5. Microsoft’s $30m bar raise
When? May
“Does it know what it’s started?”, one Microsoft distribution boss asked of the vendor’s decision to impose a $30m revenue barrier on its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) distributors.
According to some estimates, the number of Microsoft distributors under the incoming threshold – which was announced on 1 May and will kick in on 1 October – could be as high as 120.
The move is part of a wider effort by Microsoft to raise partner requirements for its CSP programme, which it sees as the “hero motion” for accelerating AI in the SME space.
Jacob Schaumann Schmidt, CEO of Danish Microsoft cloud distributor Cloud Factory, said the announcement has created “some whiplash” among Microsoft distributors across Europe who he said are “talking to each other around the clock”.
“Everybody’s talking to everyone else to find out where they are on size and whether they want to sell or get out,” he told IT Channel Oxygen.
This was seconded by Climb CEO Dale Foster, who said the announcement has caused new European acquisition targets to “pop up” on the acquisitive, US-based distributor’s radar.
See following page for 4 bigger distribution stories…
