Today marked the start of Microsoft Ignite, our biggest customer and partner event of the year, showcasing the latest innovation, product updates, and breakthroughs across our business. Partners from around the world joined us to learn how Microsoft is investing in partner success and creating new opportunities to accelerate growth and help customers transform their businesses with AI.
Today, we are announcing upwards of 80 new products and features, including new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot, additions to the Copilot + AI stack and new Copilot+ devices offerings. Underpinning each of these innovations is our commitment to security.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot – Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work, and we have seen the momentum grow as more organizations are moving to Copilot and using it successfully to increase employee productivity. Microsoft is continuing to supercharge productivity with new capabilities in Microsoft 365 Copilot designed to help simplify the workday.
- Copilot + AI Stack – The Copilot stack empowers users to build more ambitious products by leveraging advanced technology at each layer of the stack. Today we’re announcing Azure AI Foundry, where organizations design, customize, and manage the next generation of AI apps and agents at scale. Azure AI Foundry brings together our wide collection of foundation, open, industry, and task models, AI tooling, and safety and monitoring solutions into a single experience. Foundry helps businesses efficiently and cost-effectively design and scale their AI applications while empowering IT pros to manage AI safety, reliability, and performance.
- Security – Since launching our Secure Future Initiative (SFI) one year ago, we have made security the No. 1 job of every employee at Microsoft, dedicated 34,000 engineers to this focus and, at Ignite, we are announcing innovations that are rooted in our SFI principles: secure by design, secure by default, and secure operations.
These are just some of the over 200 announcements made at Microsoft Ignite today. For the full list be sure to check out the Microsoft Ignite blog and the event Book of News.
These innovations open exciting new possibilities for our partners to drive reach, scale, and customer success. At Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) Start for Partners in July, we shared with you how we are investing in AI capabilities and providing robust go-to-market (GTM) resources, including skilling, co-sell, benefits, incentives, and AI enhancements to our marketplace. We are deeply committed to empowering partners through our strategic investments and program.
Celebrating our 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year awards winners and finalists
Microsoft Ignite is a chance for us to celebrate the winners and finalists of the 2024 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards, who represent exceptional contributions and innovations from our global partners. This year we had a record-breaking 4,700 nominations from 115 countries for Partner of the Year and awarded 113 organizations with 144 awards. The awarded partners highlight the significant impact Microsoft partners have on customers, showcasing success and innovation across technologies and industries through business transformation and social impact. Check out this year’s winners and finalists.
Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program updates
Partner Center AI assistant (preview)
The new Partner Center AI assistant (preview) brings the power of generative AI to enhance your experience in Partner Center, offering tailored insights and intelligent suggestions to help partners turn everyday tasks into growth opportunities. Using prompts, partners can initiate support tickets, get insights on Azure usage, track earnings, and receive detailed guidance on memberships, along with other capabilities. Learn more and provide feedback.
New marketing tools and an updated partner resources experience
Take your campaigns further and drive demand for your offers with our easy-to-use marketing assets, tools, and branding resources. Build trust with your customers with Microsoft branding, differentiate your business with a Microsoft badge, generate leads, increase engagement, and build a stronger customer base with go-to-market tools. These campaigns come to life through a new partner marketing resource experience that helps partners sift through content more effectively, try out new features, and learn faster.
New opportunities for partners in the AI era
Microsoft is committed to empowering partners in the AI era by expanding opportunities across customer engagement, commerce, and incentives. Starting December 1, 2024, we are introducing flexible monthly billing for Microsoft 365 Copilot annual subscriptions and on January 1, 2025, we are launching a 15% discount on Microsoft 365 E5 subscriptions. To strengthen our commitment, we’re also extending Copilot Copyright Commitment (CCC) protections to resellers and safeguarding partners as they deliver value through AI solutions. Read more about these changes in my recent blog.
New resources to adopt AI at scale within Azure Essentials
In July, Microsoft introduced Azure Essentials resources to help customers improve the reliability, security, and ongoing performance of the cloud and AI investments by providing a single place to access a comprehensive set of resources including tooling, skilling, guidance, reference architectures, and best practices. Today we announced two new resources to successfully adopt AI. The AI scenario within the Cloud Adoption Framework equips technical decision makers with prescriptive guidance to help prepare organizations to deploy AI workloads in production while the AI workload within the Azure Well-Architected Framework supports architects in decision-making when designing their AI workloads.
New and expanded AI benefits available today through ISV Success
The AI investments in ISV Success include technical guidance, developer resources, and GTM benefits to speed up AI application development and marketplace sales. Sign up for AI Envisioning workshops to identify AI use cases and create a development framework. ISVs can also use AI-focused 1:1 consults for integrating AI services and responsible AI practices.
All ISV Success participants now have access to Azure credits for GitHub Copilot, with certified software ISVs eligible for financial incentives for AI application development. Partners with active AI projects on Microsoft Cloud can receive extra Azure credits, consulting hours, and marketplace rewards. Eligible developers may also get incentives to migrate customers to Azure-based applications. Learn more.
New benefits launching in January
Partner Launch Benefits, Partner Success Core Benefits, and Partner Success Expanded Benefits packages are purpose-built to meet the varied needs of our partners at different stages of growth and are designed to help take your business to the next level. They complement Solutions Partner and ISV Success core and expanded benefits already available for partners.
Starting January 22, 2025, we are adding over 20 in-demand product licenses to our benefits packages. This includes game-changing Microsoft Copilot products, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and Microsoft GitHub. Don't miss out—access select partner benefits packages, Solutions Partner designations, or specializations today to be among the first to enjoy these new benefits as soon as they launch in January 2025.
To bring our partners the most up-to-date benefits, we will no longer sell Microsoft Action Pack, Microsoft Learning Action Pack, or legacy silver/gold benefits starting January 22, 2025.
Security
Microsoft Security Copilot for service and solutions partners
Partners can now create custom plugins or use over 15 new generally available 3rd-party plugins for Microsoft Security Copilot. Audit logs provide a detailed record of all user and admin activity, available through Purview Audit and User Access Logging (UAL), enabling customers to monitor interactions for compliance with regulatory requirements. The usage dashboard delivers comprehensive insights into Security Compute Unit (SCU) consumption, with advanced filtering, a 90-day data view, and export options to Excel, helping customers optimize their SCU usage. Learn more.
Updated Microsoft Edge for Business policies and features
With AI and cloud-based work on the rise, the browser is now the main gateway to company data and AI tools. Microsoft partners can expand their services by enhancing browser protection with Microsoft Edge for Business, a secure enterprise browser optimized for AI. Edge for Business offers advanced security and productivity features such as data loss prevention, unmanaged device support, and generative AI controls. It extends Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 protections at no extra cost, backed by Microsoft leadership in security and compliance. Learn more by watching our on-demand session and sharing the session with your customers.
The enthusiasm from partners and customers about the innovation and new capability we announced at Microsoft Ignite is both energizing and inspiring. If you missed this year’s Microsoft Ignite event or would like to share the content with your team or customers, select sessions will be available on demand in early December. Check the Microsoft partner blog for the latest information.
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