Office 365 will be available as Open licence this quarter - disties
Business SKUs of Microsoft's cloud-based email and productivity suite to be added to Open price list before April
Microsoft Office 365 will be available to resellers to punt as an Open licence this quarter, distributors have been told.
The vendor added the Home Premium SKU of Office 365 to its FPP [full packaged product] price list this month and distributors understand that more SKUs will be made available to resellers before the end of March.
The development comes six months after Microsoft announced it would give resellers the ability to bill customers directly on Office 365 sales through its Office 365 Open programme, earning a rapturous reception from those present at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto.
Taisha Betz, Microsoft business unit manager at Avnet, said Microsoft had told the distributor to expect more SKUs of Office 365 to appear on the FPP and Open price lists throughout its fiscal third quarter ending 31 March.
Like Office 365 Home Premium, Office 365 Small Business Premium, aimed at firms with one to ten seats, will be made available in keycard format on the FPP price list, Betz said. An Open license version aimed at mid-sized businesses with 11-250 seats is also set to debut before the end of March.
Until now, the vendor has retained control over billing on all Office 365 sales generated by partners, with the partner merely offered a margin cut on the business they refer.
Betz said it will not be possible to ship Office 365 Home Premium keycards until after the launch of Office 2013, which is imminent.
Alex Tatham, commercial director at Westcoast (pictured), admitted that the distributor was caught off-guard by Microsoft's decision to add Home Premium to the FPP price list this month.
"We were not expecting it to happen this month," he said. "We are not quite ready - our processes are being refined as we speak. But [it being added to the price list] is an indication that it will be available soon, probably this month."
Tatham said Microsoft must make good on its pledge to hand billing control to partners quickly to ensure channel buy-in on its cloud-based email and productivity suite.
"I cannot tell you when this will happen, but it will be before June," he said. "Microsoft would look stupid if it did not do it before WPC [in July] as it announced it at last year's conference."
Microsoft has been sketchy over Office 365 adoption but today announced that UK-based retail giant Tesco will deploy it across all its sites in Europe and Asia.