Microsoft CSP is acronym for Microsoft ‘Cloud Solution Provider’ program. Under this CSPs provide or (re)sell Microsoft licenses to customers. The licenses can be subscription licenses such as Office 365, Microsoft 365, Windows 10 /11, Enterprise Mobility Suite, Dynamics 365; perpetual licenses such as Windows Server, SQL Server, Windows Upgrade, Exchange Server and Azure based licenses such as Visual Studio, Azure Virtual Machines etc.
Prior CSP, Microsoft licenses was covered under ‘Volume Licensing’. Under this, the licenses were provisioned on the ‘Volume Licensing Services Centre (VLSC)’ portal. Now, all the licenses are provisioned on the ‘.onmicrosoft.com’ portal.
There are five offer categories and six different types of products as explained below. NCE is acronym for ‘New Commerce Experience’.
1. NCE Commercial: for business, commercial and government organisations
2. NCE Academic: for academic and educational institutions such as schools, colleges, private colleges including international student colleges, TAFE, Universities etc.
3. NCE Charity: for charity and non-profit organisations and this includes churches
4. Perpetual: for purchasing perpetual licenses such as Windows Server, SQL Server, Windows Upgrade. Most of these licenses were sold under the previously known ‘volume licensing’ program.
5. Azure: for Azure based products such as Azure Maps, Visual Studio and Azure Virtual machines
1. Office 365: For commercial and government clients, this category covers Office 365 E1, E3, E5, F3 and ‘without Teams’ variant of Office 365 E1, E3, E5, F3. For Academic customers, it is Office 365 A1, Office 365 A3 and Office 365 A5. There are variants for Faculty, Students and ‘Student use benefit’ licenses.
2. Dynamics 365: For commercial and government clients, this category covers Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP licenses including additional storage for Dynamics 365. Some of the key license types are Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 database / file capacity, Dynamics 365 Operations, Dynamics 365 e-commerce, Dynamics 365 Electronic Invoicing, Dynamics 365 Finance, Dynamics 365 Fraud, Dynamics 365 Human Resources, Dynamics 365 Power Pages, Dynamics 365 Project, Dynamics 365 Sales and Service, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain, Dynamics 365 Sustainability. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
3. Standalone services: These subscription services that are standalone in nature such as Entra IT, Exchange Online, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft VIVA, Power Apps, Power Automate, MS Project, SharePoint, Teams, Universal Print, Intune, Click Champ, Phone etc. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
4. Microsoft Windows: This offer includes both Windows 10 / 11 and Windows machines as service on the cloud. You have option for several machine types. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
5. Microsoft 365 (MS 365): Main product types in this offer MS 365 Apps, MS 365 Business Basic, MS 365 Business Standard, MS 365 Business Premium, MS 365 E3, MS 365 E5, MS 365 eDiscovery, MS 365 Insider Risk Management, MS 365 F1, MS 365 F3 and ‘no teams’ variants of MS 365 E3, MS 365 E5 and MS 365 F3. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
6. Microsoft Enterprise and Mobility: It has two products i.e. Enterprise Mobility + Security E3 and Enterprise Mobility + Security E5. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
The customers are billed in three ways i.e.
1. Yearly – Yearly: This agreement is for one year and the customers pays it yearly in advance. In this agreement, obligation of a customer is to pay for one year, irrespective whether it requires the license or not.
2. Yearly – Monthly: This agreement is for one year and the customers it monthly in advance. In this agreement, obligation of a customer is to pay for one year, irrespective whether it requires the license or not.
3. Monthly – Monthly: This agreement is for one month and the customers it monthly in advance. In this agreement, obligation of a customer is to pay for one month, irrespective whether it requires the license or not. Monthly license is 20% more expensive when compared for one year with the other two types.
There are two billing models i.e. ‘indirect’ and ‘direct’ but they relate to how a reseller procures the license. End customers are transparent to whether the reseller procures the licenses ‘indirect i.e. through a distributor’ or ‘direct i.e. direct from Microsoft’. The procurement model by resellers is a choice that they make. In both the cases, the customer pays to the reseller and the reseller pays to the distributor or Microsoft, as the case may be.
Yes. Many of the products offered under this category were in the old ‘Volume Licensing’ program. You can purchase Microsoft Access, Biztalk, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Office Professional and Office Standard, Project Standard, Project Professional, Project Server, SharePoint, Visio, Windows, Windows 10 IoT, Windows Server Standard and Datacenter, Windows Server CAL, Windows Server Remote Desktop Services (RDS) CAL, Visual Studio, SQL Server, Skype, etc. under this category. There are academic and non-profit variant of these products for academic and non-profit customers.
As your reseller, we are in a good position to search through various options and provide you with the most cost-effective solutions for your requirements. We assist you with compliance matters including in ‘audit’ by Microsoft. We explain you what a license does so that you purchase just the license you need. We do not provide you links to study. Instead, we do the groundwork and explain the licensing matters in a simple, easy to understand manner. We do not push you to purchase. We are friendly and you can reach out to us any time, without any obligation to buy and the fear, that we will keep calling you! After you purchase, we will help you get started and provide first line of support.
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