The Next Chapter for Microsoft Cloud Solutions: How Can Partners Benefit from CSP?

Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program will now reach partners selling Dynamics CRM Online, Azure, and Office 365, allowing participants to own the full customer billing and support experience for their clients.

Revealed in its expanded form at WPC 2015, Microsoft has worked to convince partners that CSP will accelerate cloud deals and facilitate the development of solutions that bundle together Microsoft technology and other IP and services into a cohesive offering. Partners in the cloud services business say that the move will also serve to start shaking out the channel in terms of partners that can offer a differentiated cloud-based solution.

For partners who have been leading the market on cloud-delivered Microsoft software, CSP may represent merely a nice improvement to business. But others characterize it as a game changer, something that has the potential to shift their view of the Microsoft cloud business opportunity. So, how should a partner proceed with becoming a CSP? What elements of a solution provider's business will it really change?

Companies will buy from fewer providers, with greater flexibility

A company using two or three cloud-based services may not mind dealing with payment, support, and services from multiple providers. They may even learn to deal with five or six disparate cloud services as they add them over time. But as companies hit an unsustainable number of solutions and providers, they will quickly understand the benefits of unifying their cloud services under a single provider. "When they get to a dozen, they want to make sure those dozen work with each other and there will be fewer people to buy those from, if not one," says Alex Danyluk, vice president of alliances at cloud services automation ...