This is a follow up from our original post “Licensing CSP On Premise Products”

SPLA Man has gone mad! How can you sell Microsoft software without SPLA???!!! Sure, if you host the Microsoft software SPLA is still part of the equation, but if you want to sell outside of SPLA, here are a few ideas.

We’ve all heard of CSP, but most of us think of CSP as selling Office 365 or Azure. That’s true, but you can also sell CSP perpetually to your end users. I think this is a pretty big deal for both VAR partners and hosters.

Let’s say you have a customer who needs software for on premise. Maybe its a hospital or government agency who has strict policies against software as a service where they have to buy the licenses, not lease it. In the past, the only way a VAR or SPLA provider can offer their end customer Microsoft volume licensing is by partnering with an authorized reseller and they would be required to bill your end customer directly. Not their rule, but Microsoft. Fast forward to today, you can now buy CSP on premise perpetual software, add your own markup, and sell to your end customer. This is available through the CSP Indirect model which is ideal for partners.

The reason I feel this is important is because it gives you options. You can sell your customer almost the entire Microsoft catalog, offer different deployment options, and control your own margin. You can offer your customer SPLA, Microsoft cloud, on premise, or a combination of everything.

I know I wrote about this before, but I still get asked A LOT about reselling software outside of SPLA.

If you have questions on CSP and how this program can benefit you, please shoot us an email at info@splalicensing.com

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man