Cloud service commerce platform provider AppDirect is empowering partners to leverage the new Microsoft (MSFT) Common REST (CREST) API.

AppDirect this week announced that Spark Digital and Hawaiian Telcom are now using AppDirect’s platform with the CREST API to package and bundle Microsoft Office 365 with other business applications, including Box and Mozy. The CREST API allows Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program partners “to create customers, manage customer profiles in the Microsoft Commerce Platform and purchase and manage orders and subscriptions of Microsoft offers for their customers,” according to Microsoft.

In addition, AppDirect has launched Dual Service Management, a feature that allows Microsoft’s existing syndication partners to work simultaneously as a CSP partner until they complete the transition from syndication to CSP. After the feature is enabled, AppDirect can transition syndication partners’ existing customers to CSPs via a batch or one-to-one transitions.

AppDirect also has added several developers and third-party services into its catalog, including:

Daniel Saks, AppDirect’s president, said his company will continue to invest in its Microsoft partner ecosystem as well.

“Microsoft has firmly established itself as a dominant cloud services developer and we see tremendous demand for its products from our partners and their customers,” he said in a prepared statement. “We’re continuing to invest in creating ways to help our partners distribute Microsoft’s cloud products and ultimately bring valuable cloud services to the world.”

What are your thoughts on AppDirect? Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments section below, via Twitter @dkobialka or email me at [email protected].