Microsoft expands Cloud Partner Program to create new opportunities for partner firms

Microsoft Corp. today announced some changes to its Cloud Partner Program, giving its partners new options to differentiate themselves and their products and services within its marketplace.

The Cloud Partner Program was launched in October 2022 when it was framed as an evolution of the old Microsoft Partner Network. Today, it continues to evolve, with Microsoft announcing an expansion of the Solutions Partner designations that were introduced to help customers better identify the partner organizations that can help them most.

In a blog post, Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s chief partner officer and corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions, explained that the designations are designed to help partners demonstrate their capabilities in delivering customer success within six key solution areas. Now, Microsoft is expanding these designations to differentiate independent software vendors — those partners that focus specifically on developing software. The new designations for ISVs cover categories such as industry, use cases across industries and specific imperatives for business leaders, such as marketing and sales.

“These designations distinguish an application’s specific capabilities and help customers identify proven solutions for their business needs,” Dezen explained.

Partners will also be able to differentiate themselves in the marketplace with new Business Applications specializations, which are designed to demonstrate companies’ expertise and experience in specific technical scenarios. They’re aligned to the Business Applications solution area for Microsoft Dynamics 365, and will make it easier for customers to find ideal partners, Dezen said.

The specializations cover finance, for partners that can demonstrate knowledge, substantive experience and documented success in Dynamics 365 Finance; Sales, for partners with proven experience in customer experience transformation; Service, for those that have experience in delivering personalized services; and supply chain, which is for partners with experience and documented success in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

According to Dezen, Microsoft now offers 28 specializations through its Cloud Partner Program, giving partners a wealth of options to showcase their expertise to customers.

In addition to differentiating themselves through their expertise, Microsoft partners will soon be able to highlight their diversity and efforts at improving “social good.” The idea is that this will make it easier for customers to find diverse-led businesses and solutions in Microsoft’s commercial marketplace.

“Inclusion fosters innovation, and many customers are looking to find partners that align to their business values,” Dezen said. “This is why we are enabling partners to submit relevant diversity and social good business classifications in Partner Center, which will appear in their business profile in the marketplace.”

Although a lot of Microsoft’s partners are natural competitors, Dezen said the company still wants to foster more collaboration between them. To that end, it’s introducing multiparty private offers, a new offering that empowers partners to come together, create personalized offers with custom payouts and sell directly to Microsoft customers via its cloud marketplace. Multiparty private offers will launch in preview in the spring, with general availability to follow later this year.

Finally, Microsoft said it’s expanding its array of artificial intelligence services for partners, which currently encompass ChatGPT in the Azure Open AI Service. From April, Microsoft said partners will be able to apply for preview access to GPT-4, a more powerful large language model developed by ChatGPT creator OpenAI LP. Partners will be able to use GPT-4 to build predictive models, automate processes and improve decision making, both for themselves and their customers.

“We believe AI will fundamentally change every software category, unlocking a new wave of productivity growth,” Dezen said. “We are committed to empowering partners to harness the power of this innovation on behalf of customers around the world, while helping them navigate this new era of technology.”

Photo: efes/Pixabay