Every year, we bring together thousands of Microsoft partners from around the world to celebrate, connect, and learn about what’s coming in the next year. Just last week, I had the chance to join this year’s Microsoft Inspire with 13,000 of our partners in Las Vegas, and it was an amazing week full of energy and excitement.
I had the opportunity to share how we’re accelerating innovation with Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform in two featured sessions. Hayden Stafford joined me to talk about the business opportunity in FY20 for Business Applications, and Charles Lamanna and Arun Ulagaratchagan showed off the innovation and partner investments across the Power Platform. In both sessions, partners from Hitachi Solutions, VeriPark, WorkSpan, and EY joined me on stage to talk about the opportunities they’re seeing in the market. Check out the session recordings to see more.
We also shared a few major announcements with the partner community throughout the week that will deepen our partnership, align with how our business is growing, and help customers realize the potential of digital transformation. Take a look at a few highlights below.
Launching the new Microsoft Business Applications ISV Connect Program
ISVs that build on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and PowerApps can offer their customers innovative apps they couldn’t build elsewhere using connections to industry-leading cloud services on Azure and developer tools built just for them. After previewing elements of the program in the spring, we officially launched the Business Applications ISV Connect Program on July 15th. This program brings together platform and program benefits created specifically for ISVs to support their success. We’re laying a path for a stronger partnership with our ISVs through ongoing platform investments, development tooling enhancements, and go-to-market support for mutual success. Read Steven Guggenheimer’s blog for more information about the program’s requirements and benefits.
Expanding our Dynamics 365 Industry Accelerators
We know our partners want to go to market fast. Our industry accelerators help them do just that.
At Inspire, we introduced two new industry accelerators: the Dynamics 365 Automotive Accelerator and Dynamics 365 Banking Accelerator. We also announced significant updates to the Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator.
Each of these accelerators was developed in deep partnership with industry experts to provide pre-built dashboards, sample data, and workflows that align with common industry scenarios. Steven Guggenheimer’s blog has more on this update as well.
Updating our Dynamics 365 packaging model
In October, Microsoft will be moving from “one-size-fits-all” Microsoft Dynamics 365 licensing plans to focus on providing customers with the specific Dynamics 365 applications that meet the unique needs of their organization. Customers need software that aligns to their functional roles and scenarios, and they require the ability to add or remove applications as their company grows and changes over time. The new licensing model will allow customers to purchase the applications they need, when they need them. Each application is extensible and applications can be easily mixed and matched to configure integrated solutions that align to a customer’s unique business requirements.
To learn more about these new options for your customers, check out the Inspire sessions “Customer Engagement Licensing Updates” and “Unified Operations Licensing Updates.”
Introducing new licensing options for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow
Over the past few months, we’ve announced a set of continued investments in the Power Platform and vision for one connected platform that enables everyone, regardless of their skill set or background, to innovate.
In addition to the general availability of innovations like AI Builder and PowerApps Portals, we will be introducing new licensing options in October 2019 shaped by the feedback we’ve received from our customers and the community of makers and creators who have been with us on the Power Platform journey. At Inspire we previewed new licensing options for PowerApps and Microsoft Flow that:
Make it easier to get started with a single use case before rolling out the full platform for all users. Make licensing easier to understand by simplifying the complex feature-level differences between P1 and P2 plans. To learn more about these new options for your customers, check out the Inspire session Microsoft Power Platform business model and licensing updates or read the PowerApps community blog post with additional details. Customers realizing the potential of digital transformation
Throughout the event, we heard inspiring stories from customers and partners around the world.
One highlight came in Monday’s Corenote with Judson Althoff. We saw how Unilever is transforming its business with Microsoft technology, including Power BI and PowerApps. With connected data at the core, Unilever is able to increase productivity with more accessible insights and empower individuals to solve problems on their own, without a developer.
On Wednesday, Satya Nadella talked about Crane Worldwide Logistics, a Dynamics 365 customer who grew from a startup to a major player in the global logistics industry over the past 10 years. With Dynamics 365 for Sales and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Crane can seamlessly combine customer engagement data with data about customer and seller activities from Office 365, as well as from LinkedIn – even when these interactions take place outside their CRM. And with Dynamics 365 Sales Insights, sellers are able to focus on the right customers, thanks to AI-driven insights that flag existing accounts that need extra attention, as well as leads that offer the most potential.
