“This flexibility aims to adapt to business dynamics such as mergers, acquisitions or adjustments in visitor preferences. This allows us to be more culpable and agile in the way we manage our relationships with visitors,” Jean Préjean, president of Guardian Computer, told CRN. .
Microsoft has shown that it’s changing one of the most debatable parts of its already moot New Commerce Experience program: The tech giant will allow spouses in its Cloud Solution Provider program to move a spouse’s end customers’ NCE subscriptions over the medium term.
NCE sparked controversy when the Redmond, Washington-based vendor began enforcing it in March 2022, with monthly commitments of popular offerings from Microsoft.
Microsoft partners told CRN that some consumers prefer to make annual commitments, which charge 20% less than monthly commitments. However, this may require partners to pay the remainder of the commitment if the visitor closes the deal, is purchased, or no longer wants the subscription.
The inability to transfer subscriptions from one spouse to another meant that if a Microsoft MSP got a new visitor from a previous MSP, they might have to make a deal with the old MSP to accept the visitor, or even forgo months of earnings until the subscriptions ended. . .
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After CRN learned of the changes in a document shared with CRN, Microsoft showed off the changes.
“This update was based on partner feedback and will offer greater flexibility, creating a more seamless experience for partners and customers,” according to the documents.
Even with the replacement policy in motion, NCE’s constant complaint through some of Microsoft’s partners shows how the program has had an ongoing effect on its business, even two years after it began to be implemented.
Some partners told CRN that another welcome update from NCE would be the extension of the cancellation period from seven days to 30 days to give consumers more time to get the right number of subscriptions and types.
Read on to find out what else partners want to know about the moving policy change.
In an email to CRN, a Microsoft spokesperson showed that the policy update will allow two separate MSPs and two separate vendors to move NCE subscriptions if the MSP and the original distributor agree to it.
“The long-term spouse is guilty of billing Microsoft for the remainder of the subscription term,” according to the spokesperson. “If a current spouse is billed monthly for an annual subscription, the current spouse will no longer receive bills upon transfer. If your current spouse made an upfront payment to Microsoft for the duration of your subscription, you would get a prorated refund.
The update applies to both direct and indirect billing providers, according to documents shared with CRN and shown through a Microsoft spokesperson. NCE’s seven-day cancellation policy still applies after the move, and the changes apply to CSP licenses and seat-based subscriptions.
Microsoft’s partners’ inability to move end visitors’ NCE subscriptions before they expire has problems for some partners when they recruit a new visitor in the middle of a subscription with a separate partner, the partners told CRN.
Some partners had to enter into agreements leaving the profits to the former partner, for example until the end of the subscription, the partners told CRN. This can mean months of lost profit if the end visitor opts for an annual commitment. According to the NCE, annual commitments are 20 cents lower than monthly terms.
Jean Prejean, president of Guardian Computer, a Microsoft company founded in Metairie, Louisiana, and a member of CRN’s 2024 MSP 500, who in the past spoke of such a challenge after the NCE’s debut, told CRN that midterm transfers are a “big change. “”.
“This flexibility allows us to adapt to business dynamics such as mergers, acquisitions or adjustments in visitor preferences,” he said. “It allows us to be more culpable and nimble in how we manage relationships with our visitors. “
The Microsoft spokesperson said mergers and acquisitions are among those cited through partners for having to move licenses.
For long-term NCE changes that are of interest to partners, solution provider leaders, adding Prejean, told CRN that a cancellation window of more than seven days, such as at least a month, would give consumers more flexibility without monetary consequences.
A blog post on the Pax8 distributor’s online page related to the “channel switching” policy states that transfers do not open “a new seven-day replacement window” for the subscription. Both the existing oblique provider and the new direct-billing spouse will need to approve the transfer.
Bobby Guerra, CEO of Axiom, a Microsoft company founded in Jacksonville, Florida, told CRN that the launch of NCE, despite fierce complaints from some companies, gives the impression that Microsoft doesn’t see the price of CSP and MSP companies in deploying Microsoft 365 on-premises. suite.
“[It’s] exciting news to see Microsoft move in the direction that it’s been asking for since the inception of NCE,” Guerra said.
On Wednesday, he turned to Microsoft-owned social network LinkedIn to pay more attention to the NCE, saying “the program will be suspended and the old formula will be reinstated. “
“The old formula added price to MSPs and gave them flexibility to their consumers and be ambassadors for greater Microsoft adoption,” Guerra said. “I’m glad Microsoft is taking steps to fix some problems, but the program is so bad that I can’t fix them all. “
Microsoft’s documents disclosing the policy update imply that there will be updates for Azure solution providers.
The vendor said it’s updating the existing Azure plan and per-user subscription moves “to allow for new ad subscriptions” and “allow CSP spouses to move their customers’ subscriptions to new or other spouses, primarily by allowing NCE subscriptions to move from one spouse. “to another,” according to the documents.
“This enhancement covers moving Microsoft 365 subscriptions with Teams for existing customers,” according to the documents.
Other NCE changes come with Government Community Cloud (GCC) offerings that will be available on the new CSP exchange on April 1, according to Microsoft.
On March 1, SKUs for NCE-based public sector products became available in Partner Center. However, Microsoft continues to fix some errors that occurred in CSP NCE’s public sector securities listing. Some of those issues will be resolved by May1, according to the vendor.
In June and September, Microsoft will remove some NCE APIs that bring back reconciliation of billed and unbilled daily usage. Newer APIs are available, depending on the vendor.