Microsoft has quietly made some significant changes to the way it licenses Azure, positioning. Here are the key details from a blog post by Richard Smith, general manager of commercial licensing.
Our modern licensing focus is on enhancing and creating synergies across all three ways of doing business: partner value-added, self-service web, and Microsoft assisted.
In keeping with this, we are guiding customers interested in Azure toward licensing options that best help them realize the full value of Azure services, leading with our partner value-added option:
Cloud Solution Provider program (CSP), whose solution-focused partners can add value and help light up IOT and other advanced scenarios for accelerated innovation
Enterprise Agreement (EA) for customers who require terms and conditions not yet addressed by other programs or Open programs for customers with fewer than 500 users or devices
Microsoft Online Subscription Program (MOSP) for customers who want to self-serve directly through the web
As of Feb. 1, customers with a MPSA (Microsoft Products and Services Agreement) who are buying Azure for the first time will be directed to the CSP program for pay-as-you-go pricing and partner services. There are other changes as well, Smith wrote:
As part of the change, Azure pay-as-you-go will no longer be available for new Azure customers through the MPSA, but will continue to be available through the EA and MOSP, as an important option for customers to buy Azure services. Customers currently purchasing Azure pay-as-you-go through the MPSA can continue to do so.
In certain aspects, the new policies would seem to limit customer choice. But they are smart moves for Microsoft to make, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller.
"The fight in the cloud market is raging at all levels," he says. "2017 is the year where the ecosystems get laid out and all players are making advances to partners. With this announcement, Microsoft helps its partners and creates a substantial incentive for partners to stay and look at Azure more. It's most likely an overdue move, as enterprises are getting more sophisticated in their demands and the vendors alone cannot address all the needs—they need partners to complement and deliver solutions."
In short, directing new customers to the Azure channel partner program, Microsoft can achieve a twin goal: Please partners through new revenue opportunities while helping those new customers get the most out of Azure.
