Is Microsoft moving to direct billing for Open Value Subscription?

 

Another follow-up question to my “Big news: Open Value Subscription launching in the U.S. and Canada!” post that I have received a few times today from imagesome Partners and during some interviews is whether or not the new Open Value Subscription model will be one where Microsoft is invoicing the customers direct instead of having the resellers invoice them as they do today with Open Business and Open Value. Building off the answers I provided in my, “Open Value Subscription – How is it purchased?” post where I talked about how all purchases are made through the resellers and not direct, in this post I will cover the actual cycle of not just the order, but also the invoicing.

For Open Value Subscription, the “who bills who” cycle will be the same as it is today for the Open Business or Open Value licensing programs. What this means is that for Open Value Subscription, the customer places their purchase orders with you as their reseller of choice --> you place an order with your distributor of choice --> and your distributor places a purchase order with Microsoft. After Microsoft invoices your distributor --> you receive an invoice from your distributor --> and you send an invoice to your customer. Customer then pays you --> you pay your distributor --> the distributor pays Microsoft. This is our standard through-partner order process. I have included a diagram (click on it to view full-size) in this post that show the sequence of the order and invoice process for Open Business, Open Value, and the new Open Value Subscription licensing programs. So the direct answer to the question is, “No, Open Value Subscription is not going to be billed directly by Microsoft to the customer.”

Remember, we are running a series of Partner training seminars on Open Value Subscription in January where you can learn much more about the program and how it works. All of the dates, times, and registration details for these sessions are included in my original post.

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric Ligman
Microsoft US Senior Manager
Small Business Community Engagement
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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