The Marketplace Partner Digest | February 2025
Welcome to the monthly partner release notes for the Microsoft commercial marketplace! The marketplace is central to how we help you reach more customers, simplify sales, and unlock growth. Dive into this month’s roundup of announcements and updates to stay informed about the latest marketplace developments. Don’t miss an update! Subscribe to the “Partner Digest” label to get notified whenever a new Marketplace Partner Digest hits the community blog. Check out this community post for how-to guidance on configuring your settings. 🌟Partner Resources We’ve curated best-in-class resources to help you get the most out of the Microsoft commercial marketplace. Explore helpful resources, blogs, and much more below: The latest marketplace announcements, blogs, on-demand webinars, and more Capturing the marketplace opportunity: part one of a series by selling path – This is the first in a four-part monthly blog series offering tips and strategies to maximize your marketplace go-to-market success. ISVs: Maximize your momentum with the new, improved App Advisor – We recently launched an improved experience of App Advisor to the US market. Check out what’s new and use App Advisor today. Designing secure and resilient ISV applications – Explore key security strategies to help you build trusted, resilient applications that protect customers and drive long-term success. Replicate your apps to Azure: A multicloud advantage for ISVs – This blog, the first in a series, outlines the advantages of replicating your existing AWS apps to Azure, helping you reach more customers and expand your business through the marketplace. Embracing the multicloud advantage: a guide to replicating your app from AWS to Azure – Once you understand the advantages, use this technical guide to understand how to move your app to Azure and ensure a smooth transition. New GitHub Copilot benefit for ISV Success Expanded Package – Announcing a new ISV Success Expanded Package benefit that can take your development projects to the next level. Not part of ISV Success yet? Join now! Mastering the Marketplace (MTM) webinars Whether you’re new to the marketplace or focused on growing sales, our Mastering the Marketplace webinars cover a broad range of business and technical session topics to help accelerate your marketplace success. Check out these upcoming webinars, register, and mark your calendars. All times are listed in Pacific Time. March 4 at 9 am: ISVs – Learn how to use the multiparty private offers campaign in a box March 5 at 9 am: Creating your first offer in Partner Center March 10 at 9 am: ISV to CSP private offers – experience walkthrough March 12 at 9 am: Unlocking sales through the marketplace For the complete MTM schedule, visit aka.ms/MTMwebinars. Customer office hours Strategic cloud planning with the marketplace: Invite your customers to office hours on March 13 at 8:30 AM PST. This session will focus on maximizing tech investments with the marketplace, offering strategies on how to holistically plan your Microsoft Cloud investments, and your software vendors need to get a consumption-based view of your portfolio for smarter decision-making. We'll also provide an overview of Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACCs) and the opportunities for the marketplace to help you make the most out of your contract. Register here. Channel partner office hours Multiparty private offer adoption framework: During our channel partner office hours on February 27 at 8:30 am PST, Marketplace Services Partner Lead Darren Sharpe will walk through the four steps to build a successful practice, remove friction, and grow your sales. Register here. New marketplace assets and ask the experts Q&A: Join us on March 27 at 8:30 am PST as we explore new marketing and product assets designed to help influencers and decision-makers better understand the Microsoft commercial marketplace. We’ll also discuss how to use the Modern Procurement Playbook to navigate the procurement process when closing your marketplace deals. Register here and submit your questions in advance when registering. Pre-submitted questions will be addressed in the Q&A portion at the end of the event. Co-Sell with confidence: A two-part webinar series Guest speakers from Rubrik and Tackle have teamed up for a two-part webinar series to help you build, operationalize, and scale a strong co-sell strategy with Microsoft. During these sessions, you’ll learn strategies, best practices, and practical steps to operationalize and scale your co-sell efforts. Click here to register to watch the session recordings. ⏰Recent & Upcoming Events Azure Marketplace Primer – What is it, why should I use it, and is it secure? Invite your customers to discover how Azure Marketplace can transform your business by providing access to a vast array of cloud solutions and services. This event will offer valuable insights into leveraging Azure Marketplace to accelerate your digital transformation, drive innovation, and save costs. We will deep dive into the benefits from a procurement, Azure commitment and cloud engineering team standpoint while having complete access and management control. Share with your customers and register here for the next session on Thursday, February 27 from 10:00 to 11:00 am PST. Microsoft ISV AI Envisioning Day Register for the Microsoft ISV AI Envisioning Day on March 5 from 10:00 to 11:00 am PST to learn how to identify and prioritize use cases for AI solutions. Gain insights from industry-related use cases on envisioning frameworks and learn how to incorporate them into your application development planning process. Microsoft Build 2025 Mark your calendars! Microsoft Build returns to Seattle on May 19 – 22, 2025. Visit the event page to sign up for registration notifications and to receive the most up-to-date information about the event. 💭 Share Your Feedback! We truly appreciate your feedback and want to ensure these Partner Release Notes deliver the information you need to succeed in the marketplace. If you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can continue to improve the content to best support you, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Thank you!The Marketplace Partner Digest | January 2025
Welcome to the January Partner Release Notes for the Microsoft commercial marketplace! The marketplace is central to how we help you reach more customers, simplify sales, and unlock growth. Dive into this month’s roundup of announcements and updates to stay informed about the latest marketplace developments. NEW IN THIS ISSUE: ISV transactability now available in China Don’t miss an update! Subscribe to the “Partner Digest” label to get notified whenever a new Marketplace Partner Digest hits the community blog. Check out this community post for how-to guidance on configuring your settings. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 🚀Noteworthy Highlights China ISV Transactability Now Available What’s happening: Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) based in China can now publish and sell their solutions through the Microsoft commercial marketplace. This allows Chinese ISVs to reach customers and scale through the Microsoft partner ecosystem. ISVs in China should review our documentation on how to create offers and transact on marketplace – check it out here. What this means for you: This expansion is part of our ongoing effort to expand and grow the marketplace. As we continue to expand our marketplace ecosystem, this will increase opportunities to sell your solutions in new markets. 🌟Partner Resources We’ve curated best-in-class resources to help you get the most out of the Microsoft commercial marketplace. Explore helpful resources, blogs, and much more below. The latest marketplace blogs, on-demand sessions, and announcements Sharing the value of marketplace with your customers – Learn how to communicate the benefits of purchasing your solution through the marketplace. Check out this guidance to help you craft compelling material for your customers. Activating channel opportunities through the Microsoft commercial marketplace - Explore how to activate new partner-to-partner selling opportunities through the marketplace. What's new in ISV Success - AI benefits and more – We recently announced new benefits in ISV Success. Read this blog to see how we’re helping software companies succeed when building and publishing AI-powered apps. Expand your business with ISV to CSP private offers in the marketplace – Missed the webinar? Get step-by-step guidance from marketplace product managers on creating ISV-to-CSP private offers. Strengthening ISVs in the Era of AI: Introducing the ISV Security Series – Discover how we’re equipping ISVs with tools, insights, and strategies to enhance their security posture. Marketplace and procurement, strategies to balance business while unlocking innovation - During this customer office hours Q&A session held on January 16, we covered how the marketplace supports a stronger procurement strategy that helps companies balance business requirements while unlocking innovation. Access this session on-demand here. Marketplace partner spotlight Growing on the marketplace through Azure sponsorship and multiparty private offers – Hear from Microsoft partner Silverfort about how they’re driving marketplace growth with Azure Sponsorship credits. Wiz conjures 1,500% ROI with Microsoft Marketplace Rewards – Get inspired by this partner case study to learn how Azure Sponsorship credits can further fuel your marketplace success. Mastering the Marketplace (MTM) webinars Whether you are brand new to the marketplace or focused on growing sales, our Mastering the Marketplace webinars cover a broad range of business and technical session topics to help accelerate your marketplace success. Check out these upcoming webinars, register, and mark your calendars. All times are listed in Pacific Time. January 30th at 8:30 am: Channel partner office hours: Multiparty private offers adoption February 4th at 9:00 am: Learn how to use the Multiparty Private Offers Campaign in a Box February 5th at 9:00 am: Creating your first offer in Partner Center February 10th at 9:00 am: ISV to CSP private offers – experience walkthrough February 11th at 9:00 am: Creating plans and pricing for your offer February 12th at 9:00 am: Unlocking sales through the marketplace February 13th at 8:30 am: Basics on procurement contracting through the marketplace For the complete MTM schedule, visit aka.ms/MTMwebinars. ⏰Recent & Upcoming Events ISV Security Series The ISV Security Series is designed to empower ISVs to defend against current threats, while anticipating and preparing for future challenges. Whether you are just starting your security journey or looking to enhance your existing strategies, this series provides the insights and resources you need to ensure a security-first approach. January 29: Design Your Next Product with Security in Mind Register now for this upcoming virtual session to discover how to make security a seamless part of your product’s lifecycle. This session will help you: Address security considerations from the earliest stages of product design Explore common challenges faced when security is left until last Understand practical strategies for integrating security measures throughout the development process Channel partner office hours Q&A: Multiparty private offers (MPO) Looking to accelerate your marketplace sales? If so, building a marketplace resell practice is key, and MPO is the perfect place to start. Join Marketplace Services Partner Lead Darren Sharpe on January 30 at 8:30 AM Pacific Time as he walks through the four steps to build a successful practice, remove friction, and grow your marketplace sales. Register now for this office hours session. Please submit your questions in advance when you register. Pre-submitted questions will be discussed during Q&A toward the end of the event. Azure Feature Friday: Azure Marketplace Primer Invite your customers to join this Azure Feature Friday session on January 31 to discover how Azure Marketplace can transform their business by providing access to a vast array of cloud solutions and services. This session will offer valuable insights into leveraging Azure Marketplace to accelerate digital transformation and drive innovation. We’ll deep dive into the benefits for procurement, Azure commitment, and cloud engineering, all while providing complete access and management control. There are two session options available: January 31 at 10 AM EST and 1 PM EST. Click here to register. 💬 Share Your Feedback! We truly appreciate your feedback and want to ensure these Partner Release Notes deliver the information you need to succeed in the marketplace. If you have any feedback or suggestions on how we can continue to improve the content to best support you, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below!Teams App - Copilot vs Azure Open AI
Morning, For our gauge.it Teams app we have implemented AI to allow the feedback generated by employees to be summarised into suggestions for the manager. When we look at the Team's store I would like it to appear in the AI-powered apps - what is the best process for doing this if we are using Azure Open AI, do we need to add anything to the manifest when pushing the update? Thanks AlasdairAppSource Marketplace bugs
Hi everyone, We recently noticed some bugs on the Marketplace, such as the call-to-action button displaying “CTA_Get” instead of the correct label. I’m curious—has anyone else experienced similar issues? It’d be great to know if this is isolated or more widespread. Thanks for sharing your feedback!Partner Opportunity to Influence the ISV Copilot Tooling Roadmap.
Microsoft Partners - We're sharing an opportunity for you to contribute to the Microsoft roadmap for tooling and capabilities that help ISVs build, deploy, and monitor Copilots. Voice your company's thoughts on what features and capabilities would help your company whether you're considering a custom Copilot or have already built one. Complete this survey (~5 mins) by EOD 11/22 to influence the roadmap. In this context, Copilot refers custom Copilots, Microsoft Copilots extensions, autonomous agents, and genAI infused Industry applications.Partner Opportunity to Contribute to the Copilot Roadmap
Microsoft Partners - We're sharing an opportunity with you to contribute to the Copilot roadmap. Voice your company's thoughts on what features and capabilities Microsoft should build to help ISVs build, deploy, and monitor Copilots. Complete this survey (5-10 mins) by EOD 11/22 to influence the Copilot roadmap: https://forms.office.com/r/nv6EPTfYFh
Knowledge Managment in M365 after Viva Topics retirement
Hi, What is the Microsoft POV on knowledge management in M365 after the retirement of Viva Topics? I know we have Microsoft AI Content Management features to manage knowledge. But when it comes to surfacing the knowledge to end users, there is no dedicated front end like Viva Topics that auto-curate content for users. Microsoft 365 Copilot is very generic and renders global content results which impacts the quality of knowledge-related results. Building a custom Chatbot is an option but it's expensive and has its limitations.Exciting Updates Ahead: A Preview of Our Partner Roadmap
I’m excited to share a sneak peek of the exciting developments coming to our Microsoft commercial marketplace ecosystem. Our recent partner roadmap presentation outlines our vision for the future and also reflects on the impactful features we've recently introduced.
