Microsoft promises partners new commerce options, a maturing industry strategy in 2021

Microsoft plans to improve digital commerce in its marketplaces for ISV apps, broaden the Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) model, expand co-selling, and use industry cloud efforts to encourage more new ISV product development.

The company's Global Partner Solutions team, led by corporate vice president Nick Parker, revealed its updated plans and priorities for the rest of 2021 in a new blog post and related media briefing. Parker noted broad goals like providing a more open architecture for building and extending solutions, new co-sell support, and building partners' confidence in Microsoft's technology stack as a competitive differentiator.

Co-sell updates

Co-sell efforts between Microsoft and partners are contributing a notable percentage of revenue in fiscal 2021, the company stated. They report 166,000 co-sell opportunities in FY21 so far with an annual contract value of $18.5 billion.

A goal for co-sell is to "[be] more intentional" with SMBs in 2021, said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president for services partners.