Microsoft is to discontinue the Microsoft Action Pack and Microsoft Learning Pack on January 21, 2025, sending partners off to potentially pricier and cloudier options.
The Action Pack and Learning Pack, alongside Silver or Gold Membership, gave Microsoft partners access to many on-premises licenses for the company's software. The company's recommended replacements, Partner Success Core Benefits and Partner Success Expanded, abandon those benefits in favor of cloud services.
According to Microsoft, it is "evolving the partner benefits offerings to provide partners with the tools and support they need to continue to lead the way in the shifting tech landscape."
Or cutting back on some things in favor of others. After all, it would never do to have all that software running on-premises when Microsoft has a perfectly good cloud ready to take on partner workloads.
A Register reader affected by the change told us: "The first impact for us will be cost. We'll need to go from Action Pack (£390 + VAT) to Partner Success Core (£735 + VAT). Secondly, the benefits appear to have moved all online.
"That's not a problem for day-to-day operations but it will make it harder when trying to recreate a customer environment with legacy software."
Where the Action Pack is currently jammed full of legacy on-premises code, the Partner Success program is most definitely not, making recreating a customer environment potentially tricky, as our reader pointed out.
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Microsoft has tried tinkering with the Action Pack before. Just over five years ago it tried to remove Internal Use Rights (IURs) from the licenses it granted, which generated such discontent from its reseller network that the company was forced to climb down.
Time has moved on in the years since. Many companies have moved to the cloud, and for some partners, the Action Pack does not contain everything needed to surf the AI wave. However, for others, the direction of travel cloudward will sting.
The writing had been on the wall for the venerable Action Pack from the start of 2024 when Microsoft unveiled three new benefits packages: Partner Launch Benefits, Partner Success Core Benefits, and Partner Success Expanded Benefits. At the start of August, the company announced it would add items, including the "game-changing" Microsoft Copilot products, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and Microsoft GitHub, starting January 22, 2025.
Unfortunately, it's out with the old and in with the new as the Action Pack and its siblings face retirement on January 21, 2025, which is the last date when the benefits can be purchased. Renewal will only be possible if the anniversary date is on or before January 21, 2025. ®