O365: differences between direct purchase and via a partner
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Pricing is pretty much the same.
So I guess I will need to add them as a partner via the O365 portal. The fact that they are my reseller doesn't automatically make them my partner?
Not with an open license. You need to add them as the partner but they don't get anything from it with a open license and may not provide support. Advisor fees aren't paid unless you renew the office 365 later with them on your record. With an Open license they take a cut off the top. You'd need to check with them to see if they do support.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Pricing is pretty much the same.
So I guess I will need to add them as a partner via the O365 portal. The fact that they are my reseller doesn't automatically make them my partner?
We are a partner, the official partner reps for SW community and the North East US, but we are not resellers. Having worked in a partner model as a premier partner pretty much since the beginning - I've not see the reseller model and it is not an option to us (nor would we want that) so I'm not sure. If you use a reseller I'm not sure you can have a partner. Or maybe it is automatic.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you use a reseller I'm not sure you can have a partner. Or maybe it is automatic.
These are things I need to establish. Until this thread, I hadn't appreciated the difference between reseller and partner. I just call everyone a supplier.
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And just because you find a Partner doesn't mean they will provide good support. Heck this local MSP is supposedly a partner: http://mounttaborservices.com/
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
If you use a reseller I'm not sure you can have a partner. Or maybe it is automatic.
These are things I need to establish. Until this thread, I hadn't appreciated the difference between reseller and partner. I just call everyone a supplier.
Well it's case by case how each vendor uses the term. BUT, nothing in the term partner implies reselling and nothing in the term reseller implies any association with the vendor. NTG is an HP Partner and a Netgear Partner, as examples, but you can't buy either from us. Best Buy is a Netgear reseller, but they are not a partner and have no Netgear expertise.
Anyone that sells stuff can be a reseller. A partner requires an agreement and association with the vendor. Some vendors require partners to be resellers too, like Meraki. Some forbid it, like Microsoft. Some have both ways, like Dell.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
And just because you find a Partner doesn't mean they will provide good support. Heck this local MSP is supposedly a partner: http://mounttaborservices.com/
There are tons of horrible ones.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
I personally would buy everything direct.
I would never do that. There are no upsides. Going through an MSP can add value, going direct cannot. If you go direct you voluntarily take the lowest level of service.
I remember this almost as if it was a quote from Scott's past.
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My supplier has confirmed they are in the partner network, so no issues having them as both our O365 reseller and our O365 partner. So I think I'm good to go. There are hidden benefits to pushing billing through our MSP rather than through Microsoft - I would basically be doing them a favour and can expect a favour in return. I'm not sure there are any explicit benefits though.
Next question:
I'm not moving e-mail over until next year, so will still be using on-premise Exchange. Is there any issue with specifying our domain (ourdomain.com) within our O365 account now. It won't effect external e-mail, as we won't be changing our MX records, but will it cause any issues. For example, will internal e-mail within O365 not reach our external Exchange server, thus causing us a problem?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
My supplier has confirmed they are in the partner network, so no issues having them as both our O365 reseller and our O365 partner. So I think I'm good to go. There are hidden benefits to pushing billing through our MSP rather than through Microsoft - I would basically be doing them a favour and can expect a favour in return. I'm not sure there are any explicit benefits though.
That shouldn't be a specific benefit to that model. Going through a non-reseller partner is still doing them a favour and the entire setup of the partner model is that you do them the favour of selecting them as the partner and they do you the favour of getting upgraded Microsoft services (if they are premier) and providing their own services. That you use a reseller as well or that you pay them instead of Microsoft doesn't change any of that. It is just that they mark up before they bill you instead of Microsoft paying them afterwards.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not moving e-mail over until next year, so will still be using on-premise Exchange. Is there any issue with specifying our domain (ourdomain.com) within our O365 account now. It won't effect external e-mail, as we won't be changing our MX records, but will it cause any issues. For example, will internal e-mail within O365 not reach our external Exchange server, thus causing us a problem?
No, only changing the MX records changes anything external. Otherwise people all over the world could disrupt your email by creating local email systems with your domain name in them.
But obviously anything you do inside O365 will be broken as that will all talk to the local O365 Exchange server for your domain and email will go there and never look at your MX record. So yes, for internal email it is a problem.
Why are you not moving email right away? Why pay for and run two email systems? Once you've paid for O365, why not get full use of it?
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@scottalanmiller said:
No, only changing the MX records changes anything external. Otherwise people all over the world could disrupt your email by creating local email systems with your domain name in them.
I know.
But obviously anything you do inside O365 will be broken as that will all talk to the local O365 Exchange server for your domain and email will go there and never look at your MX record. So yes, for internal email it is a problem.
I know. My question is what problems will this cause. To answer that I should probably explain why I'm getting O365 licences now when I'm not planning on moving e-mail straight away. It is purely and simply because we need new Office 2013 desktop licences and rather than buy retail licences or open licences, it makes economic sense to buy O365 subscriptions. However, there will be other services that I'm likely to want to use - specifically Sharepoint/Onedrive
Why are you not moving email right away? Why pay for and run two email systems? Once you've paid for O365, why not get full use of it?
Because we will only be buying a handful of subscriptions initially.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Going through a non-reseller partner is still doing them a favour and the entire setup of the partner model is that you do them the favour of selecting them as the partner and they do you the favour of getting upgraded Microsoft services (if they are premier) and providing their own services. That you use a reseller as well or that you pay them instead of Microsoft doesn't change any of that. It is just that they mark up before they bill you instead of Microsoft paying them afterwards.
They get double the benefit - one benefit as a partner and one as a reseller. I think it's a win win for them and me. I can't see any disadvantages, other than the one I mentioned initially which is that there will be a delay to adding a new subscription as they have to process the open licence, which I understand can take 24 hours or so.
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@Carnival-Boy said
They get double the benefit - one benefit as a partner and one as a reseller
Not with an Open License. They Dont get any benefit from you adding them as the partner until you renew and pay directly through microsoft with them listed on your account. The fees are only paid to the partner if it's paid direct through microsoft.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
The fees are only paid to the partner if it's paid direct through microsoft.
Oh. Why is that? So I could put NTG as my partner, for example, but they wouldn't get paid, and thus wouldn't help me. Seems a dumb-ass way of working.
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@scottalanmiller said:
For partner, yes. But it sounds like he's not looking at partners, only volume licenses via resellers, which are different than partners.
Not exactly. Microsoft call them "reseller partners" as opposed to "advisor partners". So both are partners in Microsoft's eyes. And in most cases, a company will be both a reseller partner and an advisor partner, and it comes down to how individual clients wish to licence the software as to whether they engage them as a reseller or as an advisor. They can be a reseller partner and an advisor partner for the same client, although as @thecreativeone91 points out, they will only get paid once (when acting as a reseller partner).
As always, Microsoft licencing is giving me a cracking headache
Next question: under Open Licence, is it possible to upgrade from a Business Plan to an Enterprise Plan, in the same way that you can if you buy direct from MS?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
The fees are only paid to the partner if it's paid direct through microsoft.
Oh. Why is that? So I could put NTG as my partner, for example, but they wouldn't get paid, and thus wouldn't help me. Seems a dumb-ass way of working.
Only because you go through a reseller and the "partner" portion is stripped out. If you did the normal partner (adviser) method you can switch partners and the pay switches so that you can move between them.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Going through a non-reseller partner is still doing them a favour and the entire setup of the partner model is that you do them the favour of selecting them as the partner and they do you the favour of getting upgraded Microsoft services (if they are premier) and providing their own services. That you use a reseller as well or that you pay them instead of Microsoft doesn't change any of that. It is just that they mark up before they bill you instead of Microsoft paying them afterwards.
They get double the benefit - one benefit as a partner and one as a reseller. I think it's a win win for them and me. I can't see any disadvantages, other than the one I mentioned initially which is that there will be a delay to adding a new subscription as they have to process the open licence, which I understand can take 24 hours or so.
I doubt that they get paid twice. Disadvantage is lock in, with the normal method you can freely move to another partner and get the advantages of doing so.
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They don't get paid twice as @thecreativeone91 said earlier and I've since confirmed. Vendor lock in is a concern, though it is only for 12 months.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
They don't get paid twice as @thecreativeone91 said earlier and I've since confirmed. Vendor lock in is a concern, though it is only for 12 months.
Yup, and presumably you get a lower price to make up for the 12 month lock in.
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No. I think I should though.
Having slept on this I can no longer see any reason I would want to go down the Open Licence route. Mainly because of @thecreativeone91 letting me know that advisors don't get paid by Microsoft under it (thanks for that @thecreativeone91).
A small business may prefer Open Licence for no other reason than Microsoft will not invoice on account below a set monthly spend which I believe is around $500. So if you spend less than $500 a month you are forced to pay by credit card. But above that level I don't see a massive difference between receiving a Microsoft invoice versus a reseller invoice.
By using Open Licence you are adding an additional overhead as you have to manage your licences through the Volume Licensing Service Center - always a joy! Then you still have to additionally manage everything through the O365 portal. So you have two portals. I'm not clear on how flexible open licenses are either. One of the main benefits of O365 is it's flexibility and I wouldn't want to hamper that by introducing old skool licencing concepts like Open Licences.
My suspicion is that this is just a massive compromise Microsoft has agreed with it's distributors, who I presume have been severely out of pocket under O365, with no real thought as to how this might benefit end users.
For that reason, I'm out.
