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Visual Studio subscriptions offered to partners in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program

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Partners who earn a competency or who purchase the Action Pack in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, formerly known as the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) are eligible to use Visual Studio subscriptions. These subscriptions are licensed per user, and are only valid when assigned to a specific named user who works for the partner company.

Solutions partners and partners with legacy competency offers

When a partner earns a competency--either at the silver or gold level--they earn a core number of Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions. This core benefit changes if the partner earns at least one gold competency. The Visual Studio Enterprise subscription is a custom offering that is roughly equivalent to the Visual Studio Enterprise Standard subscription, but with certain benefits removed. Many of these benefits are available separately to partners as general Microsoft Cloud Partner benefits rather than as part of the Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions.

Core Visual Studio benefit for earning at least one competency of any kind

Competencies earned only at silver level At least one competency earned at gold level
Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 10 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions

Additional Visual Studio benefit for select competencies

Competency Additional subscriptions earned for silver competency Additional subscriptions earned for gold competency
Application Development Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
Cloud Customer Relationship Management Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
Cloud Platform Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
Cloud Productivity Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions
DevOps Five Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions 25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions

Regardless of how many competencies a partner earns, the number of Visual Studio subscriptions is limited as follows:

Limits for Visual Studio subscriptions earned through competencies

Maximum benefit for partners with only silver competencies Maximum benefit for partners with at least one gold competency
25 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions per country/region; 75 worldwide 50 Visual Studio Enterprise subscriptions per country/region; 150 worldwide

Subscriptions for partners purchasing the Action Pack

Partners with a competency are eligible to purchase the Action Pack. Only one Action Pack can be purchased per partner.

With the Action Pack, the partner earns three Visual Studio Professional subscriptions for the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program. Visual Studio Professional for the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program is a custom offering without a commercially available equivalent in the market. Here's what's included:

  • Visual Studio Professional--latest version only
  • Windows Enterprise--latest version only, to use for development and testing only
  • Windows Server--latest version only, to use for development and testing only

Visual Studio Professional for the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program subscribers can also download and use software for their development, including the SQL Server Developer Edition.

The Visual Studio Professional for the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program subscription doesn't include:

  • Azure DevOps Services benefits
  • Azure DevTest individual credits
  • Technical support
  • Training
  • Other subscriber benefits included with some other Visual Studio subscriptions

Internal use-only restriction

Microsoft Cloud Partner Program rules stipulate that all software offered as a program benefit can only be used internally. This rule applies to the software offered for the individual Visual Studio subscribers' use, and the overall program software license benefits.

This internal use-only restriction essentially means that partners can't use the software as part of work that they do for parties outside their own organization. Building an app for use by partner employees only is fine, but building an app that is part of a client project isn't allowed.

Sign-in required with Visual Studio

With Visual Studio subscriptions offered via the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, the licensed user must sign in to Visual Studio using the same identity/login that was used to activate the Visual Studio subscription. Product keys aren't offered to unlock the product; signing in is the only option for running Visual Studio. The Visual Studio subscriber can operate offline for up to 30 days before Visual Studio stops working. When a user is online, Visual Studio silently refreshes the user's license status periodically to ensure the subscription is still valid.

Resources

See also

Next steps

Learn how to manage Visual Studio subscriptions offered through the Microsoft Partner Network.