Action required: Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) in the CSP Program
Prepare for Microsoft Customer Agreement Today
During Microsoft Inspire 2019, Microsoft has announced that from 1 October the Microsoft Customer Agreement will begin to replace the existing Microsoft Cloud Agreement for all customers served through the Cloud Solution Provider program.
Currently, a customer will need to sign an agreement with Microsoft or partner multiple times when they purchase Microsoft products through different channels or partners. With Microsoft Customer Agreement, the agreement terms follow the customer – however the customer chooses to buy – enabling purchasing across channels without the need to resign the same terms. And for partners, they will be able to assign to Microsoft the responsibility for managing the agreement process, including accountability for customer agreement acceptance and maintaining agreement records.
Timeline:
Oct 2019 to Jan 2020: Partner attestation – rhipe CSP partners will be able to attest the signing of Microsoft Customer agreement through rhipe. Partner still needs to maintain greement record
Dec 2019 onwards: Customer Invitation to the signing of MCA in Microsoft 365 Admin Center through rhipe PRISM portal – Partner can trigger an email invitation which contains the MCA signing URL to the customer to review and accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement in Microsoft Admin Center.
Also, there will be an option available through the PRISM portal to determine if a customer has accepted the agreement directly with Microsoft (this capability will be available in early 2020). Customers who have already accepted the agreement through Microsoft will not need to re-sign the agreement for purchasing in CSP.
What does a CSP reseller needs to do:
- Review Microsoft Customer Agreement here
- Communicate with your customer about the signing of the new Microsoft Customer Agreement
More details will be shared with rhipe partners when we have more information.
Server subscription download and license keys now available through Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Starting August 2019, customers will be able to download their Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) server subscription license keys from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Your customers can now self-serve instead of having to raise a case through you with rhipe Cloud Support team to redeem license key for Server subscriptions for your customer for on-premise deployment. This introduces a huge efficiency gain for both you and your customers.
(Reminder) Microsoft Partner Agreement is coming September 1, 2019
Effective September 1, 2019, the Microsoft Partner Agreement (the new version of the Cloud Solution Provider program partner agreement), will be available to all regions on Partner Center, replacing existing CSP partner agreements.
Additionally, as part of this new enhanced process, all CSP indirect resellers will need to accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement on Partner Center. The Microsoft Partner Agreement will be available for partner preview on Partner Center today.
Starting September 1, 2019, Microsoft Partner Agreement will be available for signature on Partner Center. All partners in the CSP program are required to accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement by January 31st, 2020 to transact in the CSP program.
For more info, please refer to our blog here. You can also find the FAQ about Microsoft Partner Agreement and how to enrol to Partner Center here.
Microsoft Named as a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management
It’s a moment to rejoice, as Microsoft is named the leader in Gartner magic quadrant – 2019 for unified endpoint management. Intune and SCCM are one of the top tier tools for managing BYOD and CYOD type of devices and contribute extensively to the overarching modern workplace strategy of many organizations. From a deployment perspective, these tools are easy to set up and doesn’t take a lot of overhead, especially when it comes to MAM (mobile application management), which makes the workforce more productive, without controlling the overall personal device.
Intune is available as part of Microsoft 365 E3 and E5. Please reach out to your respective account manager for more information regarding the same.
For the more detailed report please click the link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2019/08/14/microsoft-is-a-leader-in-the-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-endpoint-management-2019/
Azure Dedicated Now in Public Preview
On August 2019, Microsoft announced the preview of Azure Dedicated Host. Azure Dedicated Host is an Azure service that provides physical servers, able to host one or more Azure virtual machines for Windows or Linux, which are dedicated to a single organization and their workloads. The server capacity is not shared with other customers.
With Azure Dedicated Host, Microsoft has also updated the outsourcing terms for Microsoft on-premises licenses to clarify the distinction between on-premises/traditional outsourcing and cloud services. For more details about these changes, read the blog “Updated Microsoft licensing terms for dedicated hosted cloud services.”
For more information about Azure Dedicated Host, please refer to the Microsoft Azure Dedicated Host Announcement blog and Azure Dedicated Host Azure page.
Microsoft Teams 6 months trial now Available in CSP
Starting August 01, 2019, CSP partners can initiate 6-month trials for their customers. The new trial offerings enable partners to provide the full power of modern collaboration and integrated cloud workloads to their customers.
Availability:
The Microsoft Teams 6-month trial is available for customers with up to 1,000 seats. Customers who are new to Office 365, or existing customers with SKUs that do not have Teams (such as Exchange Online Plan 1/2, Office 365 Business / Proplus, Dynamics 365 etc.) will be eligible to for the Microsoft Teams trial.
Features:
Full Teams product functionality will be available, which means each user receives 2 GB of SharePoint Online storage, plus Flow for Office 365 Forms, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Whiteboard, Office Online, PowerApps for Office 365, SharePoint Online Kiosk, Stream, Sway etc.
The trial will not be available directly through rhipe PRISM portal. To request for Microsoft Teams trial, please raise a request through our cloud support portal or email our Cloud Support team.
Additional resources
Microsoft Teams – Product page
Microsoft Teams – Technical documentation
OneDrive to become the default save location in the upcoming Semi-Annual release of Office
To make it easier for the users to take advantage of the rich cloud collaboration capabilities in Office 365, Microsoft has simplified the first save experience and made it easier for users to save to OneDrive and SharePoint. Once it’s in the cloud, users can easily rename/move files between folders from right within the apps. This was first announced in January 2019 for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint users on the Monthly Channel. Now, the new save experience will be coming to Semi-Annual Channel users. This new experience allows users signed into Office 365 to easily save their Word, Excel & PowerPoint files to a default cloud location. For organizational accounts, this will be OneDrive for Business. Once saved to the cloud, users can easily rename and move the file from within the application to other folders.
If the organization already uses OneDrive and users are already using the OneDrive sync clients, IT Admins don’t need to do anything to prepare for this change. IT Admins may consider informing your users about this change in user experience, updating any internal help content, and notifying your help desk.
For more details, please refer to Microsoft Roadmap 45063.
Microsoft Teams - Screen sharing in Teams/Skype for Business interop
Microsoft is rolling out screen sharing in Teams/Skype for Business as a new Office 365 interoperability feature. With this change, your Teams Only users will be able to share their desktops with users in chats or calls with Skype for Business users. This feature expands how the two applications coexist and interoperate. In addition, Teams Only users will be able to share their desktops in chats or calls with external partners. This feature facilitates creating a Teams meeting invitation for the external party. Microsoft will be rolling this out to customers in mid-August. The rollout will be completed by the end of August.
For more details, please refer to Microsoft 365 Roadmap 53934.
(Reminder) Dynamics 365 Licensing Change coming Oct 2019
Microsoft is changing the Dynamics 365 software licensing model, allowing customers to purchase only the applications they need, when they need them. The new model will be available to all new and renewing Customer Engagement, Unified Operations, and Dynamics 365 Plan subscribers starting October 2019.
Starting October 2019, all plan SKUs removed from all price lists for all channels including CSP. And instead of purchasing user plan if a user needs features from more than one app, the user will need to purchase a Base App SKU plus new 'Attach' SKUs
In term of pricing, the price of the base App SKUs largely unchanged (price below in USD).
More details about the changes can be found using the links below:
Microsoft PartnerSource Pricing and licensing page: link
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Unified Operations Licensing change FAQ: link
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Licensing Updates Deck: link
To Customer email: link
(Reminder) Skype for Business Online Retirement and Resources
Microsoft has announced that Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021. Between now and then, current Skype for Business Online customers will experience no change in service, and they’ll be able to continue to add new users as needed. However, starting September 1, 2019, Microsoft will onboard all-new Office 365 customers directly to Teams for chat, meetings, and calling
The official announcement can be read here.
What does this announcement mean for you?
- No change in service to current Skype for Business Online customers through July 31, 2021. After that, customers will no longer be able to access the Skype for Business Online service.
- Skype for Business Online customers and those with Hybrid (online and on-premises) configurations, will have until July 31, 2021, to transition to Microsoft Teams. Partners are encouraged to continue customer dialog to start their upgrade planning and execution.
- There is no impact to our Skype for Business Server on-premises customers or the Skype Consumer service.
- Current Skype for Business Online customers (including CSP) will be able to add/remove users until the retirement of the service. For CSP customers, you can only get Skype for Business services though Office 365 plans as Skype for Business Plan 1 and Plan 2 are already retired from CSP pricelist.
Calls to action
- While the retirement date is still 24 months in the future, you should continue to encourage your customers to adopt Teams as their primary communication and collaboration application in Office 365.
- Utilize the communication template and the presentation.
- Familiarize yourself with the FAQ to prepare for customer questions
- Leverage the Skype for Business Online to Teams upgrade planning workshop materials and Teamwork Assessment resources to help your customers transition to Teams.
- Stay up-to-date with the public Microsoft 365 roadmap
Microsoft has created multiple assets to help you and your customers move to Teams. You can assess some of them using the links below:
Others:
Microsoft 365 Partner Community post (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Email template (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Partner FAQ (requires yammer sign in)
Skype for Business Online Retirement Presentation (requires yammer sign in)
Marketing and sales resources:
Microsoft Teams assets collection: link
Technical resource:
Technical guidance and Planning Resource: link
Fast Track: link
Upgrade Pro: link
Training:
Instruction led training: link
Microsoft Teams end-user training: link
This rhipe monthly CSP update is brought to you by the rhipe marketing team and our CSP Partner Enablement Specialists.
To stay up to date with what’s happening in the Microsoft CSP program, we will strongly encourage you to join the Microsoft CSP licensing update call by registering through https://commercial_licensing.eventbuilder.com/YearToDate_ALL
If you have any question, please contact the rhipe S&E CSP team through email, twitter or LinkedIn below:
JY Wong
Microsoft CSP Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: JY.Wong@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wongjy/
Mikki Chopra
Cloud Enablement Specialist
Email: Mikki.Chopra@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikki-chopra/
Paul Dilag
Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: Paul.Dilag@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdilag/
Related posts
