What is NCE?
Microsoft’s New Commerce Experience (NCE) is part of a transformational journey that’s changing the way we transact with Microsoft. This multi-phase program is aimed at helping businesses accelerate growth, simplify licensing and automate how you sell Microsoft services.
Phased Approach
Microsoft has taken a multi-stage approach to rolling out the New Commerce Experience, initially launching NCE for Microsoft Azure in 2019. NCE goes live for Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Windows 365, and Power Platform in March 2022.
Contracted Annual Subscriptions
With NCE, Microsoft is pivoting to annual (or committed) subscriptions by default. Excluding some mandatory Microsoft price increases, annual committed subscriptions may be sold at the same rate we sold them under the legacy CSP program.
Non-Contracted Monthly Subscriptions
Optional monthly (non-committed) subscriptions will now be available at a 28% premium over the annual subscription price, but offer flexibility to scale up/down and cancel.
Partnering with RapidScale
Today there are 4,000 Microsoft partners in the US. Of those partners, over 90% also transact on a monthly basis. RapidScale is part of an elite group that today is NCE-ready. We’ve been transacting on an annual (committed) basis for years. We’re ready and available to talk to partners today about NCE.
We recognize that NCE is complex, with a lot of options to weigh. Our cloud solutions consultants are here to help you make informed decisions for you, your business, and your customers’ businesses.
How We’re NCE-Ready:
- Developed into Microsoft’s APIs to automate price books against NCE
- Developed automation capabilities for migration/orchestration
- Customer portal for self-service, billing, support, KPIs and more
Navigating the Microsoft NCE Landscape with RapidScale
Frequently Asked
Questions
You currently purchase licensing for cloud-based products from RapidScale via a Microsoft program called “Cloud Solution Provider” (CSP). In March 2022, Microsoft will be changing its cloud-based product licensing to a new program called “New Commerce Experience” (NCE). This is part of a journey that Microsoft embarked on in 2019 with Azure, and effective March 2022 it will also include Microsoft 365, Office 365, Dynamics 365, and other Microsoft products.
The table below outlines the differences between the current CSP program and the new NCE program.
|
Program |
License Type |
Microsoft Commitment |
Price |
True Up |
True Down |
Upgrade |
Downgrade |
|
CSP (Today) |
N/A |
Monthly |
Base |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
NCE |
Annual |
Annual |
Same as Base |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
NCE |
Monthly |
Monthly |
Base + 28% |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
NCE officially goes live on March 10th, 2022. RapidScale will be converting customers to NCE prior to that date to ensure there is no interruption in Microsoft product availability, and to take advantage of the Price Protection features in NCE.
Yes, a customer can have both monthly and annual purchasing options for the same subscription.
Yes. Microsoft will be assessing an approximate premium of 28% on monthly licensing with NCE.
Microsoft is increasing pricing on six SKUs effective March 1, 2021. These price increases include Business Basic, Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5, and Microsoft 365 E3.
There are over 4,000 US-based CSP partners and over 12,000 globally. NCE requires that these partners leverage Microsoft’s rich APIs to securely transact licensing, orchestrate licensing assignment and activation, upgrade licensing, and enable reporting and billing features. RapidScale is among a group of elite managed service providers who today are NCE-ready and able to transact using NCE’s automation capabilities.
The primary benefit that you will realize with NCE is price protection. The NCE annual SKUs provide 12 months of price protection at your current subscription price. Microsoft is also expected to release 36-month NCE subscriptions shortly that will provide additional price protection.
Microsoft will also be including additional features with NCE subscriptions on an ongoing basis, such as including Audio Conferencing with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mailboxes. This gives you the ability to schedule Microsoft Teams meetings with a phone number for dial-in users. Other features are expected to be forthcoming as well.
Microsoft is mandating that new customers use New Commerce Experience subscriptions starting March 10, 2022. Existing customers will have until June 30, 2022 to renew subscriptions via NCE and realize price protection.
Yes. A customer’s subscription can be changed from a monthly term to an annual term within New Commerce Experience.
Yes. Customers can upgrade subscriptions to more expensive licenses at any time. These can be a full upgrade (all of your users) or select users (partial upgrade).
No. You will still receive the same RapidResponse Support and managed services for all your Microsoft subscriptions. Nothing is changing with the RapidScale support and service levels. NCE is simply a license subscription change. We will continue to provide email backup, user adoption training via Nulia, email migration, and other services. Service Level Agreements will not be changed at all as a part of NCE.
