This is BIG news for Office 365 in Australia

Some sharp eyed contacts alerted me today to this post on the Official Australian Partner blog yesterday:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/auspartners/archive/2014/02/05/introducing-more-ways-for-partners-to-resell-office-365-amp-windows-intune-to-smbs.aspx
I knew that Office 365 via Open Licensing was coming but I didn’t know about this:
Microsoft Online Portal
In this scenario, Office 365 is purchased online via the Microsoft Online Portal. This option is subscription based, with the choice of monthly or annual billing. Microsoft resellers will be able to sell via this option by attaching a ‘Partner of Record’ to a customer account.
So, that seems to mean that you can now also buy Office 365 direct from a Microsoft via an online portal! Thus your purchasing options are now:
1. Open licensing
2. Telstra T-Suite portal
3. Microsoft Online Portal
4. Via Retail for Small Business Plans
Personally, this means that the upcoming changes to Office 365 (which will happen on April 2nd, which was announced in the same blog post) are going to have a much GREATER impact for customers and more so resellers I believe here in Australia. A much greater impact.
I’ll try and ferret out some more details and report back when I have some more facts.