What a great way to spend a good portion of the Fall season – traveling coast to coast reconnecting with many familiar faces, but more importantly, meeting many new ones, from Calgary to Vancouver, to Montreal and Toronto!

It’s been several years since we last crossed the country – something that we have heard loud and clear from you as something we needed to do again (and repeat), perhaps now more importantly than ever – and we were thrilled with the response – thank you for investing your time!

In reflecting back on the travels, there are 3 main themes that summarize the discussions we had, the questions asked and the general “buzz”;

1. Enthusiasm: Your outlook on the future is bright – granted, with some unknown and/or unanswered questions – but shining full of optimism on how and where we can partner together; the market potential you see and the opportunity that the “3^rd platform” presents. If you missed the event, I encourage you to review the IDC Keynote.

2. Innovation: You, our partners, are driving incredible innovation – in your business, and how you are adapting to, and thriving in a “cloud first, mobile first” market; in the solutions and services you’re bring to market, and in the ways in which you are delighting your customers, and helping them accelerate their growth. 

Opportunity: Beyond the market opportunity (which is plentiful), as I shared in each city as part of the keynote I delivered, my and my team’s #1 job is to make you, our partners successful – and you gave us the honest feedback that we can do more to help you – whether you’re just getting started in the Cloud, or looking to accelerate your Cloud practice.

 If I were to highlight a few key resources – I’d point you to the following:

Cloud SureStep: Your first place to start – whether you’re just getting started in the Cloud, you’re looking to grow your business or are determining how to optimize your business for the Cloud.

IDC Successful Cloud Partners eBook: This is a great resource to help learn from IDC and other partners, how they are building and growing their cloud capability that you can use to help you plan your transformation.

Cloud Profitability Program - Build and Grow Your Cloud Practice: This is a series of enablement assets that provide practical guidance for building and growing your Cloud business. 

All presentations and resources from the Cloud Partner Summit sessions are now posted online here – if you weren’t able to join us, I encourage you to take the time to review the content, and for those did join us, please use this content as reference as you drive your business forward. Below you’ll find some quick highlights from each city.

A big thank you to all the partners who were able to make the Summit – and for those who were not able to, we hope to see you soon! Let’s keep the conversation going - stay connected with us for up-to-the minute Canadian Partner news via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Yammer or via the new Canada Partner News board.

As always, I welcome any and all feedback on how we can better help you, and we collectively, accelerate our joint business! Please always feel free to reach out direct via Twitter @jbrommet

Jason Brommet

Channel Chief, Microsoft Canada

We kicked off each city’s summit with a Vision Keynote, zeroing in Cloud Profitability. Delivered IDC Canada’s Marilyn Carr in Calgary and Montreal, and Darren Bibby in Vancouver and Toronto, the keynotes truly highlighted the partner benefits of transitioning to the cloud.

Marilyn Carr of IDC Canada at the Calgary Cloud Partner Summit Vision Keynote

Partners moved into breakout sessions throughout the day that helped them gain the necessary skills and knowledge necessary to accelerate their business in the cloud, including The New Windows, Windows Server 2003 is End of Extended Support, and Competing to Win with Office 365. Check out some of the social activity below!

Toronto:

“The most impressive session in my opinion was the one presented by IDC’s Channel and Alliances Research Darren Bibby. His session was called Business Partner Success in the Era of the Third Platform and showing what is really going in the market in Canada if it comes to opportunities and threats. Darren also gave some advice and tricks on how to become a successful Cloud partner for your customers.” – Jean-Claude Chan of JCC Consultancy. Read his full blog.

Montreal:

As many of you know we reduced the IUR usage rights previously part of our previous cloud programs. You may have been receiving messages from us that alerted you that your Office 365 trial subscriptions were going to expire on October 31, 2014. What steps do you take now that we are here?

The Office 365 Internal Use Rights (IUR) subscriptions provided as a Cloud Essentials / Cloud Accelerate benefits entered retirement beginning February 2014. The remaining active subscriptions will expire on October 31, 2014 (+30 day grace period), no further extensions will be granted.

Partners must transition to a new Action Pack / Competency IUR subscription or paid seats to maintain service. You will need to apply a new subscription to your tenant.

How do I confirm I'm using a Cloud Essentials subscription?

Sign on to the Microsoft Online Portal (Tenant Admin Rights required)

• In the "Admin" tab, click "Billing" and select "Subscriptions"

• If you have an "Office 365 Enterprise E3 Trial" with 250 user licences and a 31 October, 2014 term end date - you're using Cloud Essentials IUR and need to confirm your transition

• Whilst here – click "Users" and select "Active Users"

• Take note of the total number of assigned users

• Determine if each user requires a seat

What do I need to know about transitioning?

Transitioning is quick and easy, but planning is required and an investment may be necessary.

Those eligible for Office 365 IUR through the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) can access their subscription key from the Microsoft Partner Digital Download Portal (Global Admin Rights required) and apply it to their tenant - more on this below.

Those who are ineligible for MPN IUR (or whose membership tier does not grant enough seats to meet their needs), will need to either upgrade their membership through Open licensing or direct through the Microsoft Online Portal.

What are the Microsoft Partner Network Office 365 IUR entitlements?

Action Pack and Competency partners are eligible for Office 365 IUR seats - see the entitlement below.

View your Partner Benefit Statement to see your organisations' full entitlement (Global Administrator Rights required).

Membership Tier	Core Entitlement	Additional Performance Entitlement
Gold Competency	100 seats	Earn an additional 25 seats with the Gold Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency. Earn an additional 100 seats with the Gold Cloud Productivity competency.
Silver Competency	25 seats	Earn an additional 10 seats with the Silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency. Earn an additional 25 seats with the Silver Cloud Productivity competency.
Action Pack	5 seats	Action Pack partners that have sold at least 25 seats of Office 365 in the past twelve months are eligible for an additional 5 seats.
Community	n/a	n/a

　　　　　　
If you're an active Office 365 seller and meet the performance requirements, you may be eligible for the no cost Silver Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions competency and/or the no cost Silver Cloud Productivity competency.

Learn more about Microsoft Partner Network membership:

Core benefits and requirements

Action Pack ($480*)

Learn more and subscribe here

Silver Competency

• Cloud Performance (no-cost*)
• On-premises and Hybrid ($1,600*)

Gold Competency

• Cloud Performance ($4,000*)
• On-premises and Hybrid ($4,800*)

*All fees are in $CDN.

Where can I purchase seats?

As an alternative to MPN IUR, or to supplement your MPN entitlement – Office 365 seats may be purchased via the Open or Direct (aka MOSP) channels. As your Cloud Essentials IUR seats are E3, if you wish to keep your existing tenant, all seats purchased must be from the Enterprise family.

Purchasing via Open

Talk to your Disti! Authorised Cloud Distributors offer Office 365 seats that are compatible with your tenant - make sure your seats are in the Enterprise family.

Distributor            Contact

Tech Data            Troy Singh: Troy.SINGH@techdata.ca

Ingram Micro         Ashish Narang: Ashish.Narang@ingrammicro.com

Synnex                   MicrosoftBDM@synnex.com

Purchasing via Direct aka MOSP)

Office 365 seats can be purchased directly through the Microsoft Online Portal (Tenant Admin Rights required) - make sure your seats are in the Enterprise family. See below to learn how.

How do I transition?

Once you've determined how many seats you require, how many you're entitled to through the Microsoft Partner Network and/or how many seats you need to purchase - it's time to transition.

The transition process allows you to keep your existing tenant, no data loss and no downtime. You're free to combine seats from multiple channels (MPN IUR, Open, Advisor) on the one tenant (as long as they are all from the Enterprise family).

Subscription activation issues are uncommon but they can occur - I recommend against leaving this to the last minute.

Transitioning to Action Pack or Competency IUR

1. Head to the Microsoft Partner Digital Download Portal

2. Sign in with your Microsoft Account (formerly Windows Live ID) - Global Administrator Rights required, you will also need key viewing and software download privileges

3. Click the "Microsoft Online Services" section

4. Select "Microsoft Office 365"

5. Click "" to view the product key(s) applicable to your program membership. 

6. Copy the 25 digit token code (AKA 5x5 key) before you go to the next step (you'll need the token(s) in future steps)

7. Select the link at the bottom of the page to navigate to the Microsoft Office 365 key redemption portal

8. Make sure to sign in to your existing tenant BEFORE you activate your Office 365 product key(s).

Each product key may only be activated once and cannot be moved from one tenant to another

9. Enter the 25 digit token code in the "Product key" box and click "Next".

If you have multiple keys, you may need to redeem them one at a time

10. Click "done adding product keys" and follow the prompts

Transitioning to Open seats purchased through a Distributor

1. After purchasing, your distributor will provide you with a 25 digit token / key

2. Navigate to the Microsoft Office 365 key redemption portal (Tenant Admin Rights required)

3. Follow the redemption instructions for "Transitioning to Action Pack or Competency IUR" starting at Step 8

Transitioning to Advisor seats purchased through the Microsoft Online Portal　　

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Online Portal (Tenant Admin Rights required)

2. Select "Purchase Services"

3. Choose the plan(s) you would like to purchase and click "Add"

4. Enter the number of seats you require and click "add to cart"

5. Once all required seats are in your cart, click "check out"

6. Follow the prompts and complete payment

I've added my seats, is there anything else I need to do?

To confirm you have successfully transitioned:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Online Portal (Tenant Admin Rights required)

2. In the "Admin" section, click "Billing" and select "Subscriptions"

3. You will see at least two Office 365 subscriptions. Your Cloud Essentials subscription (Office 365 Enterprise E3/E1 Trial with 250 user licences and an October 31, 2014 expiry – never mind the expiry in the image above) and your newly added subscription(s)

4a. If you've added E3 seats (eg. the seats provided through Action Pack / Competency IUR) to replace E3 seats, and have at least one new seat for each current assigned user - You're all done! You may continue to receive notice the 250 seat trial subscription is about to / has expired, this is ok - once expired, your users will automatically transition to the new subscription. Remember you will need to renew your Office 365 IUR subscription next time you renew your MPN membership, it's not automatically extended.

4b. If the seats you’ve added do not match those you’re replacing or have not added enough seats to cover each assigned user - you will need to re-assign your users to the new subscription(s) manually:

5. Sign in to the Microsoft Online Portal (Tenant Admin Rights required)

6. In the Admin section, click "Active Users", select the checkbox next to the name(s) of the users you wish to re-assign and then "Edit" to assign them to a new subscription

7. You may continue to receive notice the 250 seat trial subscription is about to / has expired - as long as all of your users are correctly assigned to an eligible subscription, this is no problem.

8. Congratulations! You’re done! Remember　 if you’ve added MPN IUR, you will need to renew your Office 365 IUR subscription next time you renew your MPN membership, it's not automatically extended

What’s next?

Now the extension is complete – have you activated your Office 365 "Partner Features" (if you have, you’ll see a "Partner" tab in the top right of your tenant)? Partner features grant additional functionality to your Office 365 tenant, allowing you to send purchase offers, trial invitations, delegated administration requests and more!

Activate Partner Features through the Microsoft Partner Digital Download Portal. To learn more - check out the Office 365 Partner Admin Centre Guide.

Additional Resources

• What are my internal-use rights benefits? Why are they important for me to use?
• Microsoft Action Pack Internal-use rights license table
• Software Licensing for Partners with Silver or Gold Competencies
• Internal–use rights resources
• MPN Partners - how to create 90 day Office 365 demo tenants
•  

Need support?

Contact the Regional Service Centre at 1800 676 7658 or visit the Partner Support Community

You may have already heard about the Cloud Partner Summit and have signed up for Breakout session on Day 1, but are you aware that each summit lasts for another two to three days with deep-dive technical sales training sessions?

Microsoft will be offering a variety of training sessions on Day 2-4. This is an incredible opportunity for sales and technical resources to get the skills and knowledge to help your business succeed and accelerate in the cloud. These events will be the primary offerings this fall for deep sales and technical trainings so maximize on this opportunity and register today!

Not sure which technical sessions are right for you? Read below for a deeper explanation.

SALES SESSIONS

Office 365 Drumbeat

Recommended: sales and pre-sales technical roles

Drumbeat is the Office 365 sales readiness program targeted at partners selling Office 365 into the enterprise segment (EPG + CA), predominantly Corporate Accounts. Drumbeat aims to teach Office 365 partners in sales and pre-sales technical roles the best practice in selling Office 365.

REGISTER

Azure University: BDM

Recommended: IT professionals within System integrator Organizations & Azure Circle Partners

This is a one day Get Ready for Business as a Service training to help you understand and develop the right business model for your market and support you in entering and growing the business in the emerging Cloud marketplace.

REGISTER

TECHNICAL SESSIONS

Office 365 Ignite

Recommended: IT Professionals targeting Office 365

Ignite Workshops are a valuable step for deployment and foundational technical readiness. The 3 day workshop for Microsoft’s most valued customers and partner IT professionals focus on technical value proposition, workload capabilities, getting started with simple deployments and fundamental cloud concepts (security, privacy, service management, datacenter overviews and identity management).

REGISTER

Azure University: Technical

Recommended: IT professionals within System Integrator Organizations & Azure Circle Partners

The Azure university training starts with an introduction to Windows Azure Virtual machines and Virtual networks (Infrastructure Services). It delivers the foundational knowledge needed for users intending to run new workloads in Windows azure or migrate existing workloads from on-premises. Students will be introduced to the rich features of Windows Azure Active Directory and see how it can be used to achieve single sign-on across cloud applications, protect application access, enforce multi-factor authentication, and integrate with Windows Server Active Directory

REGISTER

OTHER SESSIONS

ModernBiz Technical Series

Recommended: Microsoft value-added resellers (VAR) partners with or without existing business practices built on Microsoft Azure, Windows Server and/or SQL Server who work with small and midsize organizations.

The Modern Biz Technical series provides training, demonstrations, and hands-on instruction on how to use the latest capabilities in Microsoft Azure, Windows Server 2012 R2, SQL Server 2014 and more to deliver solutions to small and midsize organizations.

REGISTER

Hosting Day Workshop

Recommended: Microsoft partners with or without existing hosting or manages service practices who work with small and midsize organizations.

The Canada hosting day workshop is a part of Technical series and provides training, demonstrations, and hands-on instruction on how to build Microsoft partner hosted Cloud offers via pre-build toolkits utilizing the latest capabilities in Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and to deliver solutions to small and midsize organizations.

REGISTER

Profitability Workshop

Recommended: Microsoft Partners selling Cloud Solutions

This workshop will showcase how successful partners have leverages the new revenue stream opportunities that the cloud has opened up across multiple business models. These business model evolutions are providing the foundation to increase margins, establish annuity and aggressive growth through new customer acquisition in the whitespace.

REGISTER 

You could be an IT Pro, a Sales partner, a Value-Added Reseller (VAR), or even a general Microsoft partner selling Cloud solutions. There’s a technical session that’s customized just for you. So tell us, do any of these sessions tickle your fancy? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Cloud-oriented partners are outperforming partners with other business models across the industry. They gain 1.3X more revenue per employee on top of the gross profit.*

Recurring revenue is the new success metric. Why is recurring revenue so powerful? Having long-term customers, predictability, cash flow, and higher company valuations can appeal to business owners and executives. According to IDC research, cloud-oriented partners reported achieving more than 1.6 times the recurring revenue than other partners.

Take a look at your existing business model and profit pools to plan your transition to the cloud.

Transact – The resale of someone else’s hardware and/or software.

Project Services – Fixed services that align with deploying hardware, software or application development.

 Managed Services – Standardized, tiered services that enable a partner to add value to their customer while building a recurring revenue stream (e.g., subscriptions or    monthly billings).

 IP Services – The monetization of Intellectual Property through software development; packaged application or business process.

Partner resources

So, how do you get started? First, understand your profit pools. Cloud can be a great opportunity to build additional services that complement your business and further your relationship with your customer. Understanding how you currently serve your market by profit pool will give you the insight to help build cloud services into your business.

Cloud partner profitability guidance

IDC Successful Cloud Partners eBook (PDF download)

Learn how to start a cloud practice with Microsoft Cloud Solutions

Announced at WPC 2014: Cloud performance path

Here are some additional resources and opportunities:
 

Cloud Partner Summit

Our summit is designed to give you an overview of our Cloud solutions covering core content of O365, Azure, Windows, Devices and CRM online as well as having Microsoft guest speakers, Partners and IDC presenting.

This is also a great opportunity for you to meet with some of our Execs as well as have the opportunity to ask questions directly to us and meet with other partners in your area so whether you have not yet sold Microsoft Cloud solutions but would like to understand more, or for partners that have started to sell and would like to understand how they can grow their practice.

In addition to the first day of the summit we have lined up 3 days of training in each city. The training covers a breadth of topics:

1. ModernBiz Technical Series Training for SMB Partners – including Azure, Windows Server and SQL 2014

This series provides training, demonstrations, and hands-on instruction on how to use the latest capabilities in Microsoft Azure, Windows Server 2012 R2, and SQL Server 2014.

2. Azure University: Technical A two day session delivering simplified demonstrations of our world-class Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service solutions and how you can evolve your business and offerings.

3. Azure University: Sales & Business Development

This workshop is designed to help you understand and develop the right business model for your market and support you in entering and growing the business in the emerging Cloud marketplace.

4. Office 365 Technical Ignite

A series of 3 day workshops providing deep-dive technical readiness on all productivity workloads from Microsoft product experts.

5. Office 365 Drumbeat

Aimed at partners in sales and pre-sales technical roles, an exclusive partner-only Drumbeat Sales Readiness day. 

6. Profitability Workshop

Learn how successful partners have leveraged the new revenue stream opportunities that the Cloud has opened up across multiple business models. 

7. Technical Hosting

One day opportunity for Hosting Service providers, offering solutions based on VMware,

OpenSource and MS technologies and looking to launch new offers.

Register Today - http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/web/cloud-partner-summit/

Microsoft Partner Network - The new Cloud Competencies

Cloud is coming to the Microsoft Partner Network! The Cloud Accelerate, Cloud Deployment Partners, and Azure Circle programs will be retired. Partners will have a path to migrate into the three new cloud performance competencies listed below.

What does this mean for existing cloud program members? If you are a Cloud Accelerate or Cloud Deployment partner who meets the cloud performance threshold for the Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions or Cloud Productivity competencies, you will be granted the silver level of those competencies for one year. If you are an Azure Circle partner who meets the cloud performance threshold for the Cloud Platform competency, you will be granted the silver level of that competency for one year.

Partners who attain the new cloud performance competencies will earn the silver level at no cost and will receive gold level at a reduced price. Partners who qualify will receive a host of benefits that include:

• Cloud support

• Internal-use rights and development and test environments

• Channel incentives and access to special offers

• Guaranteed field or tele management at the gold level

Learn more https://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/ca/pages/solutions/cloud-is-our-core.aspx

For more details, a walkthrough of the new competencies and more information on the transition plans, join us at our MPN Launch Information session on September 17th, 2pm EST! 

Register Today https://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-CA&EventID=1032593259&IO=2CiSduGRlQ%2ferjY6HNeQCw%3d%3d

* IDC, 2014. Successful Cloud Partners 2.0., sponsored by Microsoft.

Please note this was the email sent to all partners following WPC 2014.

Dear Partners 

We're back from a great week in Washington D.C. With over 400 attendees from our Canadian partner community attending the Worldwide Partner Conference held in Washington D.C. there were 16,000 partners from over 140 countries gathered to hear about the growing opportunities for partners and how to win together with Microsoft.

Over a period of 4 days the Keynotes, sessions and events were designed to be the springboard for our new financial year giving all attendees clarity on our strategic direction, how they can align their business with Microsoft and most importantly make money! Here's a breakdown for all of you that did attend or could not attend on all that was covered pre to post WPC.

Before we continue surveys are integral for accumulating feedback regarding forward and successful planning and provides critical insight into improving performance according to the demand and needs of our stakeholders. Please take a moment to respond to our WPC 2014 Canadian Survey

The week leading into WPC, Phil Sorgen released some big product news updates sharing the company’s vision for how Microsoft helps enable partners’ success in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.  To read more about it please click here

For Canadian Partners, day 1 opened on Sunday, July 13th at the Ritz Carlton kicking off the week with our Canadian Regional Keynote where we celebrated the results we achieved together in FY14, alongside the standout performances through the IMPACT Awards, presented at WPC for the first time, while also setting the tone for the year ahead.  For Links to the presentation please click here.

With that said, we'd like to announce the Categories for the IMPACT Awards 2015

Big Data/BI Innovation Award                           Innovation in Dynamics CRM Award     

Innovation in Dynamics ERP Award                  Fastest Growing Cloud Provider in SMB – Central Canada

Partner Hosted Cloud Innovation Award          Fastest Growing Cloud Provider in SMB – Western Canada

Enterprise Public Cloud Innovation Award       Fastest Growing Cloud Provider in SMB – Eastern Canada

Business Productivity Innovation Award           Mobile Application Innovation Award

Infrastructure Innovation Award                       Citizenship and Community Award

Winning Together Award                                  Windows Application Developer Award

ISV Innovative Solution Award                          Education and Youth Award – Digital Literacy

Digital Marketing Innovation Award

To read more about these categories – please visit the IMPACT Awards page

Monday Morning began with Phil Sorgen opening the first Vision Keynote. Phil addressed the crowd by stating "the best of your capability come together with the best of our capability to drive customer outcomes" and in a nutshell he laid out how putting partners first is our go-to-market strategy and has always been key to our joint success, and it will continue to be a priority in today’s mobile-first, cloud-first world.  On stage during Monday's Vision Keynote, we made several announcements that put partners at the center of customer cloud adoption. These announcements were:

Integration of Cloud into the Microsoft Partner Network

We are launching three new cloud-focused competencies based on performance for Office 365 and Microsoft Azure. The new competencies are:

• Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions: For partners selling Microsoft Office 365 to small and mid-market customers.

• Cloud Productivity: For partners deploying Microsoft Office 365 for enterprise customers.

• Cloud Platform: For partners who specialize in delivering infrastructure, PaaS and SaaS solutions on Microsoft Azure.

With the announcement today, we will retire the Cloud Accelerate, Cloud Deployment and Azure Circle programs and provide a path for partners to migrate to the new cloud competencies.

We are also changing the way we integrate cloud into our competencies to make it easier for partners to invest more in their business and plan to do this in four ways

• Waiving the first year fee for Silver cloud competencies

• Enhancing Internal Use Rights for Office 365 and Azure, providing between 25% and 200% more IUR licenses depending on the competency level achieved

• Signature Cloud Support is our exclusive support solution that helps cloud partners better support their customers. Launching in September, Signature Cloud Support provides partners with direct contact into a high-quality support team.

• To enable partners to continue to make the investments necessary to succeed in the cloud, we also announced that we are reducing the fees for on-premises competencies by up to 10%.

Another way we are helping partners transition to the cloud is by providing the tools and resources to get started on our new cloud services. Today we’re announcing Azure Machine Learning University, a portfolio of online self-service learning assets designed to get partners started with Azure ML. Machine Learning University will provide partners with an overview of Azure ML, and walk through the data science life cycle from importing data to building predictive models and deploying in production.

Cloud Solution Provider program: The Cloud Solution Provider Program allows partners to engage at every part of the customer lifecycle. Partners will serve as the main point of contact for all customer needs, including billing, provisioning, support and, most importantly, the ability to sell their own tools, products and services with every Office 365 subscription. This new program provides our partners with increased opportunities and ensures our mutual customers can rely on their dedicated strategic partner to get the most out of Office 365, Windows InTune and eventually other Microsoft cloud solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in Open Licensing: The addition of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to Microsoft Open Licensing Programs means that small business and mid-market customers will be able to gain access to the full suite of Microsoft Online Services in a way that fits their current engagement with their partner or service provider. This represents a huge opportunity for Microsoft distributors and resellers who will be able to transact Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to their existing and new customers through the licensing model they are used to. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online in Open Licensing will be available later this fiscal year.

Azure in Open Licensing: Microsoft Azure will be available via the Open Licensing program beginning on August 1, 2014, making it easier for partners to build a profitable cloud business. This provides partners with a familiar licensing option that offers the benefits of Microsoft Volume Licensing, flexible monetary payments, and additional opportunities to grow revenues and deepen customer relationships.

Azure Certified Program: The new Azure Certified logo certification program will empower Microsoft partners to grow their business through new opportunities to promote and sell their applications and services on Azure. The program includes co-marketing assistance, a listing on the Azure website and access to the Azure customer base via placement in the Azure Management Portal.

Azure Machine Learning University: Machine Learning University offers online step-by-step instruction to help partners get started on working with Machine Learning right away. Azure Machine Learning will help partners build advanced analytic cloud services for their customers in minutes and hours, eliminating much of the heavy lifting associated with deploying machine learning in modern data-driven applications.

Office 365 Onboarding and Signature Customer Support

We concluded Monday evening with a special celebration of the IMPACT Award Finalists from 2014 at the Folger Shakespeare Library, an intimate dinner for 200 guests celebrating great innovative contributions to the IT Industry that create tremendous market opportunities.

Day 2 was packed with great track and session Keynotes, and tons of partner interactions, in 1:1 and 1:few roundtables/meetings – focussed on showcasing Partners betting big on Microsoft solutions. We wrapped up Tuesday night with our Canadian Regional Party at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium where we celebrated 20 years of great partnership. The event was a grand and a great finale to a successful FY14 and a kickoff to FY15.  

The final day was all about Satya - taking the stage for the first time at WPC as CEO. Satya spoke about Microsoft's leadership as the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world and shared how we, with all our partners, we will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more - advocating for "courage in the face of opportunity".                                                    

 To hear the vision keynotes and see the highlights of the week please click here  

So thank you to all our partners. Your commitment and innovation have strengthened our collective success. As Phil said during his keynote address "There is a place for every one of you in this future. There's so much opportunity - lets go win it together".

 We hope to see you all in Orlando, Florida for WPC 2015 next year! Early registration has already begun!