Microsoft CSP Program and Products Updates | October 2019

(Reminder) New Microsoft Customer Agreement

During Microsoft Inspire 2019, Microsoft announced that from 1 October 2019 Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCAv2) will begin to replace the existing Microsoft Cloud Agreement (MCAv1) for all customers served through the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program.

Currently, a customer will need to sign an agreement with Microsoft or partners multiple times when they purchase Microsoft products through different channels or partners. With MCAv2, the agreement terms follow the customer, regardless of channels or partners, enabling purchasing across channels without the need to re-sign the same terms. Partners will eventually be able to assign the responsibility of managing the agreement signing process, including accountability for customer agreement acceptance and maintaining agreement records, to Microsoft.

Timeline:
October 1, 2019: MCAv2 becomes available- MCAv2 becomes available, however, rhipe partners will continue to use MCAv1 for their customers.

December 1, 2019: Partner attestation- rhipe CSP partners will be able to attest the signing of MCAv2 through PRISM portal. Partners can no longer attest the signing of MCAv1 in PRISM portal.

Early Jan 2020 onwards: Invitation to the signing of MCAv2 in Microsoft 365 Admin Center through rhipe PRISM portal – Partner can obtain a MCAv2 signing URL from PRISM and invite their customers to review and accept the new MCAv2 in Microsoft Admin Center through email.  Partner attestation option will continue to remain available.

In future, you can also determine whether a customer has accepted MCAv2 (available in early 2020). Customers who have already accepted the agreement through Microsoft are not required to re-sign the agreement.

What does a CSP reseller need to do:

1. Review Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCAv2) here.
2. Communicate with your customers about the signing of the new MCAv2.

For more information, please read our blog @ http://rhi.pe/mcablog and our FAQ @ http://rhi.pe/mca.

 

(Reminder) Microsoft Partner Agreement is now available for signing in Partner Center

Effective September 1, 2019, the Microsoft Partner Agreement (the new version of the Cloud Solution Provider program partner agreement) will be available to all regions on Partner Center, replacing existing CSP partner agreements.

As part of this new enhanced process, all CSP indirect resellers will need to accept the Microsoft Partner Agreement in Partner Center digitally by January 31, 2020 to transact in the CSP program.

For more info, please refer to our blog here. You can also find the FAQ about Microsoft Partner Agreement and how to enrol to Partner Center here.

 

Business Applications Licensing Changes: Dynamics 365 and Power Platform

Effective October 1, 2019, Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Plan, Unified Operations Plan and Dynamics 365 Plan SKUs will be retired. Dynamics 365 will be moving away from multi-application, one-size-fits-all Customer Engagement (CE), Unified Operations (UO), and Dynamics 365 Plans to individual application licensing. The a la carte licensing model will allow customers to subscribe to the applications that align with their functional roles and scenarios and add or remove applications as their company grows and changes over time.

The changes are as follow:

• Customer Engagement, Unified Operations, and Dynamics 365 Plans will no longer be offered. Individual Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and Unified Operations apps will be available for subscription as Base and Attach licenses. You ought to purchase Base licenses before purchasing Attach licenses.
• New PowerApps and Flow plans will be introduced, including a per-app plan and a per-flow plan. The PowerApps per-app plan will allow individual users to run applications for a specific business scenario, while the per-flow plan will allow customers to implement critical workflows with reserved capacity. With the PowerApps and Flow per user plans individual users will be able to run an unlimited number of apps or workflows.
• New PowerApps Portals login capacity add-on and Portals page view capacity add-on will be available for external users of PowerApps Portals.

In terms of pricing, the price of the base App SKUs remains largely unchanged (price below in USD).

Your existing customers can remain on the Customer Engagement plan until their subscription anniversary, after which you should help them switch to the new A la carte licensing model.

Additional resources (licensing) can be found below:

• Customer Engagement and Unified Operations change FAQ:
  https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/CE-UO-Changes-FAQ
• Business Applications licensing updates – Field and partner web conference presentation (August 29, 2019):
  https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/bizapp-webconference-deck
• Business Applications licensing model changes web conference recording:
  https://learning.eventbuilder.com/event/7276
• Fall 2019 licensing update readiness schedule:
  https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/bizapps-readiness-schedule
• PowerApps and Flow licensing FAQ:
  https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq
• PowerApps and Microsoft Flow licensing update presentation deck:
  https://assetsprod.microsoft.com/powerapps-flow-licensing-updates
• Power Platform licensing changes FAQ:
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq

Additional resources (operations)

• Assign licenses to users
• Resolve license conflicts

 

Azure reservations monthly payment options Coming to rhipe CSP

Microsoft announced the availability of a new monthly billing option for customers and partners to pay for Azure reservations with more flexibility at no extra cost. Today, customers and partners enjoy significant cost savings from reserving their Azure needs in advance, but it only allows upfront payment at the time of purchase.

Going forward, all customers and partners can enjoy the same cost benefits from making their 1- and 3-year commitments as they have before, with the added flexibility of paying either upfront at the time of purchase, or each month for the length of the term at no additional cost. With these two payment options, customers and partners can purchase Azure reservations easily and can continue to scale efficiently on their journey with Azure.

With the addition of new monthly billing option, Azure reservations will be available in the following combinations:

Current:

• 1-year commitment – Paid upfront
• 3-year commitment – Paid upfront

Coming to rhipe CSP in October:

• 1-year commitment – Paid upfront or monthly
• 3-year commitment – Paid upfront or monthly

Existing Azure Reservation cancellation and Exchange policy still applies for Azure reservation monthly billing. Please reach out to your account manager for more information.

 

Microsoft AEP-MEPN Program retirement

The Microsoft Authorized Education Partner (AEP) program, where Microsoft partners get certified via training to transact academic licenses to education customers is being discontinued as of October 1, 2019. This coincides with the distribution of the updated Microsoft Partner Agreements (MPA) being sent to partners and distributors for signature on the same day.

As a result of the retirement, the AEP certification is no longer required.

All rhipe CSP resellers are still required to confirm their customer’s eligibility, as defined by the Microsoft Qualified Education Users documentation, for academic purchases. You may ONLY transact academically-priced licenses to academic institutions as defined in the documentation. Although the AEP-MEPN program is now retired, you are still required to request us to release CSP academic pricelist to you to view the price list in the PRISM portal.

 

Microsoft security baseline is GA now

The Windows MDM security baselines are now generally available. The security baseline consists of numerous industry-standard configurations, which is developed by security professionals globally. These settings are updated at regular intervals to fit the ever-changing business needs.

The security baselines policies live in the cloud and can be deployed within minutes. For an organization using on-prem group policy, it's easier to migrate policy management to the cloud with the help of baseline policies already available in the Intune portal. The security baseline also has inbuilt versioning feature which can swap the baseline version of one policy with the other.

A security baseline is available for partners who already have Microsoft 365 E3/E5 and EMS E3/E5.

Please refer to the documentation below to find out more on Security baseline: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/

 

Microsoft 365 now natively protects Adobe Acrobat Reader using App Protection

This major update will get you excited, as Intune app protection policy can now protect pdf in Adobe Acrobat Reader. The experience is as seamless as any Office 365 app such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. This will also help the users to be more productive as the organization data can easily be protected at the same time keeping the personal data private.

Please check out the link to find out more info: https://www.microsoft.com/en-my/microsoft-365/blog/2019/09/05/adobe-acrobat-ios-android-microsoft-365-app-protection/

 

Windows Virtual Desktop in Azure pricing calculator

Windows virtual desktop is the new exciting virtual desktop and application solution in Azure which makes the VDI deployment much easier when compared to the traditional RDS infrastructure deployment. Please follow the link here to find out more: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/services/virtual-desktop/

Save money and price WVD using Azure pricing calculator today: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/pricing/calculator/

 

Additional product availability for Dynamics 365 customers

Microsoft had released additional Dynamics 365 products on October 1, 2019. The new Biz Apps and Power Platforms and Mixed Reality Apps will be available for purchasing through the CSP program through rhipe PRISM portal starting October 1, 2019.

The following Dynamics 365 and Power Platform offers will be released as part of semi-annual product release cycle, which include the following scenarios. For your information, the new offers are available also through the Cloud Solution Provider program.

Biz Apps Products:

• Fraud Protection offers
• CSP three-year offers for existing products

Power Platform Products:

• AI Builder Capacity Add-On
• Flow Per Business Process Plan
• Flow Per User Plan
• PowerApps & Flow Capacity Add-On
• PowerApps Per-App Plan

These links from Microsoft contain additional resources:
Licensing Guide
Dynamics 365 Home Page
Mixed Reality Apps Guide Home Page
Biz Apps Fraud Home Page
Power Platform Products Home Page

 

This rhipe monthly CSP update is brought to you by the rhipe marketing team and our CSP Partner Enablement Specialists.

To stay up to date with what’s happening in the Microsoft CSP program, we strongly encourage you to join the Microsoft CSP licensing update call: https://commercial_licensing.eventbuilder.com/YearToDate_ALL

If you have any questions, please contact the rhipe S&E CSP team through email, Twitter or LinkedIn below.

JY Wong
Microsoft CSP Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: JY.Wong@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wongjy/

Mikki Chopra
Cloud Enablement Specialist
Email: Mikki.Chopra@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikki-chopra/

Paul Dilag
Partner Enablement Specialist
Email: Paul.Dilag@rhipe.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pdilag/