Microsoft appears to have rescinded a policy that encouraged partners to move legacy subscriptions under its Cloud Solution Provider program to the controversial “new commerce experience” by January – now truly providing an indefinite delay to when partners need to move legacy subscriptions to NCE.
In June, the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant announced an indefinite delay to the end date for legacy subscriptions moving to new commerce experience (NCE), crediting more migrations and giving partners more time to adopt the change.
However, the original announcement included a note saying that monthly incentives rebates paid to partners on active legacy commercial seat-based subscriptions were still set to end on Jan. 1 despite the “indefinite” delay.
[RELATED: MICROSOFT DELAYS ANOTHER NCE DEADLINE]
CRN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.ADVERTISEMENT
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Did Microsoft Make NCE Changes?
Microsoft appears to have removed the line about rebates from the delay announcement by July 8, according to screenshots available on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Partners have been unable to buy new orders under the old platform since March.
Michael Goldstein, president of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Microsoft partner LAN Infotech – a member of CRN’s 2022 Managed Service Provider 500 – told CRN in an interview that he’s migrated almost all of his customers to the new transaction platform anyway.
“This state of constant change gets very difficult to stay on top of,” Goldstein said. “We figured that there might be some changes but wanted to get onboard with the new approved program the first time. We also will have our hands full next year on the renewals and true-ups with our existing clients.”
NCE has proven controversial among Microsoft partners mostly due to a 20 percent premium added to monthly commitments of Microsoft 365 and other popular seat-based software packages by the tech giant.
Partners allege that the premium encourages customers to take annual commitments, locking them in with current providers even if the customer wants to change to a new one. Partners are also potentially on the hook should a customer go out of business or need fewer Microsoft licenses. And partners are also locked in with their distributors, preventing them from leaving before the end of a license commitment.LEARN MORE: Cloud Channel Programs | Cloud Infrastructure | Cloud Platforms | Cloud VARs | Cloud Software
Wade Tyler Millward is an associate editor covering cloud computing and the channel partner programs of Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Salesforce, Citrix and other cloud vendors. He can be reached at [email protected].
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