Aussie partners to get Office 365 Open in eight weeks

Microsoft Australia has revealed more details of its plan to put Office 365 in the hands of the entire channel.

Steven Miller, business group lead, Microsoft Office Division, said in a statement: "I'm pleased to announce that effective 2 April 2014, we will be launching three new channels for Office 365, giving our SMB customers the choice and flexibility they desire when purchasing."

Licencing for Microsoft's SaaS product will come in three forms: Open licence, the Microsoft Online Portal or via retail partners.

Miller said: "Open licence and the Microsoft Online Portal will be available through Microsoft resellers."

Dean Swan, Microsoft Australia's director of Partner Strategy, Programs and Industry, expected Open would be of most interest to the channel.

"Office 365 under Open allows existing partners to build a recurring revenue stream, and they will be selling those licences under their existing models. The channel is very familiar with Open."

Microsoft will continue to go via its three local distribution partners: Synnex, Ingram Micro and Express Data.

Open Licensing will give resellers "the ability to bundle Office 365 with existing services, and bill for Office 365 as part of the total service offering. Office 365 Open Licensing will only be available with annual billing."

Sales via the Microsoft Online Portal allow a choice of monthly or annual billing. "Microsoft resellers will be able to sell via this option by attaching a ‘Partner of Record’ to a customer account," said Miller.

To bridge the gap between the annual billing cycle of Open and some customers' preference for monthly billing, Swan said: "It is nothing too different to how we have bridged it in the past. They typically leverage financial solutions if they are feeling pressure on that front. Microsoft isn't too out of line with the rest of the industry with annual billing fees. The broader channel is familiar with that and there are systems in place, such as financing."

He suggested that partners would be able to sign customers up to longer-term deals. "If a customer is committing to a longer-term arrangement, they are getting more attractive pricing."

Pricing will be revealed 30 days prior to general availability, added Swan.

"In the lead-up to that, we are launching a 12-week program, which is basically a step-by-step guide to help partners transition their business to the cloud," he said.

The free Cloud Champion program will cover topics such as educating partners on how to set up marketing for the cloud as well as accelerated sales. "We will share practices around rapid deployment, complementary services – it will be the most complete immersive education in how to be successful as a cloud business," said Swan.

Next: Partners sound off on Office 365 launch