Microsoft has invited its customers and partners on a "multi-stage, multi-year journey" in which cloud software and services will become more profitable, less complex, and, they say, less expensive.

The company's "new commerce experience", or NCE, went live on January 10 with seat-based offers for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Window 365 through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.

Note: Get the latest updates on NCE from Microsoft New Commerce and CSP lead Alex Perez on Friday, January 21 at our next Business Apps Partner Chat event.

The new program will be accompanied by two new time-bound promotions for CSP annual and monthly subscriptions that will offer partners a 5% discount on annual subscriptions and a matching price for the monthly subscriptions that will normally be priced at a 20% premium over annual.

While the monthly option is more expensive, it is meant to support specific customer needs that justify the premium, Microsoft GM Dan Truax wrote in a recently updated blog post. These licenses can be used when the required number of seats shifts significantly on a monthly basis or there are other short-term use demands, like in an industry-specific scenario.