ISV Development Centers: Microsoft's new approach to accelerating channel R&D

Microsoft has new a way to push cloud-first R&D into the channel. The Microsoft ISV Development Center program, announced at Inspire 2017, opens a conduit between Microsoft development teams and channel partners, with seven ISV Development Centers in between.

The ISV Development Center program emerged, in a way, from the Global ISV Program, which identified key ISVs that were not yet on the Dynamics platform. As Microsoft's partner development manager for industry ISVs for seven years, Patrick Fitzhenry personally managed over 70 ISVs in rebuilding existing applications for Dynamics. He continues in that role, and as director of the development centers.

As Fitzhenry describes, the Global ISV Program outstripped Microsoft's capacity as the program grew. "We had ISVs ask us, ‘Is there a firm that is expert at helping ISVs build a product on Dynamics AX or CRM?'" he describes. He began making introductions, and in time, "We probably had 25 to 30 of our global ISV solutions built either completely by a development center or at least with some assistance."

Last November, Fitzhenry approached Ron Huddleston, Microsoft's CVP One Commercial Partner, with the idea of formalizing the Dev Centers into a new partner type alongside GSIs, CSPs and hosting providers. "Ron said ‘Love the idea, bring a plan back to me in the next few months,'" recalls Fitzhenry. Fitzhenry completed the plan in April, which was quickly approved, for development around Dynamics AX, CRM and particularly Dynamics 365, both the Enterprise and Business editions.

The mission, the structure

The mission of the Microsoft ISV Development Centers (or "Dev Centers" as it calls them in partner documentation) is to provide strong third-party technical services that can ...