Australian managed service providers (MSPs) “stayed away” from reselling Microsoft’s Business Productivity Suite (BPOS) because it was handled through Telstra’s T-Suite.com platform, white-label SaaS provider ManageProtect said.
Microsoft Australia was contacted for comment but had not responded by time of publication.
“MSPs are staying away from it because they have no control” over customer support or billing, said ManageProtect managing director Andrew Johnson. This meant that an MSP wanting to offer a one-stop shop for IT solutions wasn't able to cover SaaS services it resold.
Johnson said that in New Zealand, where resellers of any size can resell BPOS directly from Microsoft under an Enterprise Agreement, “BPOS is now the default solution. It’s more common than servers.”
Microsoft Australia has confirmed that Microsoft Office 365, the vendor's major cloud release to succeed BPOS which is expected in the second quarter this year, will also be sold through Telstra T-suite.com to companies under 250 seats (the threshold for Enterprise Agreements).
Johnson said this was good news for white-label SaaS providers which supply resellers with Managed Exchange, email filtering, web filtering and email archiving services.
“It’s brilliant for us because MSPs don’t want to buy from Telstra,” he said.
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