Partners react to Microsoft withdrawing Software Assurance benefits

Deployment Planning Services and training vouchers among benefits to be withdrawn from February 2020

Microsoft is "risking the wrath" of channel partners again after quietly announcing changes to its Software Assurance benefits.

The vendor will scrap its Deployment Planning Services (DPS) from February 2020, along with its Software Assurance training voucher scheme.

Currently, if customers have an Enterprise Agreement with Software Assurance, they can use vouchers they receive in exchange for consulting services from partners.

Partners must be qualified to provide DPS, which involves only the planning of deployment, though it often offers more lucrative opportunities for the partner with the customer.

Microsoft said it is "consolidating [its] programmatic deployment planning assistance to a single approach", and will instead direct partners to its FastTrack programme.

The shake-up comes after Microsoft infuriated its partner community earlier this year by announcing it would ditch its internal use rights (IUR) benefits, only to sheepishly reverse its decision.

Kelvin Kirby, CEO of Microsoft Gold partner Technology Associates, is wary of these changes based on the information he has read so far.

He said that this is reminiscent of Microsoft's attempt to remove IUR rights from partners earlier this year, except that this would affect a smaller subset of partners, as they have to be qualified to offer DPS.

"We've been part of the DPS for some time and it gives us quite a lot of input into customers," he told CRN.

"It sounds like Microsoft is moving DPS onto FastTrack, which means it basically goes to support desk, and then two things will happen.

"One is that customers won't then get onsite support through that mechanism from consultants, they'll only get support through somebody on a helpdesk who probably doesn't have the detailed expertise that they really need."

Kirby also believes that this decision by the vendor will remove possibilities for partners.

"My concern is that Microsoft is essentially withdrawing this opportunity from partners," he said.

"And for us, it could be a customer that is a multimillion-pound revenue opportunity. It does seem a bit odd.

"But at the moment, at least, Microsoft seems to be focused on withdrawing and replacing it with Fast Track and we know the quality of that can be extremely variable."

FastTrack is run by Microsoft's own engineers, who operate remotely. It provides guidance for planning, deployment and adoption for customers.

Partners can apply to be 'FastTrack-ready' certified in specific fields, including Office 365, Dynamics, Azure and Teams, which allows them to deliver these services on behalf of Microsoft.

Kirby said the vendor has not been in touch about these changes prior to the news and he is still waiting to hear from the firm.

Not all partners, however, consider these changes a negative.

Rob Quickenden, CTO at Cisilion, explained that the wariness among partners around FastTrack is because it is run by Microsoft's own engineers.

Cisilion has applied to become a 'FastTrack-ready' partner, and Quickenden can see why the majority of the channel would be against it.

"I think it massively competes with partners," he stated.

"If you're a partner that has always done the same things and you're not evolving your services, then FastTrack can definitely be seen as a bit of a kick in the teeth. But when you dig deeper into FastTrack, it doesn't necessarily replace those services, it just looks like it does.

"It's just knowing that the role of a partner is to know FastTrack and to work with the customer and the mindset of the account manager to align together. Microsoft has incentivised quite heavily this year to do co-sell work with partners where possible."

Quickenden admitted to being a "hater" of FastTrack when it was first introduced, but said he has come around to seeing the advantages of being a qualified partner of the programme.

"I now feel it will add quite a lot of benefits; it just means that we've had to change some of the services that we offer. Ultimately, it's about owning your customer," he stated.

"If you know the customer, they trust you, they respect you and they're going to want to work with you rather than work directly with Microsoft.

"The benefit of it is quite big in that you will get leads from Microsoft to deliver FastTrack services on their behalf. I know partners that work in other areas, such as Azure, that get a lot of business through FastTrack.

"The other big benefit that a lot of partners don't realise, and that will upset a few - including us at the moment - is some of the incentives Microsoft pay where you get associated as a ‘partner of record' for an account - if you're FastTrack, they pay double."

Quickenden agreed with Kirby that Microsoft has not communicated the changes well to partners, stating that partners tend to hear about these kinds of changes online rather than from the vendor itself.

Both believe this is the start of a process which will ultimately dismantle the "clunky" Enterprise Agreement which has been in place for nearly 30 years, as well as other changes down the line.

"They are looking to shake up the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) programme," stated Kirby.

"I think we are going to see some big changes in the MPN in the next 12 to 18 months.

"It wouldn't surprise me if this was a precursor to part of that. But it would be nice to know where we stand, rather than just seeing it all in blog posts that may or may not present the full story."

In a statement sent to CRN, Microsoft said: " Microsoft is investing in new ways to help customers deploy and use our products and services.

"As we adapt to new customer scenarios, we're updating Software Assurance benefits starting in February 2020 to ensure it stays relevant and useful to customers.

"Once customers transition to cloud, they will receive many of the same advantages of Software Assurance, only delivered as part of Microsoft's online services.

"As more businesses worldwide migrate to the cloud, we're continuously evaluating how we can best support partners.

"To keep pace with this evolution, we're updating Software Assurance benefits starting in February 2020. This means that our benefits will increasingly be delivered via Microsoft's online services.

"We realise this may affect how some partners interact with customers, and we're working to help them with this transition. We encourage partners to visit our Licensing site for more details on Software Assurance changes and timelines."