Business-to-Business (B2B) commerce is experiencing a revolution driven largely by the mass adoption of cloud computing and the movement towards a simpler, more digital buying experiences. At the same time, cloud budgets are strong and mostly growing—IDC is predicting that cloud services will surpass USD1.7 trillion by 2026 while sustaining compound annual growth of almost 17 percent. But, with economic uncertainty, companies and organizations are challenged to “do more with less” and make the most of every dollar invested.

Cloud marketplaces offer you the ability to gain flexibility and control over your spending and make the most out of your cloud budget. This is why cloud marketplaces are expected to see a massive growth, from USD8 billion last year to USD50 billion by 2026² as predicted by Bessemer Venture Partners. To accelerate IT modernization and maximize the value of investments, we are innovating and improving Microsoft commercial marketplace to support your entire cloud portfolio.

The marketplace: Customized to your needs

There is often a misconception with cloud marketplaces that you lose touch with your vendors and are limited to “the sticker price.” We understand the complexities of enterprise deal making and the marketplace is a tool to help you simplify this process so you can focus on the innovation you need to deliver. While there is always the option to buy “off the shelf” solutions, we’re continuing to improve our custom dealmaking and private offer capabilities so you can spend smart and move fast.

With private offers, you can engage directly with partners, negotiate custom terms, pricing, and payment options, and get customized solutions delivered straight to your inbox. And with recent improvements in our marketplace, partners can create and deliver these private offers in less than 15 minutes—and eligible purchases can count towards your Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). We are the only cloud provider that by default applies the entire purchase* towards your commitment (and there are thousands). As more and more customers look to maximize the value of their investments, we’ve seen over 300 percent increase in customers with a MACC buying through marketplace.

Plus, the marketplace saves you the hassle of onboarding new vendors and streamlines the complexity of purchasing so it is all invoiced directly on your Azure bill. This enables you to simplify procurement and reduce legal complexity by purchasing applications under a standard contract. All solutions using the standard contract contain the same terms and conditions, so your legal team only needs to review once.  And, when you purchase solutions through marketplace, you are working with the most trusted cloud and our extensive set of best-in-breed capabilities across app innovation, data and AI, infrastructure, and security.

More and more of our customers—and sellers—are thinking marketplace first when getting their cloud solution. By being marketplace first, you can cut down on time to value and manage costs based on usage. Whether you are new to the Microsoft commercial marketplace or if you’ve already been using it to find solutions for your business, we are excited to help you along your journey. Taking advantage of the resources and tools will streamline the transaction process, maximize the value of your cloud spend, and you can buy with confidence knowing that these solutions are backed by Microsoft.

These enhancements are removing the frictions in B2B commerce, and simultaneously helping you to make the most of every cloud dollar spent. Here’s how you make the most of this opportunity:

Maximizing value with partner solutions that count towards consumption commitments

You can shop for Azure solutions that qualify towards your consumption commitment on the Azure portal. All you need to do is:

1. Log into Azure
2. Go to the marketplace tab
3. Select “Azure benefit eligible”

From there you can further refine search results based on your criteria. We have thousands of solutions available, so when you purchase these through marketplace—the amount you spend can count towards your cloud consumption commitment. Here are examples of a few providers with MACC-eligible solutions:

Fortinet offers a comprehensive security fabric platform to help industries accelerate security, maximize productivity, preserve user experience, and lower total cost of ownership.

Featured solution: Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall (VM)

Empowering users to unlock the value of their data with Informatica’s Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) solution on Azure.

Featured solution: Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud

MongoDB Atlas, the industry’s first unified developer data platform, allows you to accelerate and simplify how you build with data on Azure modern applications.

Featured solution: MongoDB Atlas 

Break through your bad data and get the insight you need to consolidate, clean up, and maintain your data with Profisee’s solutions.

Featured solution: Profisee MDM—SaaS 

Conquer your analytics challenges, from experimental to mission critical, with faster decisions in the cloud.

Featured solution: SAS® Viya® portfolio on SAS® Cloud

Get agentless scanning with complete visibility and actionable context for your multi-cloud environment in minutes so your teams can proactively identify, prioritize, remediate, and prevent risks.

Featured solution: WIZ Cloud Infrastructure Security Platform

More and more of our customers—and sellers—are thinking “marketplace first” when getting their cloud solutions. By managing your cloud portfolio through marketplace, you can cut down on time to value and manage costs based on usage.

Whether you are new to the Microsoft commercial marketplace or if you’ve already been using it to find solutions for your business, we are excited to help you along your journey. Take advantage of the resources and tools within the marketplace to increase your efficiency, buy with confidence, and spend smarter.

Learn more about Microsoft commercial marketplace

• Shop marketplace
• Learn about Azure consumption commitments 
• Get a private Azure marketplace

¹IDC, Worldwide Whole Cloud Forecast, 2022–2026: The Next Stage of the Shift to a Cloud-Centric Technology Industry; US49857122, December 2022.

²Bessemer Venture Partners, 2022 State of the Cloud report.