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This is a week of deadlines - M365, Copilot, Security and Windows 365 promotions end next week, with a price uplift and 3 specialization changes arriving right after. Changes also occurred around how Copilot gets billed through CSP. We're sharing a few key updates from the full list that our clients get in real-time.
Bonus: Partner1's Microsoft Marketplace Assessment helps you benchmark your current marketplace motion against Microsoft's FY27 framework in seconds!
September 30: The promo cliff we've been talking about for weeks, for M365, Copilot, Security and Windows 365, hits next week.
September 30: Specializations Day in Partner Center: Frontier Partner opens for enrollment, Digital Sovereignty goes from manual to standard Partner Center enrollment, and the new Clinical Apps specialization goes live. Keep in mind that there have been significant changes to solutions areas, designations and specializations this FY, so if your strategy for solutions designations and specializations hasn't been updated since FY26, it's time to do so.
October 1: CSP software billed monthly gets a 5% uplift. Pull in any monthly-billed contracts now, or bake this cost into your pricing moving forward.
November 2: Copilot billing in CSP default goes usage-based. Don't forget that Copilot in 30 is now live in CSP through December 31st, a great way to trial Copilot with prospects and clients.
In preview: Dynamics 365 Activate is taking on Salesforce migrations. This is an AI-assisted tool that analyzes a company's Salesforce environment and provides a migration blueprint to D365. If you have Business Applications capabilities and Salesforce customers, here's an opportunity to speed up migrations.
The big picture
It's pretty clear that consumption-based, continuous motions are replacing previous threshold-based ones, with specializations moving from revenue-based to active-usage based, and Copilot billing moving to usage-based as well. Planning at the start of the FY without updating your tactics continuously will have you working on stale data as updates are occurring on a weekly to monthly cadence, depending on the nature of your business.
Take the Microsoft Marketplace Assessment to ensure your business is FY27-optimized and you're not leaving a single opportunity on the table.
This edition of Bits & Bytes covers the Microsoft partner ecosystem for CEOs, operators, and practice leaders. Partner1® is the premier partner activation firm built by former Microsoft executives. We help B2B companies grow profitably and globally through partner ecosystem-led growth.
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