WHAT'S HAPPENING

Linked Membership now available in VIP Marketplace

We are excited to announce that as of September 24, 2024, Linked Membership is now available in VIP Marketplace. Linked Membership is an optional feature of VIP Marketplace that allows affiliated organizations to aggregate purchases across linked VIP Marketplace agreements to achieve a higher discount level, while still purchasing and managing licenses separately. Linked Membership is designed for commercial affiliates, government agencies, and primary and secondary education institutions, as well as departments with separate budgets and license administration needs, with an aggregated license count of 10 or more.

VIP Marketplace enhancements

Linked Membership in VIP Marketplace is designed to be self-service without assistance required from Adobe. This allows Linked Memberships to be set up and administered quickly by resellers and customers.

1. The reseller initiates the Linked Membership, which generates an invitation for the Linked Membership admin to accept the Linked Membership Terms & Conditions from the Admin Console. 
2. For each potential affiliate:  
   • The Linked Membership admin generates an authorization code and provides the code to the VIP Marketplace member’s admin. 
   • The VIP Marketplace member’s admin enters the authorization code in the Admin Console to join the Linked Membership. 

Migration from VIP

VIP customers with Linked Membership can now migrate to VIP Marketplace and keep their Linked Membership intact, including their Linked Membership anniversary date.

• The Linked Membership admin must migrate first, before other affiliates can migrate. 
• After the admin is migrated, the remaining individual affiliates may migrate at any time; they do not need to migrate simultaneously. 
• All affiliates should migrate prior to the Linked Membership anniversary date to ensure that their contributions to the combined volume discount are reflected. 

Linked Membership and 3-year commit

While VIP Marketplace supports all key features of the VIP Buying Program, there are some technical differences in how these features are implemented in a marketplace environment. As a result, Linked Membership and the 3-year commit option are incompatible with one another and cannot be combined on the same membership in VIP Marketplace.

VIP customers with Linked Membership and 3-year commit will need to choose one or the other before they can migrate to VIP Marketplace. If you have a VIP customer with Linked Membership and 3-year commit, your Adobe channel account manager will contact you about how to proceed.

Resources

• Direct partners should refer to the API documentation for technical implementation details.
• Partners can find additional information in the VIP Marketplace sales and administration guide. 
• Customers can visit the Linked Membership HelpX page and supplemental terms on adobe.com for additional instructions.

Announcing a limited time offer on Adobe Express for teams

Adobe is offering the deepest discount ever on Adobe Express for teams. Value Incentive Plan (VIP) and VIP Marketplace Members can receive this offer at $34.92 MSRP/RRP per license per year in the first year, for licenses purchased during the limited time offer, with MSRP/RRP pricing of $49.92  for the next two years if the Member chooses to renew.* Additionally, add-on orders placed after the limited time offer will be at the $49.92 price point during the three years of set partner pricing. The customer’s third renewal, and any subsequent renewals, will be at the then-current partner pricing. Adobe sets the partner price and the MSRP; the customer’s reseller will set the customer price. 

Beginning September 17, 2024 in VIP and targeting September 26, 2024 for VIP Marketplace, this offer will be available worldwide (excluding China and restricted countries) and applies to new and existing Members in the commercial and government segments that do not currently have Adobe Express subscriptions. Customers with existing Adobe Express subscriptions do not qualify. 

Projected timeline 

• For VIP, SKUs are targeted to be published and go live by September 17, 2024. 
• For VIP Marketplace, SKUs are targeted to be published and go live by September 26, 2024. 
• Marketing assets will be made available to your teams through CBC on September 16, 2024. 
• CAM enablement is targeted for September 17, 2024 with Partner enablement to follow on September 19. 
• This limited time offer will be available through December 13, 2024. 

Price lists 
Beginning September 17, 2024, VIP SKUs will be available on a separate price list which can be obtained from your Adobe Channel Account Manager. For VIP Marketplace, September and October price lists will be republished in the Partner Portal, where VIP Marketplace Direct Partners normally obtain price lists. The first order date for the VIP Marketplace SKUs is September 26. 

FAQs 
Why is the first year a different price than the next two years? 
Customers on Adobe.com have access to a free 90-day trial, but trial capabilities are not available in VIP or VIP Marketplace. Therefore, to create fair opportunity for our partners, we have extended a special price for year 1 that is greater than the comparable value of the free trial available on Adobe.com. 

Do existing Express customers qualify? 
No, this limited-time offer is only available to customers who do not have existing Express subscriptions. 

Is this limited time offer compatible with 3-year commit? 
Customers with 3-year commit may add this offer if they do not already have Adobe Express. Likewise, customers may add this offer and later accept 3-year commit during the period that this offer is available. Any licenses purchased through this offer will apply towards the customer’s 3-year commit Minimum Commit and discount level; however, the limited-time-offer pricing will not extend beyond its initial period and is excluded from 3-year commit. 

Can customers cancel their existing Express licenses to take advantage of this new deal?
Mid-cycle cancellations are not available and the standard return window for VIP and VIP Marketplace applies.  

Can a new customer get the $49.92 pricing after the limited time offer has ended?  
A customer must purchase at least one Express license when the limited time offer is available to qualify for the offer.

Will there be an enablement session for this new offer? 
Yes, the channel product enablement team discussed the details of this offer during the September 19th session.  If you missed the session, you can download past decks/recordings here. 

*Specific pricing is always set between the Account Manager and the VIP Member. Reference the price lists for partner pricing.

Reminder on offers excluded from VIP/VIP MP leveling

As documented in the VIP and VIP Marketplace program guides, the following offers do not count toward obtaining VIP or VIP Marketplace discount levels or meeting a Member’s 3-year minimum number of licenses commitment. These offers include but are not limited to: Consumables (currently Adobe Sign Transactions, Adobe Sign add-ons, and Adobe Stock credit packs,) Adobe Acrobat Sign Solutions Subscription for Government, Adobe Acrobat Classic, AI Assistant for Acrobat, Adobe Express for Education, and Generative Credits Add-ons.

In the future, these excluded offers will be identifiable in the monthly partner price lists; however, until further notice, please reference the program guides. 

Reminder: Domain enforcement update

Effective September 5, 2024, system administrators can restrict organization-owned domains to prevent users from creating and using personal Adobe ID accounts. This limits personal data usage, enhances security, and allows asset-sharing only between organization users. End users may encounter messages at login related to changing their email address. Partners should refer customers to the information for system administrators and end users in the Help X documentation and FAQs. 

Reminder: Upcoming changes for the VIP and VIP Marketplace programs on December 2, 2024

VIP Marketplace is the next evolution of our customer and reseller experience—based on the Adobe Value Incentive Plan (VIP) Buying Program. In December 2023, we announced that Adobe will be retiring the Value Incentive Plan (VIP) Buying Program for the commercial market segment by January 31, 2025. This was followed by an additional announcement in June 2024 that provided incremental updates related to the sunset timelines for VIP in the commercial segment, as well as announcing the sunset timelines for the VIP program for the government and education market segments by November 30, 2025.

To support partners’ planning efforts, we are summarizing the key changes planned for December 2024.

The following components of the VIP Buying Program for the commercial segment will be discontinued on or before December 2, 2024. These changes apply worldwide, excluding China and restricted countries.

• Adobe will no longer support new VIP commercial contract creation. Partners will be expected to process any new commercial contract creation in VIP Marketplace. (Previously announced)
• New product launches/new offers (including promotions) will be discontinued in VIP and only made available for partners in VIP Marketplace. (Previously announced) 
• Adobe will no longer support Linked Membership enrollments for VIP commercial customers. Partners will be expected to migrate customers to VIP Marketplace and utilize the new Linked Membership capabilities on the marketplace platform. (New announcement) 
• Adobe Partner Connection (APC) financial incentives for partners for VIP commercial will end on November 29, 2024, which is the last day of Adobe’s fiscal year. (Previously announced) 

The following will apply to the VIP Marketplace Buying Program across the commercial, government, and education market segments:

• Adobe will be introducing a Returns Exception policy and process with corresponding RMA fee structure. (New announcement) 

Resources: Please reference these additional resources:

• The VIP Sunset FAQ provides additional information on impacts to your customers, where to go for support, next steps, and additional resources. 
• The Adobe Blog provides a customer-facing statement that you can share with your VIP members. 
• The VIP Marketplace sales and administration guide is a comprehensive resource for direct partners and distributor authorized resellers (DARs) to help position, sell, and administer customer licenses through VIP Marketplace. 
• The links to the VIP sunset partner enablement series provide recordings of previous partner enablement sessions. (Search for “VIP sunset”) 

We appreciate your continued partnership and support during this transition. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out to your Adobe Channel Account Manager or Adobe authorized distributor. We are here to help you navigate this change and ensure a successful transition to VIP Marketplace.

Reminder: ACIS, Channel Orders Portal, and VIP Calculator updated with multi-factor authentication

Effective September 5, 2024, the Adobe Customer Information Site (ACIS,) Channel Orders Portal, and the VIP Calculator have been updated with multi-factor authentication. When signing in, if you are presented with options to select a Personal or Company/School Account, you can continue to login using either a Personal or a Company/School Account as before. 

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