Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience – what do you need to be mindful of in 2023
What is Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE)?
The Microsoft Licensing landscape has had a bit of a tumultuous year in 2022. The long-awaited “New Commerce Experience” (NCE) was introduced, the effects of which are still being felt on the way in which businesses purchase Microsoft 365 licences.
An important deadline you need to be aware of is your renewal date, where any remaining legacy subscriptions will automatically transition from the legacy program to NCE on this date. As well as the change in name and costs, there was also a significant change in process.
As before, you can choose to commit annually and pay upfront, where you know the number of licences you require. Alternatively, you can opt for a ‘pay monthly’ approach. For maximum flexibility, choose to set the number of licences you need on a monthly basis, and pay monthly – however since recently this does carry an increased cost. This is approximately 20%, though this was waived until Summer 2022 – so you may need to prepare for increases at renewal on top of the annual price list changes.
Under the new scheme, if you set the licence count on an annual basis, you cannot reduce the count during that period. You also cannot reduce the count mid-month. The good news is, you can mix and match the approach you use, both in the same licence and across the range of licences you purchase. We recommend setting a “baseline” quantity as the minimum you require; and then top up the rest on a monthly commitment basis at the higher cost. This way, you get the best of both worlds – flexibility to increase and decrease counts for the following month on a smaller quantity, while avoiding a high premium by doing this for the whole licence count.
We have also seen a significant growth both in terms of capabilities and also adoption of the “Business” line of licences. Business Standard and Business Premium offer an excellent value proposition, now including many of the tools previously reserved for the higher Enterprise class of licences – particularly in the security line. These do have a maximum count however; but if you are looking to adopt the Cloud – it is an excellent place to start.
New partnerships
The other thing that changed recently, was the transition of many resellers (including ourselves) to the Indirect scheme. Microsoft added new requirements to the Direct Reseller program, which effectively reduced the number of resellers in this space. Intelogy partnered with Pax8 – one of the largest Microsoft Partners and Resellers globally, who not only work with us to provide Microsoft Licensing services, but also provide us with escalation routes to support our clients.
This partnership with Pax8 has also increased the number of options open to us to partner with other software providers under their umbrella. As a result, we can provide a number of complimentary offerings either as part of our Managed Services and Support or direct. These include the Signature and Marketing management tool Exclaimer, cloud backup tools from SkyKick and migration utilities such as Sharegate.
Why choose Intelogy as your Licensing provider?
Intelogy is an official Microsoft Reseller with accredited Microsoft Technical Specialists and Licensing Specialists in the CSP Program for Partners, ready to support your needs. You can be secure in the knowledge that you are in safe hands.
We can arrange your licensing needs as part of Professional Services engagements, our Managed Services and Support or simply though our resales process. Though we do recommend our services as a “better together” approach, we understand that you may have an existing provider.
You can find out more about both our Licensing and Managed Services Offerings via the links below.
– Licensing Services
– Managed Services and Support
Next steps
Whether you are an existing customer, looking for a new provider or engaging as part of a Professional services project – we are here to support you. If you would like to find out more about our Licensing Services – our Managed Services and Support team would love to hear from you.
