplace motions can support customer demand generation and co-sell engagement. For software companies, this is an opportunity to think beyond listings and consider how Marketplace can support solution differentiation, visibility, and customer engagement throughout FY27. The most successful Marketplace publishers are not simply reacting to market changes. They are aligning their offerings to where customer demand is moving and where Microsoft is investing. Preparing for the conversations that will shape FY27 As July 22 approaches, partners can consider customer conversations happening today. Where are customers requesting guidance around AI transformation? Which application modernization projects are gaining momentum? How are security, governance, and scalability influencing solution requirements? These questions are increasingly connected. Customers are seeking partners that can help them connect AI, cloud, security, and business outcomes into a cohesive strategy. They are looking for expertise that goes beyond implementation and extends into long-term transformation. MCAPS Start for Partners was designed to help organizations think through those challenges and identify where Microsoft priorities intersect with customer demand. That alignment becomes even more valuable when technical leaders, sales teams, Marketplace owners, marketing teams, and delivery organizations participate together. When everyone hears the same guidance and leaves with shared priorities, execution becomes significantly easier. What attendees should listen for As you participate in the event, consider listening through three lenses: Pay attention to where customer demand is moving. Understanding demand signals can help guide product investments, roadmap decisions, and solution packaging. Look for insights into Microsoft investments and priorities. These insights can help partners determine where to focus skilling, innovation, and go-to-market efforts. Think about differentiation. Customers increasingly want partners who can move beyond experimentation and deliver repeatable outcomes. The organizations that combine technical excellence with operational execution will have a distinct advantage. The goal is not simply to collect information. The goal is to leave the event with clarity about what actions matter most for your organization. Turning insight into action Every fiscal year presents new opportunities, but not every partner starts with the same level of insight. MCAPS Start for Partners provides software companies, developers, architects, and Marketplace publishers with an early opportunity to understand Microsoft’s FY27 priorities, evaluate evolving customer demand, and identify where AI innovation, agentic applications, Marketplace growth, and co-sell opportunities are creating new possibilities. The partners that act early will be better positioned to build differentiated offerings, strengthen customer conversations, and execute with confidence throughout the year. Registration closes soon, and July 22 is quickly approaching. If you have not secured your place, now is the time to act. Register today, invite your cross-functional team, and ensure your organization is prepared for the Microsoft priorities, investments, and customer opportunities that will define FY27. Whether you are responsible for product strategy, solution architecture, Marketplace growth, sales execution, or customer success, MCAPS Start for Partners offers valuable insights that can help transform planning into action. 👉 Register for MCAPS Start for Partners Before July 22Unlock cloud value through Microsoft Marketplace
Discover how Microsoft Marketplace is enabling organizations to transform cloud spend into strategic business value through FinOps. By streamlining procurement, improving cost visibility, and enhancing financial governance, Microsoft Marketplace supports more effective cloud financial management at scale. Learn how to align IT and finance priorities while unlocking greater efficiency and control across your cloud investments. Read the full article here: Microsoft Marketplace as a platform to support FinOpsMicrosoft Marketplace as a platform to support FinOps: Turning cloud spend into business value
FinOps conversations used to focus mostly on cost tracking and budget control. What we’re hearing now from customers is different. The question is no longer just “How do I monitor cloud spend?” It’s “How do I make every dollar count?” That shift is important. FinOps today is about connecting financial accountability to real business outcomes. It’s about understanding not just what you’re spending, but whether those investments are delivering value and how quickly you can optimize when they’re not. This is where Microsoft Marketplace starts to play a more strategic role. The evolving FinOps challenge FinOps is not just about understanding cloud costs; it’s about actively optimizing spend and ensuring every dollar delivers measurable value. At the same time, the role of FinOps teams is expanding. Organizations are managing not only infrastructure costs, but also growing SaaS portfolios, AI workloads, and increasingly complex vendor ecosystems with different pricing and billing models. That fragmentation creates operational friction across finance, procurement, and engineering teams. The rise of AI is accelerating this shift. As AI moves into mainstream use, financial accountability needs to start earlier; at the point where solutions are evaluated, purchased, and integrated into workflows. This requires a more unified approach to managing spend across environments that are only becoming more complex. In this context, Microsoft Marketplace is not a peripheral tool. It’s part of the solution providing a platform that helps organizations bring purchasing, governance, and cost optimization into a more connected, manageable model. Microsoft Marketplace as a platform to support FinOps Microsoft Marketplace is often thought of as a place to find and buy solutions. In practice, it operates as an extension of the Microsoft Cloud connecting discovery, purchasing, and management across Azure, Microsoft 365, and the broader partner ecosystem. It gives organizations flexibility in how they buy, while creating a more consistent way to manage how solutions are introduced into the environment. For FinOps teams, that combination matters. Bringing purchasing into a more centralized model improves visibility and governance. At the same time, flexible commercial options allow organizations to align procurement decisions with how they operate, whether that’s optimizing existing commitments, managing budgets, or scaling usage over time. The goal is straightforward: every dollar of technology spend should be visible, attributable, and easier to plan for. Microsoft Marketplace helps move organizations in that direction by connecting financial accountability more directly to how solutions are evaluated, purchased, and used. Enabling collaboration across teams Effective FinOps depends on tight coordination between finance, procurement, and engineering. Microsoft Marketplace helps make that coordination part of how teams already work, not an extra layer they have to manage. By aligning with existing Azure role-based access models, teams can operate within familiar governance structures while maintaining appropriate controls. A centralized, Microsoft‑vetted catalog reduces the risk of shadow IT and shadow AI, while consolidating purchases across vendors helps minimize duplication and unnecessary spend. The result is a shared operating model where teams have visibility into the same investments, follow consistent processes, and make decisions together, turning collaboration from a best practice into a built‑in capability. Driving ownership and accountability One of the biggest gaps in FinOps isn’t visibility, it’s ownership. When responsibility for usage, renewals, and lifecycle decisions is unclear, inefficiencies compound quickly. Microsoft Marketplace helps close that gap by extending familiar Azure-based tagging and SaaS management capabilities into third-party solution spend. Teams can take direct ownership of their subscriptions, with clear insight into renewal timelines, pricing terms, and lifecycle actions such as renewals or cancellations. Purchase order mapping reinforces that accountability by linking Marketplace transactions to internal budgets and cost centers, ensuring spend is attributed to the right teams instead of getting lost in aggregated billing. The result is a clearer line of sight between decisions, ownership, and financial impact. Reducing complexity through centralization Data fragmentation is one of the most persistent challenges in FinOps. With multiple vendors, invoices, and reporting tools, many organizations struggle to maintain a clear, unified view of their technology spend. Microsoft Marketplace helps address this by bringing third-party purchases into the Azure invoice and Microsoft Cost Management experience. Instead of reconciling across disconnected systems, teams can view both first-party and third-party spend in one place. The impact is practical: less time spent on reconciliation, more consistent reporting, and a scalable way to manage cloud financial operations as environments grow. Shifting the focus from cost to value Cost control still matters, but the conversation around technology investments is clearly shifting toward value. Organizations want to understand not just what they are spending, but how quickly those investments translate into impact. Microsoft Marketplace supports this shift by making it easier to evaluate solutions in the context of speed, flexibility, and alignment with business priorities, not just price. Capabilities like private offers and access to a broad catalog give teams more control over how they purchase and deploy solutions. The result is more informed, strategic decision-making, where financial oversight is directly connected to business outcomes and measurable value. Enhancing financial operations with purchase orders One of the most practical advancements highlighted in the session was the introduction of purchase order functionality for Microsoft Marketplace purchases. Traditional reconciliation of Marketplace spend often requires manual effort, particularly when aligning cloud charges with procurement systems. The purchase order capability simplifies this process by allowing organizations to define, manage, and map purchase orders directly within Azure billing. Teams can assign budgets, track utilization, and map purchases to specific vendors, products, or cost categories. Detailed charge information can be exported, and allocations can be updated within a defined post-invoicing period. This capability strengthens the alignment between financial systems and cloud consumption data, reducing operational overhead while improving accuracy and transparency. Adopting Microsoft Marketplace based on maturity Microsoft Marketplace adoption isn’t one‑size‑fits‑all; it evolves with an organization’s cloud and FinOps maturity. Teams early in their journey often start with low‑risk options like trials or pay‑as‑you‑go offers, helping them establish governance and visibility without adding complexity. As organizations mature, renewal cycles become a natural inflection point to consolidate existing contracts into Marketplace, improving visibility and reducing fragmentation across vendors. For those with established Azure consumption commitments, Microsoft Marketplace becomes a strategic lever, aligning purchases to consumption targets and helping maximize the value of existing investments. At the highest level of maturity, Microsoft Marketplace is built into long‑term planning, where procurement, FinOps, and engineering teams work together upfront to design more efficient, optimized cloud strategies. Key lessons for FinOps practitioners Several lessons stand out from how organizations are using Microsoft Marketplace in a FinOps context. First, Microsoft Marketplace works best when treated as part of your FinOps strategy, not just a purchasing layer. Early investment in visibility and attribution creates a stronger foundation for optimization over time. Second, governance tools, like curated catalogs and purchase order mapping, are most effective when used intentionally to guide how teams buy and manage solutions. These aren’t just controls; they shape behavior. Finally, aligning engineering decisions with financial accountability ensures that technology choices directly support measurable business outcomes, rather than operating in isolation. From spending to strategy Microsoft Marketplace gives organizations a practical way to rethink how technology investments are managed. As cloud, SaaS, and AI spending continue to converge, the need for a more unified approach to financial operations becomes harder to ignore. By bringing visibility, governance, and purchasing into a connected system, Microsoft Marketplace helps organizations move beyond tracking costs toward understanding value. The shift is subtle but important: from reacting to spend after the fact to making better decisions upfront at the point of evaluation and purchase. For teams looking to mature their FinOps practices or better manage Marketplace spend, the next step is to see how this works in practice. The full session offers deeper examples, customer perspectives, and actionable guidance on applying these principles in real environments. Watch and learn: Microsoft Marketplace as a FinOps platform - Microsoft Marketplace customer office hoursTransforming healthcare delivery through Dragon Copilot and Microsoft Marketplace innovation
Discover how Dragon Copilot and Microsoft Marketplace are transforming healthcare delivery by bringing AI‑powered clinical workflows, partner innovation, and scalable solutions together in one ecosystem. Learn how healthcare organizations can reduce administrative burden and streamline documentation through integrated AI apps and agents available via Microsoft Marketplace. These capabilities unlock new efficiencies, helping clinicians focus more on patient care while accelerating innovation across the industry. 👉 Learn more: Dragon Copilot and Microsoft Marketplace are transforming the way healthcare is delivered 👉 Watch the full session here: Healthcare innovation with Dragon Copilot and Microsoft Marketplace
Open Data Infrastructure: How Fivetran in Microsoft Marketplace powers agentic AI on Azure
In this guest blog post, Natalie Waller, Lead Product Marketing Manager at Fivetran, examines why agentic AI is stalling in most enterprises — not because of the AI itself, but because today’s data infrastructure wasn’t built for autonomous agents.Discover how Microsoft Marketplace can support your FinOps strategy and cost optimization goals
Learn how Microsoft Marketplace can help organizations streamline cloud procurement, optimize spend visibility, and simplify software purchasing through a FinOps-driven approach. This upcoming Microsoft Marketplace customer office hours session explores how partners and customers can leverage Marketplace capabilities to align cloud investments with business outcomes, improve operational efficiency, and maximize the value of Azure consumption commitments. Read the full event details and see why this session is valuable for organizations focused on cloud financial management, procurement modernization, and Marketplace growth strategies. 👉 Register Here: Microsoft Marketplace as a FinOps platform - Microsoft Marketplace customer office hours
