Before Unified Support, companies could pay for what they needed in Premier Support and supplement with specialized support from their MSFT VAR or CSP. But with the all-or-nothing structure of Unified, that is no longer the case.
Since 2017, a new breed of Microsoft support provider emerged – specialists that focus on total replacement of Microsoft Unified Support. US Cloud is the #1 alternative for MSFT support in the market today and is the only vendor that is recognized by Gartner.
Over the last 5 years, US Cloud has proven that independent MSFT support is viable. Today US Cloud supports 4.2 million MSFT users at over 350 companies in 28 countries, many of which are complex, multi-national Fortune 500 enterprises. A typical US Cloud customer will save 30-50%.
Over the next five years US Cloud will save these clients an estimated $625 million vs. Unified Support.
There are more than 60,000 Microsoft partners, vendors, and service providers in the market. However, only a handful of these have been successful at taking on comprehensive break-fix and proactive support that covers the whole Microsoft stack. Again, Unified is an all-or-nothing proposition, so project-oriented or select technology-focused vendors can’t provide an effective replacement to Unified. Only specialists that are purpose-built to offer a complete alternative to Microsoft OEM support have been successful in creating a legitimate replacement service.
Independent third-party support is prevalent in the market, even if it is new for Microsoft product support. Whether its Rimini Street for Oracle, Spinnaker for SAP, or Origina for IBM, non-OEM product support is a viable option that should be part of your service evaluation process.
Gartner produces an annual report on third-party software support. The “Market Guide for Independent Third-Party Support for IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP Software” was published in August 2021.
A free copy of the report can be downloaded here: