UPDATE 12/01/2018:
The AppSource team graciously responded to my request for clarification here. The reason behind the removal of Partner Listings on AppSource was the telemetry was shown that they were not being used, and also were causing some confusion between what the Partner Listing was versus the new Consulting Services more recently being rolled out. So bottom line is, Partner Listings are going, but Consulting Services are staying.
I must admit, sometimes I feel a bit dumb reading emails from Microsoft. 🙁
Hope I’m not alone in questioning my IQ trying to interpret what this means in real world terms.
Received an email today regarding Systems Integrator (SI) Partner listings on AppSource.
A nice “before and after’ explanation would have been welcomed! Email below:
3 Elements become 2
It’s been possible to list your apps on AppSource, a full Partner Profile, and also a Systems Integrator (SI) listing that showed you could assist with implementing an app (eg your own apps, and/or other third party apps you are accredited to install eg. ClickDimensions).
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From the sound of it, they are encouraging those without Partner Center marketing/business profiles to go and get one.
Partner Center is where we transact as a Tier 1 CSP Partner for licensing, billing, service maintenance and receive some leads etc.
This would make sense, as much of the Microsoft ecosystem seems to be getting pulled towards the CSP channel. Plus having multiple places for setting up Partner profiles has been one of the annoying things in the past (think Pinpoint, PartnerSource, everywhere else).
What’s interesting is that they mention listing a Consulting Service to maintain a presence on AppSource.
Currently Consulting Services listings are available for the USA, UK and Canada. Other regions are pending, including Australia.
More info Consulting Services here: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/partners
It’s not clear to me whether this means that they want to simply scrape/use the Partner Center marketing profiles and continue to display Partners in the same way, or whether this is a larger change/removal of some aspects of Partner referencing on the site.
I’ll reach out to the AppSource team for clarification and update the post when I learn more. (**Update provided at top of post!)
If AppSource is a topic you are keen on, don’t forget to join the AppSource Alliance LinkedIn Group:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13574044
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