Microsoft partners participating in the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program as Indirect Resellers are benefiting from a buyer's market when it comes to choosing the bigger companies with which to partner.

Just a few years after Microsoft introduced the CSP program, the number of strategic partners supporting the CSP partner community is expanding rapidly in the United States with new Indirect Provider partners, including both distributors and more specialized providers.

If you think about the Microsoft CSP partners as a pyramid, the top of the pyramid are the Indirect Providers, originally called 2-Tier Distributors. These are the handful of distribution giants and other mega-partners who transact with Microsoft and then nurture their own communities of channel partners. Those channel partners, now known as Indirect Resellers (and previously called 2-Tier Resellers), sell directly to customers and get their Office 365 and other Microsoft subscriptions from the Indirect Providers. (A middle layer of the pyramid are the Direct Providers, formerly 1-Tier Partners, who buy subscriptions from Microsoft and resell them directly to customers without an intermediary.)

All the action in the CSP program on the indirect side is drawing more and more Indirect Providers into the business. In the fall of 2015, there were just five Indirect Providers servicing all the Indirect Resellers in the United States. That original group included Ingram Micro Inc., Tech Data Corp., Synnex Corp., AppRiver LLC and Intermedia. When RCP took a look at the momentum around the program in December ("Microsoft's Menu of Indirect CSP Partners Gets Bigger"), the list was up to 14 partners. (See below for the graphical list from that story). In the months since then, three more Indirect Providers have joined: Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Sage Global Services and SoftwareOne. Another, SBS Group, merged with Socius and changed its name to Velosio.

It's all a lot to keep track of. Helping partners make sense of all this new choice in the CSP program is this Indirect Provider Guide from RCP. Click on the Indirect Provider links below to view each company's answers on a questionnaire provided by RCP. They address key questions about the costs of the programs, what each program specializes in and other ways the Indirect Providers differentiate their offerings. Check back regularly for updates!

Note to U.S. Indirect Providers: Click here to contact us to add a profile or update your existing information.