Microsoft updates requirements and benefits for partners

Microsoft has laid out several mid-year changes to licensing, pricing, support, compliance, and partner program updates, which centre around its updated priorities and solution areas for the 2026 financial year.

These priorities revolve around the software giant’s prioritisation of AI business solutions, cloud and AI platforms, and security.

In a blog post by Microsoft’s chief partner officer and corporate vice president of global partner solutions Nicole Dezen said the benefits were “a strategic shift grounded in what customers are asking for and what’s resonating most in the market”.

For example, Microsoft is increasing Azure credits for those involved in Marketplace Rewards or who hold certified software designations, noting this would further support software partners.

Meanwhile, Dezen said service partners would see benefits expanded, which include new Microsoft products, increasing Copilot seats, and introducing tools such as Copilot Studio, Dragon Copilot, and Microsoft 365 E5 Security.

Due to partner feedback, Microsoft is also improving benefit delivery through Modern Benefit Provisioning in the company’s Partner Centre.

Partners will also be able to combine or split benefit packages across multiple tenants to support operations in numerous global locations.

Changes to the lifecycle model

These changes coincide with several announcements from Microsoft, starting off with the introduction of several licensing and pricing changes to its on-premises server products, between July and August.

To support ongoing maintenance and updates for Microsoft’s on-premises server products, prices for all standalone on-premises server products, SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and Skype for Business Server, will increase by 10 per cent as of the start of July, alongside the general availability of Exchange Server SE and Skype for Business Server SE.  

Prices for its Core Customer Access License (CAL) Suite and Enterprise CAL Suite, which were static for some time, are to increase by 15 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, and will be effective as of August.  

These changes apply exclusively to the on-premises versions of the products. There will be a delay in implementing the price increase on Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites for the United States Indirect (Reseller) CRP price list. Increases on this price list will be made in stages, starting with increments of no more than 10 per cent.  

The first price increase for this list will be previewed in August and will take effect in September, while all other changes proceed as previously announced.  

There’s no change in pricing for SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, or Microsoft Teams purchased separately or through a Microsoft 365 license. Exchange Server Subscription Edition (SE) and Skype Business Server Subscription Edition are generally available as of July.  

To deploy and use subscription edition server products, customers must have active Software Assurance or cloud subscription licenses for all users and devices that access them.  

The release of Subscription Editions for Exchange Server and Skype for Business Server brings these products into alignment with SharePoint in transitioning from a three-year version cycle to a version-less product with regular updates through the modern lifecycle policy.    

As for its commercial cloud and on-premises software services, there will be no price increase due to local currency fluctuations, following the latest semi-annual foreign exchange pricing evaluation, said Microsoft.

Any product-specific price adjustments and/or any consumer price adjustments continue to be communicated separately.

Local currency pricing changes for the commercial business don’t apply to Azure in modern commerce through Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP), and Microsoft Buy Online as those are priced consistently in US dollars.

Although Microsoft won’t raise prices, it is looking to limit the ticket-raised support. The Solutions Partner Designation’s unlimited benefit package now has a limit of 50 incidents per year enforced on new purchase or renewal anniversary date, and has been renamed to Partner Cloud Support. Microsoft wants to align with the broader shift toward paid Azure support through ASfP and PSfP.

Previously, it offered unlimited cloud support to services partners who purchase a solutions partner designation on Partner Centre, which allowed partners to raise support tickets for their own cloud business or on behalf of their customers.

As of July, partners will be given the ability to self-serve the cancellation of purchase orders. Previously, partners had to reach out to the support team in case there was a cancellation request for the offer they purchased.

The support team received around five tickets on such requests and spent around 370 hours resolving them. Self-serve capability will provide an interface to partners where they can request cancellation of orders, with all checks and balances automated, which were handled by the support team manually. 

Skills boost

For partners to engage with these changes, Microsoft is boosting additional skills opportunities, which will be made available over the next 12 months. This includes hands-on agentic AI skilling with Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry, hackathon-styled training activities, and regional in-person workshops and AI roadshows.

Microsoft has readjusted the certificate requirements for the analytics and data warehouse migration specialisations. The Azure Data Engineer Associate certificate that expired in March was replaced by the Fabric Data Engineer Associate Certificate.

For Migrate Enterprise Apps Specialisation and Azure Expert Managed Services Provider Program requirements, the Azure Data Engineer Associate Certificate is being removed without replacement. Partners who obtained the retiring certificate before their retirement date will have their certifications remain valid for one year.

As of 30 July, the qualification framework for the Training Services Partner (TSP) designation will be updated. The current courseware model has been replaced with a more refined three-bucket structure: Fundamentals, two days or less, and three days or more. Total points for qualification in each criterion remain the same, and this change to qualification parameters is made to increase qualification flexibility and make qualifications easier.

Dezen wrote in her blog that distributors will also see cloud solution provider (CSP) certification weeks and a Skilling in a Box initiative to scale pre-sales and sales skilling to thousands of resellers.

This comes off the back of over three million individuals taking on upskilling activities via Microsoft during the 2025 financial year, she noted, with half of this figure taking on AI, Copilot, and Fabric-related skills.

It has updated the intermediate certifications in Security SPD (for both SMB and enterprise). The certification, Microsoft Information Protection Administrator and Compliance Administrator Associate, retired on 31 May, will remain valid for one year if completed before retirement. As an alternative, Microsoft added a new optional certification – Microsoft Certified: Information Security Administrator Associate, available in the Partner Centre from mid-July.

Microsoft also introduced ‘Copilot’ specialisation for partners, which aimed to highlight partner capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot and is set to launch by the end of this month. This specialisaition enables partners to demonstrate their expertise in providing consulting and professional services related to Copilot, including advisory services, deployment readiness, adoption and change management, and extensibility.

Security enhancements

Making ongoing improvements to security and privacy safeguards is among Microsoft’s top priorities, and it aims to help partners protect their customers and tenants, noted Dezen in her blog.

This aligned with Microsoft’s July updates to partners around enhancing security, multifactor authentication (MFA) for all pages in the Partner Center portal, and for API access.

As of 30 August, MFA will be enforced for all pages in the Partner Centre portal; 30 September, API will be code-ready for MFA; and April 2026 MFA will also be mandatory for API access.

Microsoft will phase out the use of deprecating graph.windows.net audience tokens in the Partner Centre, and by 31 August, the portal will only accept api.partnercenter.microsoft.com audience tokens for both user token and app-only scenarios.

SMB partners will also be able to access performance and designation data to help track and improve their security standing in this space.

In addition, Microsoft has extended the deadline to 5 January 2026 for partners to provide proof that customers accept the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA). The vendor said this was implemented to improve compliance, protect intellectual property, and enhance security.

All distributors (formerly indirect providers) and direct bill partners are required to provide proof or new orders will be blocked. Partners can test Partner Center UX changes and blocking experiences in the sandbox, which take effect between July 2025 and January 2026.

Bulk attestation will be limited to read-only on 7 October and fully retired in January 2026. However, partners using the current attestation process or direct acceptance won’t need to reaccept MCAs, and only net new customers requiring attestation are impacted.

Cloud investments

Dezen wrapped up the announcements in her blog post with a series of areas Microsoft is looking to increase investment.

The largest area by percentage is Azure outcome-based incentives, which will rise by 70 per cent year-on-year, to reward partners for expanding workloads, driving seat growth, and deepening solution adoption.

AI Business Solutions’ incentives have been increased by 50 per cent, which Dezen said reflects strong momentum and broadening accessibility across the workforce.

CSP incentives are set to increase by roughly 20 per cent, which Dezen said would reward growth through new customer acquisition, upselling new workloads, and expanding existing relationships. Additionally, in order to align investments with its growth plans, Microsoft would be pulling forward the effective date of these incentives to 1 July.

“This shift ensures a fast start to the year, enabling partners to accelerate execution, capture opportunity earlier and drive measurable impact from day one,” Dezen wrote.

“We’re structuring this opportunity to foster a more predictable and profitable environment as partners deliver strategic customer solutions.”

Approximately 20 per cent are enterprise customer investment funds. Dezen added that security will see a 15 per cent increase, and Microsoft 365 incentives are going to be raised by “double digits”.

“Across customer segments, we see real momentum and value creation through Microsoft’s AI platform, especially through Copilot and agents,” she said. “Organisations are using AI to reshape how work gets done, reduce costs and unlock net-new value.”

Microsoft’s gradual shift towards these priorities. In March ARN reported Microsoft was planning a variety of support for channel partners who embrace agentic artificial intelligence (AI), three months after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella publicly stated that software-as-a-service (SaaS) will “collapse in the agent era”.

In early May, ARN reported the software giant made changes to cloud service provider (CSP) licensing rules, updating the maximum resale price calculation for channel partner agreements, which came into effect this month, impacting all products and volume licensing frameworks.

At the time, Dezen said these changes would streamline customers when it comes to monthly billing support and its focus on cloud and AI.