Dynamics 365 - The Upsides to the new ISV Program

I recently wrote a post about the coming Revenue Sharing model for Microsoft Business Applications ISV's. As expected, there is some screaming going on about forking over some of your revenue to Microsoft. But there is another side of that story... what Microsoft will be doing in return.

Recap Starting soon Microsoft will be moving to a pay-to-play model for ISVs. The first reaction I am hearing from many ISVs are various "avoidance" schemes. Remember, this only applies to SaaS products. Since all of these SaaS products are hosted by Microsoft, and they have all the telemetry they want, you really will be challenged to find a way to avoid Revenue Sharing. It is not an "Optional" program. Though for the time being, you can still "side-load" your solutions, Microsoft will easily discover them. When they do, if you are not part of the program, according to Guggs, "If your solution is not on Appsource, we will tell customers not to use it --- we will get very "pointy" with this message over time". I can't think of any intelligent customer who would not heed this warning, so I suggest you drop your "avoidance" plans. Instead, focus on the promised benefits, and maximizing those.

Benefits Depending on where you fall, you have several "levels" of benefits across three buckets: Technical, Marketplace and Sales. I'll share the slide first, and then we can unpack these. Understand that these are subject to change, it is a lever Microsoft can use to increase engagement.



Starting Level Let's start at left most column, which is the minimum required "non-optional" option. When you publish a Bizapp solution to AppSource, and you commit to 10% as part of that process, this is what you will get, even without selling anything yet:

Architectural Consultation. This is a one-on-one consultation with Microsoft. Unfortunately, you don't get this benefit until after you have published, and it probably would have been handy to have beforehand, but I can also see how Microsoft does not want to waste time with tire-kickers either. Training Vouchers. It is not clear how many of these you get, but without a specific ISV Competency anymore, they don't seem like a related benefit, but... they're not worthless. Customer Surfaced Certification. Seems all solutions will have that by default, in order to even be published. Access to ISV Studio. Ok, now we are getting somewhere.. potentially. We are in the Pilot group to help MS figure out what this can/will be. MS mentions Insights and diagnostics, which are important, and we have been missing that, but I think there is more that can be done behind a name like "ISV Studio". Time will tell, but I would keep an eye on this one. The above are all listed as "Technical Benefits", and you may notice that they are the same across all levels. This is where I expect whatever they are planning to do around IUR will probably be differentiated. Today, the differentiations between levels are really around Marketing, (Sales does not kick in until later), so let's take a look at the minimum Marketing Benefits

Marketplace Listing Optimization. This is not "prioritization", it is "optimization", but it is important to understand how solutions are surfaced in AppSource so that your wonderful app is not sitting on page 26. This will include a quick consult with the MS Enablement Team, and will become more programmatic down the road. Think, built-in recommendations against what you have done, surfacing Best Practices suggestions. Marketplace Blog/Newsletter/Social. This should not be your entire "Marketing Program". It is a one-time "blast", but can be quite valuable if you time it right, and amplify it yourself through your own social channels. The $50K Club Once your app has generated $50K USD of revenue sharing fees, which is actually $500K of ISV revenue, you move up the the $50K Club. This is no small feat, if your solution sells for $10/Month/User, you would need to have sold 50,000 seats. Again the technical benefits, for the moment, are the same. But you do get additional Marketing Benefits, in addition the the entry level benefits, including:

Customer Story. This is a basic customer success story that you can create from Microsoft Templates, and submit for publication here. Again, you will want to amplify this with your social channels, but it is a nice "credibility" builder. Sales Enablement. This is a one-on-one workshop with one of the Microsoft vendors who specialize in helping partners build a sales engine. This goes beyond just AppSource and into your entire potential customers' lifecycle. It seems pretty extensive. P2P Consultation. If you are thinking about selling via other partners, this is a roughly 90 minute consultation on how to approach building a channel. Marketplace Category Promo. At the top of each category in AppSource is a rotating gallery of featured apps. Once you join the $50K Club you will be added to this rotation. I would not expect you...