Money, money, money! Are you claiming yours through the Big Easy offer?
In case you missed the news, the Big Easy Offer is back! Yes, The Big Easy Offer 8 is now in market, enabling your clients to receive a subsidy payout of up to 30% for additional purchases of Microsoft software licenses or associated services. For those of you that have been around awhile, you know that the Big Easy Offer is always one of the favorite offers for partners and customers alike. The beautiful thing about this offer is, your clients receive a subsidy check directly from Microsoft that is already made out to you, their Microsoft partner, for them to use with you! It’s sort of like free money from Microsoft that your clients can spend with you. (By the way, if you are located in Canada, you want to view this post instead: The Big Easy Offer extended in Canada through May 31st, so be sure to get your money!)
This subsidy reward can help your clients:
- Defray the costs of solution implementation, management, and scaling.
- Lower the upfront costs of upgrading to the latest software versions.
- Enable additional projects they are considering.
Plus, as the Microsoft partner that informs your clients of this offer, you become their hero even more because you are basically providing them with these additional funds to use (with you) that they would not have known about or received, just because you let them know about this exciting offer and got them to participate.
Here’s a quick overview of how The Big Easy Offer works, either for those of you not familiar with it or as a recap for those that are:
- Qualified organizations select eligible products
- They purchase the eligible products from a Microsoft Volume Licensing reseller during the Big Easy Offer promotion (March 5, 2012 - June 30, 2012)
- They redeem their purchase through the Big Easy Offer site within 30 days of purchase (including selecting their Microsoft partner of choice that the subsidy check should be made out to)
- The subsidy check, made out to the chosen Microsoft partner, is delivered to the qualified organization
- They spend the subsidy check with their chosen Microsoft partner within 90 days of issue date
It’s that simple! And another great thing about the Big Easy Offer is that the more product families that your client includes in their purchase, the higher the subsidy. The more advanced SKUs they include (Enterprise Edition, Professional Edition, etc.), the higher the subsidy. The more annuity SKUs they choose (with Software Assurance), the higher the subsidy. Start combining these factors and you can see how the subsidy amounts can really increase! Another fantastic part about the Big Easy Offer is, let’s say your client makes an eligible purchase today in the Big Easy Offer. Great! Now what if they make another purchase next month (during the Big Easy Offer promotional timeframe)? No problem. They get credit for their cumulative purchases during the promotion, so they don’t need to worry about waiting to make purchases to take advantage of the Big Easy Offer.
As you may have noticed, I mentioned “eligible products” above. I hyperlinked that to take you directly to the full schedule of eligible products so you can see all of them, but one thing I wanted to call out at a high level is, there are certain Volume Licensing programs that qualify for Big Easy Offer purchases. These are:
- Open License
- Open Business License (L Only)
- Open Local Government License (L Only)
- Open Value
- Open Value License and Software Assurance (L&SA) for Commercial and Government
- Open Value Subscription for Commercial and Government
- Microsoft Online Subscription Program (MOSP)
Looking at the list above, some of you probably noticed that purchase License and Software Assurance (L&SA) through the Open License program does not qualify. Before you ask if that is a typo or an oversight, the answer is, “No, it is not.” If you are looking at Software Assurance, Open Value is the program for you. Why? I’m glad you asked. If you haven’t read it before, I’d suggest taking a quick read through my Microsoft Open License Basics - Why you should stop selling or buying Software Assurance… post.
Here are some additional information and links about the Big Easy Offer that you should know:
- Eligible Licenses must be genuine licenses sold in the United States and intended for use in the United States and must be purchased from a partner that is an active member of the Microsoft Partner Network ("Authorized Selling Partners") in order to qualify for partner subsidy funds.
- Purchase Time Period: March 5, 2012 through June 30, 2012
- Registration Deadline: Before 5:00 p.m. PDT within thirty (30) days of purchase date.
- Big Easy Offer site
- Big Easy Offer subsidy estimate calculator
- Big Easy Offer Redemption page
- Big Easy Offer FAQs
- Big Easy Offer Ts & Cs
- See a real-life example of the impact the Big Easy Offer had for a client
Be sure to let your clients know about the Big Easy Offer going on right now and take advantage of the Big Easy Offer estimate calculator we have online to show them real examples of how much money they could be receiving from Microsoft to use with you by making their eligible purchases during the Big Easy Offer timeframe. Good luck and happy selling!
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Thank you and have a wonderful day,
Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Director, Worldwide Partner Experience
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
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