Get up to speed with Microsoft’s latest updates

The New Year is well underway, and Microsoft has been busily announcing a host of new product updates, resources and partner incentives. Frankly, there’s more to discuss than we can reasonably cover in one blog post. But we’ve pulled together the announcements that we think are most worthy of your attention.

Let’s get cracking!

What’s happening with NCE?

Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) has now come into effect. And it’s still causing plenty of befuddlement. You’ve probably heard that it involves a price rise across Microsoft 365 licences, but there’s a few details you might be fuzzy on:

• You can’t move supplier or cancel your contract mid-agreement.
• At the start of your next agreement or renewal, you’ll get 72 hours to downgrade licences. After that time elapses, only increases and upgrades are permitted.
• There are two promotions available for moving platforms – one for monthly subscribers and one for annual subscribers.

To explain the nitty gritty of NCE, we’ve put together these content-filled resources:

• Listen to our in-depth NCE webinar with Tom Marwood.
• Take three minutes to read our ‘All you need to know about NCE’ blog post.

Microsoft launches ‘Teams Phone with Calling Plan’

Combining ‘365 Business Voice’ and ‘Teams Calling Essentials’, this new Microsoft offering means that customers can now use Teams to make phone calls (both landline and mobile). Microsoft says that it’ll help “SMBs reduce costs and simplify operations”. We say it’s a great new bundle worth explaining in more detail. We’ll be doing just that during our webinar on 8 February. Reserve your spot here.

A new incentive for success

Last year, Microsoft began rewarding partners for encouraging customers to adopt Modern Workplace, Security, and Business Applications solutions – via the new commerce CSP experience. And the incentives keep coming. Partners are now also being rewarded for acquiring new customers on seat-based offers. You can find more details about the new incentives here.

Microsoft Commerce Incentive Resources

How can you stay up to date with Microsoft’s latest partner incentive updates? This dedicated page should help. It features a host of detailed guides, including a Microsoft Commerce Incentive Overview and FAQ resource.

What else is new?

Here’s a quick snapshot of some other Microsoft updates worth knowing about.

30-day trial of Microsoft Project or Microsoft Visio    

As of mid- February 2022, your customers can try Microsoft Project or Microsoft Visio with a free 30-day trial. They’ll be able to sign-up for a trial themselves, or by submitting a direct licence request to their IT team. Both individual users and departments without global or billing admin rights can claim this offer.

Updates are coming to the software price list

From March 2022, Microsoft are releasing an updated software price list for CSP partners – featuring both software subscriptions and perpetual software products. Further details will be announced via the Digital Operations Centre.

Managing your leads in one place  

Finally, any commercial marketplace leads originating from Microsoft AppSource, Azure Marketplace, and Azure portal are now all visible in Partner Centre. That means all of your sales pipeline can be managed in one convenient place.

Questions?

Microsoft’s latest announcements are coming thick and fast. If your head’s spinning and you’re looking for more information, get in touch with the Westcoast Cloud team – we’re always happy to help!