Microsoft is cracking the whip on partners that sell Office 365 subscriptions but are not doing enough to ensure customers are actually using the product, according to channel onlookers.

Office 365 is one of the software giant’s flagship products, and its sales have rocketed in recent years. In its Q2, Microsoft’s commercial cloud revenue grew 114 per cent year on year driven in part by Office 365.

But some channel bosses claim customers are being sold the licences without adequate support for deploying and consuming the associated services, prompting Microsoft to clamp down.

Cloudamour founder Mitchell Feldman told CRN:

“Microsoft is pushing heavily on the consumption of Office 365. They are no longer interested in people just having an Office 365 subscription; they want people to consume the services. Licensing solutions providers (LSPs) are being told that selling licences isn’t good enough – they have now got to make sure the people [customers] are not just buying it for licence fulfilment but that they are actually using the services in Office 365.

“[In the past] they might have bought the licence but not activated any of [the features] and just bought it for software-asset management (SAM) purposes.”

SOURCE: channelweb.co.uk