Microsoft licensing
The authorization is not the differentiator
Every provider selling Microsoft licensing into this market is authorised to do it. What separates them is everything that happens after you sign — and none of it is printed on a badge.
What actually goes wrong after you sign
Not one of these is exotic. They are the ordinary texture of running Microsoft licensing, and not one of them is predicted by a partner badge.
- The seat that will not assign on someone's first morning. A new hire is sitting there, and the licence you thought you had spare is not.
- The renewal that rolled over at last year's count, including the eleven people who have since left. Nobody chose that. It simply happened on a date.
- The plan bought for one capability that turns out to need an add-on nobody mentioned — so the thing you upgraded for is still not switched on.
- The licence problem that is really a tenant problem. A user cannot reach something, licensing says the licence is fine, and whoever administers the tenant says it is a licensing issue. Both are half right, and the co-ordination is now your job.
That last one is the expensive one, and it is structural rather than anyone's fault. It happens whenever licensing and administration sit with different people, which is the normal arrangement.
What predicts all four is not who a provider buys from or what tier they reached. It is how the relationship is put together — and that is testable before you sign.
Five questions worth asking any licensing partner
Including us. Each one is answerable before you sign, and each one predicts something you will otherwise find out in month four.
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Who actually answers when something is wrong?
Licensing problems are rarely interesting and always urgent — a seat that will not assign the morning someone starts, a renewal that lapsed, a plan that turns out not to include the thing you bought it for.
Our answer: You get the people who already know your environment, on the same number you use for everything else. There is no separate licensing queue, because we are not big enough to have one — which on this particular question is the advantage.
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Is the person handling your licences the same one who runs your tenant?
This is the question that separates a reseller from a partner, and almost nobody asks it. When licensing sits with a sales desk and administration sits somewhere else, every problem that spans the two becomes your job to co-ordinate.
Our answer: Same team, and usually the same person. A licence question that turns out to be a Conditional Access problem does not get handed back to you as someone else's department.
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Will they ever tell you to buy less?
A partner paid on volume has no reason to. The tell is whether anything they have published argues against a purchase.
Our answer: Our GCC High page says outright that not every defense contractor needs it, and the comparison article says buying it defensively means paying more for fewer features permanently. Both cost us sales. They are still there.
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Can you see what you are being billed for?
Bundled billing is where licensing overspend hides. If the licence line is folded into a single managed-services number, nobody notices the twelve seats for people who left.
Our answer: Licensing is itemised, by plan and by count, and it stays legible whether or not we also run your IT. You should be able to check our work.
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What do their certifications actually certify?
Gold and Silver were retired years ago and still appear on partner websites. The current designations mean something specific, and so do individual certifications — but only if someone names which ones.
Our answer: Ours are named below, and they are individual certifications rather than a tier badge. If any provider will not tell you which specific designation they hold, that is your answer.
What our certifications actually are
Named, because naming them is the whole point. These are individual certifications held by the engineers who do the work, not a partner tier:
- Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: Cloud Platform and Infrastructure — Designing and running Azure infrastructure, rather than reselling it.
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty — The specific specialty for virtual desktop deployment and operation.
- Microsoft Specialist: Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions — Implementation rather than architecture on paper.
Worth knowing when you are comparing providers: Gold and Silver partner tiers no longer exist. Microsoft retired them and replaced them with named Solutions Partner designations. A site still advertising Gold status is telling you when it was last updated.
Where we are the wrong choice
A page like this is only worth reading if it can say something against itself, so:
- If you want a named account team of six people, that is not us. We are small on purpose, and the trade is that you get the engineers rather than an account layer in front of them.
- If you need GCC, Azure Government or Azure Government Secret licensing, we do not carry it and will point you elsewhere rather than take the order.
- If your existing agreement has time left on favourable terms, moving may cost more than it saves. We would rather say that and be the obvious call at renewal.
The relevant test for any provider is not whether they will say something like this. It is whether they said it before you asked.
Questions we get asked
Are you a Microsoft partner?
Yes, and on its own that tells you almost nothing — nearly every provider selling Microsoft services can say it. The useful questions are which specific certifications the engineers hold, who answers when something goes wrong, and whether that person can also fix the thing behind the licence. Those are answered on this page rather than left for you to ask.
If we leave, do we keep our tenant and our licences?
Yes. The tenant is yours, the data in it is yours, and licensing can be moved to another provider without migrating anything. We would rather earn the renewal than rely on it being awkward to go. It is a fair question to put to any provider, and the answer you want is a plain yes.
How quickly can seats be added or removed?
Adding is quick. Removing depends on the term you are on, and that is worth deciding deliberately rather than discovering: annual commitments are cheaper per seat and do not shrink mid-term, monthly ones cost more and flex. If your headcount moves about, paying slightly more for the ability to reduce is usually the better trade — and it is a decision most businesses have never actually been offered.
Do we have to move our IT to you to buy licensing?
No. Licensing and managed IT are separate decisions and either can happen without the other. We would rather hold your licensing well and earn the rest than bundle the two and make it hard to leave.
Can you take over licensing we bought somewhere else?
Usually, and the tenant stays where it is — this is a change of who bills you, not a migration. What matters is the terms and the timing of your existing agreement. If moving would cost you more than it saves, we will tell you to stay put.
What if we need a programme you do not carry?
We will say so. We carry Microsoft 365 Commercial and Microsoft 365 GCC High, and we do not carry GCC, Azure Government or Azure Government Secret. Discovering the gap after signing is the outcome worth avoiding, so we raise it before.
Ask us the five questions
Then ask whoever you are currently buying from. Twenty minutes, and the comparison is the useful part whichever way it goes.
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