How to Sell Office 365 through Open License and Full Packaged Product – What Partners Need To Know

imageBack in January, I put up a post Announcing Office 365 through Open and the New Office availability! In there I mentioned the announcement we had made about the upcoming availability of Office 365 through Open, which is an incredibly exciting opportunity for our partners everywhere that have been asking for the ability to offer Office 365 to their clients through our Open License licensing programs. In fact, since this offer utilizes the Open License programs, it follows the same sales process you are very familiar with and using already:

 

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In fact, if you look at the Volume Licensing order process diagram I built back in 2008, you’ll notice the same flow for ordering.

From a timing perspective, we are very quickly approaching the availability date for the Office 365 through Open availability in the market, and I have been getting questions about how it works, license administration, etc. As noted in my earlier post on timing:

  • Office 365 available to transact in Open & FPP channels March 1
    • The Office 365 Midsize Business is available for partners to sell in Open L, Open Value (OV), Open Value Subscription (OVS) pricelists, starting March 1.
    • Starting February 1, the Open pricelists previews will include this new SKU and local pricing by market.
    • Office 365 Small Business Premium is available on the Full Package Product (Retail Box) pricelist on February 1, with the ability to sell to Resellers on February 15. Resellers can begin transacting on March 1.

To help answer not only the questions I have received, but also give you access to a ton more information on this topic, I am posting here about a bunch of Office 365 Open and FPP partner resource center that contain a plethora of information for you to get you started and help you be successful.

Let’s start with the basics. First, you can offer Office 365 Midsize Business through Volume Licensing with an Open license (Open L, Open Value, or Open Value Subscription), or offer Office 365 Small Business Premium as a full-packaged product (FPP). Here are two great resources to start out with:

Now for some resources to help you learn it, promote it, and sell it:

LEARN IT:

PROMOTE IT:

SELL IT:

Here are some additional sessions we have made available in video and PowerPoint formats:

In addition, here are the Partner Readiness resources I had shared previously:

If you do nothing else, I’d highly recommend at least downloading the Office 365 Open and FPP reseller kit and go through those items to get a good set of info to get you started. Again, that is at the minimum. As you can see, we have a bunch of resources available for you up above, so I would suggest consuming as much as you want as you look to build out your Office 365 through Open business. By the way, if you’re not using Office 365 yourself already, remember that as a partner enrolled in Cloud Essentials, you get access to Office 365 licenses to use yourselves. Discover the benefits and enroll in Cloud Essentials if you haven’t already.

Did you find this information helpful? If so, you may want to make sure you are utilizing all of the areas I share information online, such as:

Thanks again for being a reader of my blog!

Thank you and have a wonderful day,

Eric LigmanFollow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and Facebook
Sales Excellence Program Manager
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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