Unlock the power of Microsoft with your MSP Newsletter
As we step into 2024, the world of technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, and at intY, we’re at the forefront of Microsoft innovations.
As always, we want to thank you for your valued partnership. We look forward to continuing our success together for the rest of the financial year and beyond.
Let’s take a moment to review the highlights that intY and Microsoft have had this year, shaping the way businesses navigate the digital landscape.
Featured Microsoft Product/Service
Revolutionising business management with Microsoft Business Applications
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central has taken centre stage, redefining the way businesses manage their operations. With comprehensive tools for financial, sales, service, and scalability tailored for SMBs, it’s a game-changer for efficiency and growth.
Keep an eye out for our upcoming Explore and Tour: Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, where we’ll look at what it is, the partner opportunity and customer benefits and take a look around.
Tech tips & tricks:
Did you know our Microsoft experts conduct regular Whiteboarding sessions to help roadmap your Microsoft strategy?
Our goal as your Microsoft Indirect Provider is to ensure that you are fully leveraging the benefits of Microsoft’s cloud services. Perfecting your offering is key, that’s why we conduct regular Whiteboarding sessions to assist you in developing your cloud reselling business strategy, defining your business goals and aligning support from us and Microsoft to help you achieve success.
Get in touch with your account manager to book a Whiteboarding session with our Microsoft experts.
News & Updates:
Windows Server 2012 R2 Migrations and the arrival of EOS to CSP
On 10th October 2023, support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 came to an end. This means these products will no longer receive security updates, non-security updates, bug fixes, technical support, or online technical content updates. You have a few options:
- Do nothing
- Remain on-prem by upgrading to Windows Server 2022
- Purchase Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for Windows Server 2012 – providing up to three years of security updates only. Now available in CSP.
- OR migrate to Azure and receive up to three years of free Extended Security Updates (ESUs)
Contact us here to discuss the best option for you.
Next steps in legacy CSP platform retirement
Public Sector offers will be available in NCE from January 2024, and auto-migration for these offers will begin in July 2024. All remaining commercial CSP licenses will begin the Microsoft-led migration in January 2024.
Teams Live Events is being retired and will be replaced by Teams Town Hall:
Town Hall is rolling out globally for Commercial Office 365 and Microsoft 365 customers now, with Teams Live Events’ retirement in September 2024. The general availability for government customers (GCC, GCC High, and DoD) will be announced in the coming months.
Microsoft 365 Lighthouse Updates
Microsoft has made some innovations to Microsoft 365 Lighthouse to help partners manage their customers at scale. You’ll now be able to configure customised email alerts to users, groups, or third-party ticketing systems, such as Professional Services Automation systems, straight from Lighthouse.
Partner Announcements
We want to continue to make every effort to only communicate with you the important things.
We’ve toned down the number of emails we send to you, and instead, we’re putting all you need to know on the Partner Announcements page on our website, that way you have a historical log on any updates from our vendors and intY, which allows you to easily catch up with anything you miss in your own time.
Training & Resources:
At intY, we understand that true strength lies in knowledge. We’ve ramped up our support and training initiatives, ensuring that our partners are not just equipped with tools but also armed with the expertise to navigate the Microsoft ecosystem successfully.
Training and Enablement with Illuminate Learning
This year, we launched Illuminate Learning, an MSP training and enablement specialist, to bring the excitement back to your learning experience. So far, we’ve hosted several sessions to upskill our partners in various Microsoft products and enabled them to achieve their Solutions Designations.
If you’re looking to upskill your sales teams, inspire and educate your customers, or empower your technical teams – Illuminate Learning has a diverse range of training courses tailored to your needs. Upskill your teams here.
Elevating expertise with Azure Ascend
We are continuing to enable our partners with all the essential knowledge and skills to resell Microsoft Azure solutions with confidence. This year, we’ve worked tirelessly to make Azure Ascend more accessible and partner-friendly to get you to reach that Azure summit sooner!
We’ve converted more of our live workshops to on-demand sessions so that you can make the most of our platform – when it’s most convenient for you. But don’t worry, there’s still the opportunity to book a call if you need us!
If you haven’t experienced our partner-exclusive enablement programme yet, get started here.
But if you’re not yet convinced, or you’ve fallen behind on your Azure Ascend journey and need a little boost to jump back in, hear from one of our partners on how their start-up business is ascending above and beyond thanks to Azure Ascend in our case study blog.
Industry Insights:
Navigating the future together with Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot has been making a lot of noise in 2023. Providing a seamless experience, Copilot is here to simplify tasks, enhance collaboration, and ensure a smoother journey for businesses embracing the power of Microsoft 365.
To help you get to grips with this new technology, we condensed everything down into a 5-minute on-demand video series here.
Although Copilot is an exciting new technology that can have seemingly infinite benefits for how we work and interact, partners and customers need to proactively prepare for its implementation to guarantee success in its adoption. Check out our video on how to get your business AI-ready in time for Copilot.
If you’re a bit more old-school and prefer a good read, we’ve turned Microsoft’s Readiness steps into a blog with some useful links for you to access here.
Current promotions and incentives:
New partner incentive alert!
Legacy Cloud Platform Competency partners and Solution Designation (Infrastructure) partners can earn an additional 15% rebate for adding net new customers in Azure.
Find more details on page 124 of the Microsoft Commerce Incentives guide.
Bridge 2 Cloud Promotion
Available to existing Dynamics on-premises commercial customers (as of 1st September 2022) with current/active Enhancement Plan (EP). This promotion provides 40% discount (3-year fixed term, non-renewable, non-cancellable) on Dynamics 365 online services for commercial customers committed to migrating to the cloud. Available until 31st December 2024.
Get in touch with your account manager to access any of the promotions above.
Community Corner:
A story of start-up success with Azure Ascend
The MSP world has become more competitive than ever before. And with Microsoft increasingly churning out more and more advanced technologies, it is important that tech businesses maintain a competitive edge.
IT business ITERTECH is doing exactly that – taking full advantage of intY’s Azure Ascend to help them start selling Microsoft Azure. Find out how in our blog: A story of start-up success with Azure Ascend.
Upcoming Events:
Live Quarterly Updates: Virtual
Join our live webinar on Thursday 7th December 2023, from 4.00 pm – 5.00 pm [GMT].
We’re here to provide a comprehensive recap of the latest developments in Microsoft Azure and Modern Work from the past quarter. Plus, for this exclusive session, we’ve invited a special guest, Mark Brooks – Commerce Lead at Microsoft, to keep you up to date on the transition from legacy CSP to New Commerce Experience (NCE).
Don’t miss this live quarterly update; it’s your opportunity to get up to speed on it all! You’ll also get the chance to ask intY and Microsoft any burning questions you might have about your existing offerings or the latest in NCE. Register here.
US Azure Ascend Base Camp: Virtual
Join our first exclusive Azure Ascend Base Camp webinar for US partners on Azure Migration on Tuesday 12th December 2023, from 1.00 pm – 3.00 pm [EST]!
If you’re keen to learn more about migrating to Azure to leverage the true potential of Microsoft’s cloud platform, then this is the workshop for you! You’ll have the chance to meet our new US Azure Practice as we uncover the motivation to migrate and the commercial opportunity before showing you how to cost these solutions in the Azure Pricing Calculator. Add the event to your calendar here.
+One Upselling Workshop: Virtual
Join our +One workshop webinar hosted by our lead Microsoft Consultant, Angela Pawar, where we’ll dive into strategies for upselling Microsoft 365 to your customers.
Date: Thursday 14th December 2023
Time: 4.00 – 5:00pm [GMT]
Gain insights into the product value, partner opportunity and customer benefits for upgrading, and understand the questions you can ask to prompt an upsell conversation with your customers while getting the opportunity to engage in an open discussion with our expert and ask questions to address your specific challenges and opportunities. Register here.
Upcoming Microsoft Workshops
Check out Microsoft’s upcoming digital events here.
Concluding thoughts as we head into 2024…
As we reflect on the Microsoft highlights at intY in 2023, it’s clear that the journey is about more than just products; it’s about empowerment, collaboration, and navigating the future together. The year has set the stage for continued innovation and growth, and we’re excited to see what the rest of the year holds as we journey together with our partners and Microsoft into the future of cloud computing.
If you have any feedback on the way we do things around here, please feel free to get in touch at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!
