Microsoft has insisted it has levelled the playing field for all resellers pushing its Service Provider Licensing Agreements (SPLA).

As revealed at the start of this week, Microsoft opened the SPLA programme to distribution heavyweights Ingram Micro and Westcoast in a bid to lure more resellers on board. Five large-account resellers - HP, Softcat, Bytes Software Services, Insight and Comparex - had held exclusive rights to shift SPLAs.

The wider reseller market was keen to unearth any potential pricing delta between the big five SPLA resellers and the distributors.

Clare Barclay, Microsoft SMB director told The Channel "all SPLA resellers will have the same contract with the same terms and conditions".

The SPLA resellers and distributors provide licences to hosting providers and software vendors rather than end customers, meaning there is no difference in the supply chain and therefore indeed the pricing.

Barclay said the SPLA hosting business is worth $100m (£64.3m) in the UK already.

"We believe the addition of distributors into the SPLA channel will drive new business and support VARs wanting to offer highly personalised cloud solons to their customers," she said.

In a prepared statement sent by Microsoft, Ingram Micro UK bigwig Matt Sanderson said he was delighted, nay ecstatic, to have this "important licensing methodology as part of our line card".

Ingram Micro also recently took control of Microsoft's Office 365 Open subscription billing model, he added.

Paul Harman, commercial manager at Westcoast was also "delighted" by the appointment, he said in a statement via Microsoft's PR department. ®