Ann: Suspension from Official Quotation, page-135

It's a little different than your mom and pop businesses using a credit card. There are many variables to it, but essentially they have to spend x amount with MS to get the "ISV" status, which is a bit of a marketing angle, to indicate that the company is using Microsoft products.. it is a positive for EM1 in the fact that it means there is a minimum SLA (service level agreement) on the uptime of the services, meaning minimal downtime / interruption for consumers.. but again, has nothing to do with Microsoft endorsing the business / application that is being used.