When it comes to Microsoft’s copilots and generative artificial intelligence, solution providers can expect more skilling, more specializations and designations, more enablement, greater access to the vendor’s sales methodology and other resources for understanding and deploying this new technology, Microsoft Chief Partner Officer Nicole Dezen told CRN in an interview.
Dezen – who also serves as Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft’s corporate vice president for the Global Partner Solutions (GPS) group – told CRN that the vendor is investing in its rechristened Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and other resources for partners around generative AI.
“The more that partners can benefit from the investments we make internally, the decisions we make as a company, the things that we test and learn and try – of course, we should enable our partners to do that because they are the scale engine,” Dezen said. “They are the ones delivering so much value to customers.”
[RECENT: Microsoft CEO Nadella: AI Partner Opportunity Could Reach $7T]
Microsoft Generative AI Partners
Microsoft solution providers automatically moved into the MAICPP from the former Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program and kept their benefits and designations, according to the vendor.
Multiple Microsoft solution providers have told CRN about their excitement and investment around the vendor’s generative AI offerings – even before they all become generally available (GA).
Vineet Arora, chief technology officer of WinWire Technologies — a Santa Clara, Calif.-based Microsoft partner and No. 233 on CRN’s 2023 Solution Provider 500 — told CRN in an interview that “the scale of the investment that we have planned is [incomparable] to anything else that we have done in the last 16 years.”
“My entire time is going into this,” he said. “The opportunity size, the technology, the speed at which it is evolving requires 100 percent — 110 percent — dedication from our side. So the scale and the level of focus has been different from anything else that we’ve done in the past.”
Microsoft expects 90 percent of enterprise applications to have embedded AI within the next two years. And millions of Windows and SQL Server licenses remain on-premises, reflecting how much work for solution providers remains, according to the vendor.
Microsoft’s $100 million Azure Innovate fund for analytics and AI and its tripling the investments in Azure Migrate and Modernize are examples of more investment in partners, Dezen said. The vendor has also increased access to the Microsoft customer engagement methodology (MCEM) as optional guidance to solution providers on how to sell.
“The market is moving fast. And customers are quite advanced and sophisticated. And so partners need to be even farther along in order to deliver real value to them,” Dezen said.
At Microsoft’s partner-focused Inspire event earlier this month, Dezen shouted out multiple examples of services partners embracing generative AI, including:
*Avanade’s enterprise knowledge management system for a global oil and gas company leveraging millions
*Insight Enterprises’ Insight Lens for GenAI service offering for customers to find areas that could benefit from generative AI
*Neudesic’s Document Intelligence Platform (DIP) for automating manual invoicing processes, which saved a customer $500,000 a year
Generative AI should open up more conversations between solution providers and customers by discussing new value created in products such as customer relationship management (CRM) suite Dynamics, AI capabilities in communications platform Teams, Dezen said.
At Inspire, she also highlighted AI-enabled devices such as Yealink SmartVision 60 for Teams Rooms and the Lenovo ThinkPad X13S – one of the first devices with AI-powered Windows Studio Effects – as ways to open new customer conversations for solution providers.
She also highlighted AI Bootcamp events, intermediate and advanced technical certifications, remote and in-person AI workshops and “AI campaign in a box” resources that will be available for all 18 mainstream solution plays in 11 languages by the end of December.
For solution providers concerned about the capital costs of adopting generative AI for customers who have slowed digital technology purchases since the peak of the global pandemic, Dezen recommended tackling business problems, focusing on the savings AI can bring and the potential for employee morale boosts from eliminating mundane tasks.
“This isn’t about tech for tech sake,” she said. “This isn’t a science project. This is about how you help customers solve their real business problems.”
When asked about an ongoing issue with Microsoft’s new commerce experience where solution providers who win a new customer in the middle of an annual commitment have to awkwardly work with the former solution provider on offboarding the customer, Dezen said that “we’re always assessing our policies to make sure that we’re doing the right thing for the business, for customers and for our partners.”
“I’m really pleased with our progress on NCE,” she said. “And I applaud our partners for doing great work with us. It’s been a meaningful transition for our partners, for their customers. And I feel really good about the progress we’ve made.”
Here’s what else Dezen had to say.
LEARN MORE: AI | Generative AI | Cloud Platforms | Cloud Security | Cloud Infrastructure | Cloud Software | Artificial Intelligence
Wade Tyler Millward is an associate editor covering cloud computing and the channel partner programs of Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Salesforce, Citrix and other cloud vendors. He can be reached at [email protected].
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