. “I was very interested in it,” said Aztec CEO Andrew Levi, who had been in conversations with Microsoft for a year. However, Levi said franchises need “a perpetual sea of prospects that are signing up” to stay viable while Microsoft is shrinking its channel. Levi said that Microsoft indicated the topic would be revisited at some point. Also reportedly interested was the consulting arm of CPA firm Crowe Horwath. Meanwhile, buying groups, which were supposedly verboten, are now in favor again. Microsoft had said that resellers that couldn't meet the new reseller program requirements couldn’t simply band together in buying groups to stay active. One company specifically mentioned in Microsoft meetings as a buying group was Partner Power International, whose American members must be even more elated while they are attending that operation’s annual conference this week in Amsterdam. Levi said group marketing and advertising, one of the classic services provided by franchisors, is something that Microsoft doesn’t do. “They are afraid to go out and tell the world they have a big ERP stack—that’s the biggest flaw in the Dynamics channel today,” Levi said. It doesn’t appear that any of the organizations are on the hook for major costs—there’s no indication they’ve gotten as far as forming separate companies for franchising or begun assembling franchising circulars.