An Authorized Education Reseller (AER) is a program by Microsoft that sells, distributes and advises its proprietary software for educational purposes and academic settings. It is intended to empower partners within the program with information and guidance as to which software to purchase and how to implement it.
The Authorized Education Reseller program is a global effort to advance the use of Microsoft products for education and academia. Software resale and deployment for academic use is common across many different industries and brands, and Microsoft in particular (with its widely-used Office products and state-of-the-art operating systems) has long been heavily invested in this space. Every Authorized Education Reseller must renew their accreditation on a yearly basis in order for it to remain valid.