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justinroyal
MicrosoftJoined 4 years ago
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Dive into these new Copilot agent development tools
Are you already building Copilot agents/extensions for your marketplace apps, or planning to soon? Check out these resources to help support you along your journey: Developer’s guide to building your own agents: Watch our Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility session on demand to deep dive into the pro-code development tools for building agents for Copilot and beyond. Learn how you can build agents on Microsoft 365 Copilot or your custom AI engine with our new Microsoft 365 Agents SDK. Watch now. Introducing the Microsoft 365 Agents SDK Learning path: Extend Microsoft 365 Copilot with declarative agents using Visual Studio Code Learning path: Build custom agents for Microsoft TeamsAnnouncing the Microsoft UK GenAI Accelerator cohort
Microsoft just announced the 12 pioneering UK software companies that will join our inaugural UK GenAI Accelerator cohort. This programme, run in partnership with NVIDIA, GitHub and WeTransact, is designed to empower innovative businesses to maximise the potential of generative AI, driving forward groundbreaking solutions and accelerating their path to market success. The GenAI Accelerator provides comprehensive support for the chosen firms, including technical guidance and exclusive go-to-market opportunities. These companies are driving industry-wide innovation by applying AI to solve complex problems. Their solutions enhance efficiency, streamline workflows and unlock new business opportunities. From advancing data analysis and automation to optimising decision-making and operations, they are enabling smarter, faster and more impactful outcomes. Eager to see who made the list? Check out this blog to learn more! Announcing the 12 companies selected for the Microsoft UK GenAI Accelerator - Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom Learn more about partnering with us Explore programmes and resources that can help you build, innovate and scale your AI solutions with Microsoft and our partners. Register for the upcoming GenAI Lab– a one-hour virtual event on building AI solutions and go-to-market with Microsoft. Visit Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub– get up to USD 150,000 of Azure credits to put towards a wide range of AI models, including Azure OpenAI Service, Meta Llama and Microsoft’s own Phi small language models. Join Microsoft ISV Success– innovate and go to market faster, with exclusive benefits across cloud credits, developer tools and more.New Mastering the Marketplace webinar: ISV to CSP private offers - experience walkthrough
Join us on January 9th for our first new Mastering the Marketplace webinar offering of 2025: ISV to CSP private offers - experience walkthrough. This session will provide a comprehensive walkthrough of the CSP Marketplace and private offer experience. ISV to CSP private offers empower ISVs and partners in the CSP program to grow their revenue by creating time-bound customized margins that suit each entity's business needs through the Microsoft commercial marketplace. This webinar is ideal for ISVs and CSP partners who are looking to partner with and sell their solutions through the marketplace for small to midsized customers. Attendees will: *Gain a comprehensive understanding of the CSP marketplace and CSP private offers, including how to create, manage and sell. *Learn how to operationalize processes that can help manage CSP private offers and transactions more efficiently. *Learn how to expand market reach and access a global customer base to increase visibility. Register here.Introducing Azure AI Foundry
Last week at Microsoft Ignite, we announced Azure AI Foundry: A unified platform to design, customize, and manage AI solutions. This platform helps bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI technologies and practical business applications, empowering organizations to harness the full potential of AI efficiently and effectively. A few key takeaways from this announcement: Azure AI Agent Service enables developers to automate business processes and help you focus on your most strategic work. Azure AI Foundry portal, formerly known as Azure AI Studio, provides enhanced observability and collaboration with a new management center experience. Our AI model catalog is expanding with more specialized solutions and customization options, including models from Bria, now in preview, and NTT DATA, now generally available. Industry-specific models from Bayer, Sight Machine, Rockwell Automation, Saifr/Fidelity Labs, and Paige.ai are also available today for specialized solutions in healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and more. New collaborations with Weights & Biases, Gretel, Scale AI, and Statsig can help accelerate your end-to-end AI model customization. More RAG (Retrieval-augmented generation) performance with Azure AI Search Advanced vector search and RAG capabilities now integrated into Azure Databases There are two new responsible AI tools you can use to help ensure safety and compliance: AI reports and risk and safety evaluations for images. Azure AI Content Understanding, now in preview, makes it faster, easier, and more cost-effective to build multimodal applications with text, audio, images, and video. We’re introducing two offerings in Azure Container Apps to help transform how AI app developers work: serverless GPUs, now in preview, and dynamic sessions, available now. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Read the full blog here to learn more about this announcement:The next wave of Azure innovation: Azure AI Foundry, intelligent data, and more | Microsoft Azure Blog What news coming out of Ignite are you most excited about? Let us know in the comments!Know before you go: marketplace at Microsoft Ignite 2024
The Microsoft commercial marketplace team is excited to have marketplace integrated as a core component of Microsoft Ignite, taking place in Chicago and online from November 19-22. We have tailored content to ensure that all our audiences can learn about the value of marketplace and find success. Check out these core sessions that are being offered at this year's Ignite: Activating the channel through the marketplace: Discover how to activate the ecosystem with partner-to-partner selling opportunities, including multiparty private offers and professional services. What's new is ISV Success - AI benefits for software companies and more: Learn about new benefits and cash incentives available now; understand how AI apps qualify you for accelerated awards. How to capture the marketplace opportunity: Reach more customers, simplify sales, and unlock growth. Get guidance on maximizing marketplace success, including how to sell through Microsoft sales channels. More than a storefront, unlocking value through the marketplace: Discover, try, purchase, and manage cloud and AI solutions so you can spend smarter and move faster. Learn new capabilities in the marketplace that help you buy vendor solutions with confidence and drive AI innovation. Step-by-step instructions to activate multiparty private offers: Learn about the benefits of multiparty private offers and how partners reselling software solutions can enroll. In-person only. 10 tips for marketplace success: Discover tips for success like lead sharing, renewals, MACC visibility in Partner Center, Marketplace Rewards, and more. In-person only. Will we be seeing you at Ignite (either in-person or virtually)? Let us know in the comments which sessions you are most looking forward to!More marketplace webinars available in November
Whether you are brand new to the marketplace or focused on growing sales of your apps that are already published, our Mastering the Marketplace webinar series has a broad range of offerings available to help accelerate your marketplace success. Check out these offerings coming up soon: ▪ Using Marketplace Rewards benefits to increase your app sales (11/18): this session covers the availability and eligibility requirements for Marketplace Rewards; the tier-based model based on marketplace performance; highlights of partners' success with Marketplace Rewards and the ROI of activating benefits; advice for integrating benefits into marketing efforts; and, tips on optimizing each benefit. ▪ Billing & Payouts (11/19): Learn about the payouts process lifecycle for the Microsoft commercial marketplace, how to view and access payout reporting and what payment processes are supported within Partner Center. This session also covers how to register and the registration requirements; general payout processes from start to finish; and, how to view and access payout reporting. ▪ Supercharge your marketplace offer with the SaaS accelerator (11/20): Learn how the SaaS accelerator project can help partners go to market quicker by accelerating creating the technical implementation to publish their transactable SaaS offers on Azure Marketplace. ▪ Developing your virtual machine offer (11/26): Join for a review of the required technical configurations to make Virtual Machine apps and how to publish virtual machines offers to the Azure marketplace. Learn how to publish a VM offer and integrate the solution from the Azure Portal tool to Partner center; how to setup Tenants; how to create different plans to best suit your customers’ needs; how to use Cloud-init within the Azure Portal, and more! Find our complete schedule here: https://aka.ms/MTMwebinarsNew updates from Azure AI | November 2024
Last week, Microsoft announced new capabilities across the Azure AI portfolio that provide greater choice and flexibility to build and scale AI solutions. Key updates include: Availability ofAzure OpenAI Data Zones for the United States and EU that offer greater flexibility in deployment options. 99% SLA on token generation, general availability ofAzure OpenAI ServiceBatch API, availability of Prompt Caching, 50% reduction in price for models through Provisioned Global, and lower deployment minimums on Provisioned Global GPT-4o models to scale efficiently and to optimize costs. New models includingHealthcare industry models,Ministral 3B small model from MistralandCohere Embed 3, andfine-tuning general availabilityforPhi 3.5 familyproviding greater choice and customization. Upgrade from GitHub Modelsto Azure AI model inference API and availability of AI App templates to accelerate AI development. New enterprise ready features to build with AI safely. Which of these new capabilities are you most excited about leveraging for app building on the marketplace? Let us know in the comments! And check out the full blog here to learn more about these new capabilities: Announcingtheavailability of Azure OpenAI Data Zones and latest updates from Azure AI | Microsoft Azure BlogFAQ: 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 LearnFAQ: Solutions that run on old data centers
Q: Can a solution be on the marketplace if it runs on Microsoft software but in the partner's data center? I have a number of other solutions fully on Azure and in the Marketplace but have an outlier solution that is still in my old data center. I imagine we will move it over eventually but we want to list it now. A: The solution must be primarily platformed on Azure. Refer to this documentation for the official policy: Commercial marketplace general listing and offer policies | Microsoft Learn Follow up Q: If a marketplace solution is only going to be used for transacting purposes and not for full provisioning/deployments and self-serve, is it a requirement to interact with the API's in order to be transactable? In other words, can a solution be transactable without using the API's? 100% of the solution will live in Azure but the solution would only be sold as a private offer and it needs to be deployed with a services team, as each deployment is customized. The fees are paid annually on a three year term. A:in order to be sold even as a private offer, the Fulfillment APIs need to be implemented. The customer will still need to accept the private offer and then subscribe to the offer for billing to happen. That subscription process requires the API integration. That's always been the case for a transactable SaaS offer. For Azure Managed apps (that live in the customer tenant) you don't need API integration (unless you use Custom Meters). For simple implementation of the API, we recommend the SaaS Accelerator: Azure/Commercial-Marketplace-SaaS-Accelerator: A reference example with sample code for developers interested publishing transactable, Software as a-Service offers in the Microsoft commercial marketplace. (github.com))FAQ: Professional Services Offer on a Contact Me Offer
Q: I have a Contact Me SaaS offer. Can I extend a Professional services offer (private offer) on this Contact Me offer? In other words, would it be possible to extend a transactable professional services for a Contact Me SaaS listing, or do I need to have a transactable SaaS listing to extend the transactable professional services offer? A: Services aren’t MACC eligible, if that’s what you are asking. Additional information about professional services can be found here: More ways to sell through the marketplace with professional services | Microsoft Community Hub Create a professional service offer for the commercial marketplace - Marketplace publisher | Microsoft Learn
