New Year. New Priorities.

The last edition of Interesting Stuff marked the first anniversary of the newsletter, and a milestone I'm proud to have achieved. So it seems fitting to kick off year two with some focus on the FY25 priorities Microsoft has been sharing recently.

With the explosive growth in AI capability, it's unsurprising to see Copilot form a big part of those priorities. Today, I want to focus in on some of my take-aways from this year's announcements and look at them in a little more detail as they relate to Azure success...

Security

Microsoft is incrementally investing $90M in FY25 into this key priority area. That alone should signal its importance. But for me, it runs deeper than the products and services, and goes to the basic capabilities and value-add of CSP partners. You might not position yourself in market as an MSSP, or have implemented an MDR service, but still: security is everybody's responsibility (that includes you!). Especially for small and medium-sized businesses who rely more than ever on the support, management, and guidance from their IT partners where they lack resource themselves.

If you have Azure customers today, perhaps where you're taking a more hands-off, transactional approach, I strongly encourage you to look deeper into Microsoft's security workloads and capabilities. Not only to protect your customers, their apps, users, data, and devices, but also yourself.

Go and turn on Microsoft Defender for Cloud and review the secure score. Start taking action on the recommendations you see.

?? Remember, Microsoft is continuing Azure Migrate and Modernize with Defender for Cloud Attach that rewards eligible partners 15% for delivering secure migration projects and Microsoft Sentinel Migrate and Modernize.

Incentives

There are lots of ways to make money as a Microsoft partner, and understanding incentives is almost an industry of its own. That said, I'm amazed at both the level of investment into incentives and the number of partners that leave opportunity to earn more on the table every year. Spend some time understanding the details, it is worth it! The incentives guide is huge this year.

Make sure your housekeeping is done for your designations and specialisations - you'll need these to be eligible for certain incentives. Keep your Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program portal (remember when it used to just be called MPN? ??) up to date.

Then, work with your teams to maximise use of the various programs and offerings available both to accelerate your projects with customers and to take full advantage of the incentives on offer to grow your business!

?? Lastly, remember that many incentives can often apply to new projects for existing customers as well as new ones. This is fantastic for supporting a customer success practice!

Migrate, Migrate, Migrate!

It's certainly an exciting time to be in the tech industry, and I'd be crazy not to point out the gigantic opportunity in the data and app modernisation space for services like Fabric and Azure OpenAI service. However... if you're still working with customers who have their IT services tied up in on-premises (often legacy) systems with no strategy for adopting even a hybrid cloud approach, then you cannot get to those cutting edge capabilities.

That's why migration (secure, with a good dose of governance and modernisation) is still so important and at the core of Microsoft's priorities.

Azure Essentials

This new hub is worth bookmarking if you're interested in learning how to build out AI investments with your customers. There are useful guides covering many solution plays, with links to all the relevant portals, programs, and training you need to be successful.

And more...

Of course there's more! A Copilot on every device, marketplace, ISVs, skills, there's so much to get after.

It's certainly going to make FY25 busy, and I like being busy.