In their recent post (https://partner.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/article/accelerating-growth-through-partners-in-the-era-of-ai) Microsoft said:

“Beginning January 1, 2025, a small percentage of cloud Enterprise Agreements (EA) in direct markets will no longer be eligible for renewal under the existing EA framework”

A “Cloud EA” isn’t a defined term but seems to be an EA that contains only Online Services and Azure (so no on-premises licenses for example) and also has no special amendments, pricing discounts etc. If that sounds like your agreement, you may be on this list…so what does that mean?

“For enterprise customers, the Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise (MCA-E, the digital evolution of the traditional EA), will provide the optimal, streamlined solution.”

This is purchased direct from Microsoft but is, in many ways, a “bigger” version of CSP rather than a slightly different EA. There are no price bands, no Software Assurance, no From SA SKUs to renew, no discounts, no amendments etc.

I also find “evolution” an interesting word choice. That implies a continuation whereas, given the differences, I’d probably us the word “replacement”…

Microsoft will begin notifying impacted customers in Jan 2025 that they cannot renew into the EA so still a couple of months until organisations will find out if they need to start making preparations for potentially significant changes.

The post also says:

“Partners will continue to earn incentives when transacting EA renewals”

So not all EAs are disappearing…despite what you may have heard elsewhere. However, this marks yet another shift and yet another step towards more licensing business going direct to Microsoft and the eventual shrinking of the EA customer base. This is something that Microsoft have been working towards for some time, and will continue to, so be sure there will be more changes further down the line too.

It is interesting that this announcement was made just ahead of Microsoft’s Ignite conference…which now incorporates partner-focused Inspire conference…and the final section of the Microsoft post is titled “Microsoft is a partner-led company”…

To get more information and to understand how these changes may impact you, get in touch with me on [email protected] and/or check out our contract review service here.