The 10 Biggest Microsoft News Stories Of 2024

AI software, Copilot+ PCs and security incidents made the list.

From artificial intelligence applications to AI devices, 2024 was the year of AI and the year of Microsoft as the tech giant works to bring a new market to life for its customers and its partners.

Of course, major incidents around the security of the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant’s ware and changes to its partner program were also part of what kept the channel talking about Microsoft, steward to a partner ecosystem of about 400,000 members.

During Microsoft’s Ignite 2024 event in November, Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s chief partner officer and corporate vice president of Global Partner Solutions, said that for every $1 of Microsoft revenue, services partners earn $8.45, according to a recent study of the ecosystem.

“Partners that are engaged with AI report higher revenue and higher profit,” Dezen said during the event. “Eighty-one percent of the partners surveyed said that Microsoft AI is enabling their revenue growth. These are compelling numbers. And that, combined with the customer demand, leaves me so confident that our partners are poised to capitalize on this massive AI opportunity.”

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella also talked about the importance of solution providers in the vendor’s AI future during Ignite.

“I always say we are a platform-first and a partner-first company,” Nadella said during his partner keynote at Ignite 2024. “Those are the two things, when I think about Microsoft, what’s core to us, core to our DNA and our approach—it’s about building platforms that create partner opportunity, that add value to our customers. That’s it.”

Here are the biggest Microsoft news stories for partners in 2024, ranked from least important to most important.

No. 10: Professional Services On Marketplace

In what could be a policy that changes how solution providers use Microsoft’s online marketplace, in October the vendor revealed that partners can sell professional services–not just products–on its marketplace in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

Partners can sell professional services as standalone private offers in AppSource or Azure Marketplace. A transactable professional service on the marketplace can streamline the customer buying experience by merging the service onto the Azure invoice.

They can also attach services to a private offer with software if applicable–but partners can’t include services as part of a software-as-as-a-service (SaaS) or other software offer, according to Microsoft. More geographies will become available for the offer in the future.

During Microsoft’s Ignite 2024 event, Julie Sanford, the vendor's vice president of partner go-to-market (GTM), programs and operations, said that “our marketplace is the No. 1 way to reach all of Microsoft's customers.”

“Those are also the solutions that get picked up ... as a call to action through all of Microsoft's to-customer activity that we do,” Sanford said. “It's a huge, huge benefit based on the investment that you all make with us.”

No. 9: Microsoft Stops Partner Sales Of Some Bundled Teams SKUs

A new administration in the White House come January might mean less regulation in the tech space, but as this incident showed partners, governments abroad can still affect partners and customers in the U.S.

In April, Microsoft revealed that it would apply licensing changes enacted to quell European Commission anti-competition concerns globally, and with that partners would get blocked from selling net-new subscriptions of enterprise suites that include Microsoft’s Teams collaboration application.

Along with the end of Office 365 E1, O365 E3, O365 E5, Microsoft 365 E3 and M365 E5 suites with Teams, Microsoft introduced a stand-alone Teams offering called Microsoft Teams Enterprise.

In a blog post, the Redmond, Wash.-based vendor said it made the changes for countries outside the EEA and Switzerland because “globally consistent licensing reduces customer confusion and streamlines decision-making.”

On customers’ contract anniversary or renewal, they can continue to use their existing plan even if it is an enterprise suite bundled with Teams, according to Microsoft. They can renew, upgrade and add sets to their plans or switch to a new licensing type that does not include Teams.

On Microsoft’s most recent quarterly earnings call in October, Nadella touted the cross-selling and up-selling potential with Teams, noting that 75 percent of Teams enterprise customers buy Teams Premium, Teams Phone or Teams Rooms. In the July earnings call, Nadella said Teams Premium surpassed 3 million seats, up about fivefold year over year.

No. 8. U.S. Government Criticizes Microsoft Security Practices

In April, the U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) said the Microsoft cloud email breach that impacted multiple federal agencies in 2023 “was preventable and should never have occurred,” in a report.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security board said it determined that “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul”— an urgent issue “in light of the company’s centrality in the technology ecosystem and the level of trust customers place in the company to protect their data and operations.”

The Microsoft cloud email breach, first discovered in June 2023, saw the compromise of email accounts belonging to multiple U.S. government agencies. The attack is known to have impacted the emails of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other officials in the Commerce Department, as well as U.S. Rep. Don Bacon and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.

In May, Nadella sent a memo to employees that responded to a recent scathing federal report on the company’s security practices by urging staff to prioritize security over new feature releases when necessary.

“If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” Nadella wrote in the memo, as posted by The Verge.

“In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems,” he wrote in the memo. “This is key to advancing both our platform quality and capability such that we can protect the digital estates of our customers and build a safer world for all.”

No. 7: The Faulty CrowdStrike Update Saga

Although the fallout of a massive CrowdStrike-caused Windows outage in July will likely continue into 2025–with Delta Air Lines and the security vendor suing each other over who’s to blame for about 7,000 flights canceled over five days–Microsoft has sought to implement changes since a CrowdStrike update downed millions of Windows machines worldwide.

In November, Microsoft said it will work on a way to allow security products to avoid impacting the Windows kernel.

CrowdStrike’s access to the kernel—which is the core control center of Windows—has been pinpointed as a key factor that enabled the defective July 19 CrowdStrike Falcon update to send 8.5 million Windows devices into a “blue screen of death” state, leading to widespread societal disruptions.

As a result of the upcoming changes, security products can run in user mode like applications and Windows devices should recover more easily, according to Microsoft.

No. 6: New Fiscal Year, New Partner Incentives

July marked the start of Microsoft’s 2025 fiscal year, and the vendor revealed plans for more than $150 million in pre-sales and post-sales investments for its Azure Innovate offering, an incremental $90 million “to accelerate security growth” with partners and a tenfold increase to its Copilot partner investment.

Along with the $150 million for Azure Innovate, Microsoft said that it will increase by 50 percent this fiscal year its investments for the Azure Migrate and Modernize offering. More than 12,000 projects have been delivered through the two offerings.

Microsoft also revealed that it increased incentives for Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners in areas including Microsoft 365 E3, E5 and Business Premium packages. Under the new investments, CSP partners can earn up to $120,000 for M365 E3 workloads per customer, according to the vendor.

As for the $90 million in incremental security investments, Microsoft said that it will continue threat protection assessments and bring back data security assessments.

Microsoft plans to add and update more than 20 new product licenses for Microsoft Copilot, Defender for Endpoint, GitHub and more into multiple benefits packages.

No. 5: Microsoft Announces New Billing Premium

In November, Microsoft said it plans to introduce a 5 percent premium on various annual subscriptions where the customer wants to pay monthly instead of once a year, starting with some of the vendor’s Copilot artificial intelligence tool plans.

The tech giant will launch the premium on Dec. 1 for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot for Sales and Copilot for Service annual subscriptions bought through the vendor’s Buy Online, Cloud Solution Provider and Microsoft Customer Agreement for enterprise motions.

Starting April 1, Microsoft will raise by 5 percent the annual commitment monthly billing option for all new and renewing subscriptions, including popular offerings such as Microsoft 365 and Office 365, across Buy Online, CSP and MCA-E. Customers will have the ability to switch from monthly billing to annual billing at renewal date, according to the vendor.

A document for partners released by Microsoft highlighted the importance of “cash flow flexibility.”

Multiple solution providers spoke out against the premium. The clash between Microsoft and solution providers who don’t like the 5 percent premium might bring to mind the difference of opinion over Microsoft’s 20 percent premium on month-to-month subscriptions introduced during the rollout of its new commerce experience (NCE).

Microsoft has positioned the premiums as helpful to solution providers to mitigate risk with customers that are in danger of going out of business, getting acquired or having a layoff and thus possibly leaving the solution provider paying out the rest of the commitment.

Presenting a possible headache for partners with the billing premium coming April 1 is the timing of customers buying packages of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 without Teams to quell European Commission anti-competition concerns.

No. 4: Microsoft Budges On NCE License Transfers

In April, Microsoft confirmed that it is changing one of the most controversial parts of its already controversial New Commerce Experience program: The tech giant will allow partners in its Cloud Solution Provider program to transfer end customer NCE subscriptions from one partner to another midterm.

The change applies to direct bill and indirect providers, according to documents shared with CRN and confirmed by a Microsoft spokesperson. The NCE cancellation policy of seven days still applies after the transfer and the changes only apply to CSP license and seat-based subscriptions.

NCE garnered controversy when the Redmond, Wash.-based vendor began enforcing it in March 2022, putting a premium on month-to-month commitments of popular Microsoft offerings.

Microsoft partners have told CRN that some customers prefer to make annual commitments, which are 20 percent less expensive than month-to-month commitments. This, however, could leave partners paying out the remainder of the commitment should the customer go out of business, get acquired or no longer need the subscription.

The inability to transfer subscriptions from one partner to another meant that if a Microsoft MSP won a new customer from an old MSP it might have to work out a deal with the old MSP to take the customer, even forgoing months of revenue until the subscriptions end.

Other solution providers have spoken positively on the lack of transfers, fearing that the ability to easily transfer licenses will incentivize solution providers to compete on price in a race to the bottom.

No. 3: The Copilot+ PC ‘Recall’ Recall

The May unveiling of Copilot+ PCs became mired in controversy as industry watchers dug into the “Recall” search feature.

Microsoft has since made changes to Recall and its distribution, opening it up to Windows Insider Program (WIP) members for early looks. But the black eye on Microsoft could foreshadow future discrepancies between the AI products and services vendors want to produce and the AI products and services customers want.

During the vendor’s Ignite 2024 event in November, Microsoft said Recall will be disabled by default. IT will have to enable the feature through new policies before employees can opt in.

No. 2: Microsoft Copilot+ PC

Just ahead of Microsoft’s annual Build developer-focused conference in May, the vendor unveiled Copilot+ PCs, billed as “the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built.”

The PCs hit the market in June, bringing more AI processing to the device level as partners and their customers assess the value of new AI technologies and presenting a massive partner opportunity as Windows 10 end of support in October 2025 spurs customers into looking at buying new devices.

In October 2024, Microsoft started rollingout new features and previews for Windows 11 and Copilot+ AI PC users, including a way to interact with Copilot by voice, a preview of an AI capability that understands text and images on web pages and a PC experience in preview that gives quick action suggestions based on images and text on screen.

Bank of America in a November report said it expects PC average selling prices (ASPs) to potentially grow thanks in part to AI PCs, which sell at a premium of about 5 percent to 10 percent more than traditional PCs.

No. 1: Expanded Copilot Access In January

Although Copilot for Microsoft 365 became generally available (GA) for enterprises in November 2023, solution providers in the vendor’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program had to wait until January 2024 to sell Microsoft’s main AI assistant.

Although at the time multiple solution providers voiced frustration at the wait, Copilot has gone on to become a fixture of customer conversations for many Microsoft partners, with Microsoft’s investment in AI expanding to buying power from the notorious Three Mile Island and even introducing an AI-powered assistant in Partner Center.

Although rivals such as Salesforce have hit Microsoft’s Copilot model as inferior, Microsoft still appears to be leading this new technology era. Microsoft has even started evangelizing the AI agent model Salesforce has touted.

And for customers not yet ready to adopt the technology, their partners have told CRN about plenty of work around preparing customer data and customer processes for Copilot use in the future and for the upcoming flurry of AI PC purchasing.

On Microsoft’s most recent quarterly earnings call in October, CEO Nadella revealed that nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 500 uses Microsoft 365 Copilot and that its AI business should surpass an annual revenue run rate of $10 billion, making it “the fastest business in our history to reach this milestone.”

“Copilot is the UI for AI,” Nadella said. “And with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, agents, and now autonomous agents we have built an end-to-end system for AI business transformation.”