Microsoft partner changes 'unwelcome' and 'impossible to achieve' for many, petition claims

A petition has been set up by a Microsoft partner calling for a disapproval of the vendor's planned October changes to the Microsoft Partner Network.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that as of October, it was scrapping the Microsoft Partner Network and instead renaming it the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program - which all of its 400,000 partners will use.

Under the changes, Microsoft's Silver and Gold-level certification badges will be scrapped and the new partner programme will focus on a level of proficiency in six solution areas aligned with the Microsoft Cloud: data and AI (Azure); infrastructure (Azure); digital and app innovation (Azure); business applications; modern work; and security.

Partners will be able to join two qualifying levels: "solutions partner" and "specialisations and expert programs". To meet the new solutions partner designation, partners will need to score at least 70/100 on a new partner capability score across the six areas.

But a new petition, which has attracted more than 500 signatures at the time of writing, claims the partner capability score marker will be "impossible to achieve" for many.

"When you look at the upcoming requirements being placed on Microsoft Partners in October 2022 the emphasis has shifted into sell, sell, sell at all costs," it claims.

"All Microsoft Partners will now be given a partner capability score. A partner must achieve at least 70 out of 100 which for the vast majority of partners out there will be impossible to achieve as it's heavily biased toward new sales. It seems there is no reward for loyalty.

"This unwelcome change to the Microsoft Partner Network is being touted as a good one for partners and their customers, however the only one to really benefit from this change is Microsoft. A program which heavily emphasises new sales can only benefit Microsoft.

"Microsoft's objective is and always will be to cut down the 400,000 loyal partners."

Speaking to CRN, the CEO of Gold-level Microsoft partner Technology Associates, Kelvin Kirby, described Microsoft's decision to scrap the Gold and Silver competencies as "a massive mistake".

"It lumps you into a big pool of partners where there's no differentiation in the services you're providing. At least with Gold and Silver you had those differentiations within a product category that people could understand," he said.

Many of the specialisations in the current MPN programme do not carry over to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Progamme, he added.

The certifications that some partners already have will be fragmented across multiple solutions areas under the new programme, leaving them falling short of solutions partner status and having no choice but to skill up in areas they're not interested in just to maintain their status in the programme.

Kirby's said his firm currently has a Gold-level competency in Project and Portfolio Management. But under the new programme, this competency is now fragmented across modern work, business applications and data and AI.

Kirby said it would cost his business around £90,000 in order to reach solutions partner status in those three areas.

"We would have to take a raft of new exams and certifications and the monetary cost of that is significant, but the time that people have to take off to do revision and prepare is also significant."

Partners have the option to apply for Advanced Specialisations under the new programme, but Kirby said these are hard to obtain and the barrier of entry is much higher than Gold-level under today's programme.

For the time being, Microsoft partners will be able to continue to receive existing benefits and can renew their legacy competencies and benefits before 30 September this year.

He admitted that Microsoft needed to make some tweaks to its existing programme, but said scrapping the Microsoft Partner Network altogether was not the answer.

"One of the concerns Microsoft had was that there were more and more partners getting Gold certifications, which is probably true. But the reason that happened is because Microsoft got lazy about their exams. They retired lots of exams over the last four or five years and haven't replaced them with up-to-date modern equivalents and that means the requirements for some Gold-level certifications are actually very low.

"Partners consequently qualify for Gold by virtue of a lower set of certifications, rather than Microsoft doing the necessary due diligence to make sure there's a level of certification required."

CRN contacted Microsoft for comment but did get recieve a response by the time we went to press.