Microsoft’s Dezen: Cloud Solution Providers Building ‘High-Value Value-Added Solutions, Services’

‘We know that customers heavily rely upon our partners so that they can be more connected to the cloud, so that they can leverage AI in the most responsible way possible and with the utmost security for their business to keep them protected from accelerated cyber threats,’ Nicole Dezen, chief partner officer and corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions, tells CRN.

Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s chief partner officer and corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions, called the tech giant’s 400,000-member partner ecosystem “instrumental” to the success of its small and midsize customer (SMC) base, which represents a $661 billion total addressable market for the 2025 fiscal year.

“We are thrilled to see so many of our CSP [Cloud Solution Provider] partners building really high-value value-added services and solutions that help those transactions that they enable really come to life, deliver differentiated customer impact and fast time to value,” Dezen told CRN in an interview.

“It's very clear to us that CSP is the hero motion for our partners in the SMC business because they’re just such a critical pillar in delivering on these customer needs.”

Dezen updated CRN on changes that will affect the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant’s Enterprise Agreement (EA) users and customers that buy the Microsoft 365 Copilot artificial intelligence product.

Microsoft SMC Opportunity

Microsoft also detailed the changes in a Tuesday blog post, coming out a week ahead of Microsoft’s annual Ignite customer conference happening in Chicago and online Nov. 19 to 22. This year’s Ignite will also feature content aimed at Microsoft’s partner ecosystem, including an address by Dezen.

About $467 billion of the $661 billion SMC total addressable market—71 percent—is in cloud solutions, according to Microsoft.

She also spoke about the importance of Microsoft solution providers readying their customers for Windows 11 and Copilot+ PCs with Windows 10 end of life set for October.

“It’s critically important for customers to work with the partners that they work with to make sure that they are future-proofing their estate,” she said. “Windows 11 PCs are the most secure, most performant AI-capable devices in the market.”

Here’s what else Dezen had to say.

How important are partners to Microsoft’s new AI era?

Everything that Microsoft is doing around our AI platform is delivering accelerated transformation for organizations and creating so many new opportunities for our partner ecosystem.

And we know that customers heavily rely upon our partners so that they can be more connected to the cloud, so that they can leverage AI in the most responsible way possible and with the utmost security for their business to keep them protected from accelerated cyber threats. … The SMC segment … it's a $661 billion TAM [total addressable market] opportunity.

And partners are so instrumental to delivering customer success in this segment. And it goes well beyond the transaction. We are thrilled to see so many of our CSP partners building really high-value value-added services and solutions that help those transactions that they enable really come to life, deliver differentiated customer impact and fast time to value.

And with that, it's very clear to us that CSP is the hero motion for our partners in the SMC business because they’re just such a critical pillar in delivering on these customer needs.

What do you want partners to know about the change to Microsoft Enterprise Agreements?

A small percentage of enterprise agreements … will no longer be able to renew as EAs. They will either renew into CSP or MCA-E [Microsoft Customer Agreement for Enterprise].

And we’re providing guidance that MCA-E is a great vehicle for enterprise customers. It’s also a great vehicle for any customer that wants a direct purchasing relationship with Microsoft.

But for customers that want a partner to manage the entire life cycle of their solutions, offer value-added services and support—particularly in the SMC business—we believe that CSP is a great choice for those customers. …Our CSP partners are the hero motion for our SMC business.

And we really want to give partners clarity on where there’s joint business opportunity, where we see very real customer needs that our partners are uniquely qualified to serve.

The second thing is—we do have a great road map ahead for new commerce [experience, or NCE]. And so this is just the first of many announcements that we’ll make on that topic. … We know that customers in [the SMC] segment often interact with our partners as the face of Microsoft.

And so we wanted to make sure that it’s very clear to our partners that we’re making clear bets with them to help them deliver on customer expectations. You saw some of this in the announcements we made in July at the start of our fiscal year around our incentives.

This year, we boosted 70 percent of our total partner incentives into SMC. And so I think this is a very, very clear action and call to action to our partners that we want them to have all of the support they need from Microsoft in order to be able to deliver on these customer needs.

And we see so many examples of CSP partners around the world that are delivering such differentiated value to these customers. And so we want to continue to enable and support that.

Any message to partners that might be concerned about the short window between now and January?

There are a ton of resources at our partners’ disposal to make sure that they have everything they need to deliver value for customers across the entire life cycle for the customer. … In July, we talked about the way that we lined up Microsoft’s incentives against our five core priorities for the business for this fiscal year.

So that also sends a really clear signal to partners where Microsoft is betting. … We’ll do a lot of thoughtful planning with our partners to make sure, No. 1, we always land on the principle of customer choice. That’s first and foremost.

So beyond that, there is great work that happens every single day between our sellers and our partners to make sure that we’re giving customers everything that they need from Microsoft and the partner and the licensing vehicle is one of many parts of that discussion. … When customers are considering their cloud migration, adoption of copilots, securing their environment, we have so many great CSP partners that are very well equipped to be able to deliver those very technical engagements with customers.

And that’s all backed and supported by Microsoft through the technical skilling we give partners, the incentives and the go-to-market assets we provide.

An MCA-E customer could still work with a solution provider, right?

Absolutely. Partners play a role in every stage of the customer life cycle. The choice between MCA-E, EA and the CSP transaction is the choice that a customer will make at the point of purchase.

And regardless of the license vehicle that a customer chooses, partners are there to deliver value all the way through the work that customers need–—from advising them, influencing their decisions, assessing their data security needs. And, of course, all the way through to delivery.

What do you want partners to know about the expansion of the Copilot Copyright Commitment?

We introduced this for our customers in our last fiscal year. And I’m thrilled we’re offering the same capability and protection to our reseller partners.

This will apply to them both as customers as well as partners in support of their end customers. And so that means that these resellers will be able to give their customers the confidence and assurance that they’ll have the very same protections as customers that would purchase qualifying copilot offerings directly from Microsoft. … The Copilot Copyright Commitment was very well received by customers. … I’m really intentional about listening to partner feedback. And partners asked us if we could extend the same protections to them.

And so I’m really excited to be able to announce this … it makes sense to show our partners that they can have a very high degree of trust in Microsoft’s AI platform and in the solutions they deliver to customers through that.

Anything partners should know about Ignite 2024?

I’m thrilled that, for our partner general session—which is hosted by me, and you’ll hear from Judson Althoff, our chief commercial officer, from Nick Parker, the president of industry and partner sales—but the session will be opened by [Microsoft Chairman and CEO] Satya Nadella.

And I’m thrilled that Satya will be there to talk to the partners about his commitment to the partner ecosystem as well as his confidence and how inspired he is by the work that our partners are doing across every customer segment, every geography, every solution area and every industry.

We will talk about so many exciting announcements that partners will hear earlier that day, during the keynotes from Satya, from Rajesh [Jha, executive vice president of experience and devices] and [Microsoft Security Executive Vice President] Charlie Bell and [Cloud+AI Group Executive Vice President] Scott Guthrie.

I’m quite excited to be able to show the partners how we’re going to make that innovation real for our partner ecosystem.

The investments that we’re making, the skilling, the go-to-market assets, all encompassed in the umbrella of the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. It’s a place where we will just continue to invest and infuse capability so that our partners have all the confidence they need to go to market with us.

Any underused partner program resources you’d call solution providers’ attention to?

I would just encourage our partners to keep going. The magic around the engagement on Copilot, it’s phenomenal. I’m particularly proud to see so many partners embracing this concept of being their own customer zero—and what that means is a partner that is adopting Copilot in their own environment.

And it gives them such a powerful tool to be able to speak to customers with so much credibility about the way it has impacted their employees, their customers, their productivity.

And those partners are absolutely enjoying really great success as they go to market with us and help customers through their own assessment for copilots, their own adoption and change management. We’re seeing great results from that.

Are you happy with the level of adoption from Microsoft solution providers around some of the recent partner program changes such as solution designations?

I’m really pleased to see the way that partners are embracing the designations and specializations. … We built those in response to feedback from partners and feedback from customers that they wanted to be able to identify the partners with the skills in each solution area as well as the very deep technical capability to do the complex work needed to deliver this AI transformation.

And the data tells us that partners are embracing this. And this is what signals to a customer that they’re making an informed decision about the partner they choose.

What do you want partners to know about the Microsoft marketplace in calendar year 2025?

We’re continuing to make investments here, and as you would expect, enabling AI capability in marketplace is fundamental for us.

And so this means more AI capability to speed the publishing process as well as to make solutions more discoverable for customers. And so those are investments that we will continue to make.

In addition to AI, are there other parts of the Microsoft portfolio you want solution providers to think about?

We have a significant portfolio across our six solution areas. And it’s the reason why we architected our five priorities for our own sellers as well as for partners around those things.

And so that’s the Copilot on every desk for every role. AI design win for every customer. Cyber

foundation for every customer. Core Microsoft 365 and migrations. And so that really reflects the totality of our portfolio.

And many of those foundational things that we look to our partners to deliver set a great platform and foundation for AI capability for the future for these customers.

How big of an opportunity is Windows 10 end of support and Copilot+ PCs for partners?

Windows 10 end of support is October 2025. … It’s critically important for customers to work with the partners that they work with to make sure that they are future-proofing their estate.

Windows 11 PCs are the most secure, most performant AI-capable devices in the market.

And we have an amazing range of devices from the Microsoft partner ecosystem. So many incredible Copilot+ PCs. I’m talking to you on one of them right now. Eighteen hours

of battery life.

And so I’m really, really excited for what the ecosystem is delivering here. And we’ve got so much great engagement from multiple silicon partners. Certainly, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, we also have a really exciting road map ahead here.