What Role Does Integration Play in Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy?

As the IT environment expands from servers and the desktop to the cloud and mobile devices, data integration is essential to maintain competitive advantage and achieve success. Microsoft's cloud strategy aims to deliver "the best experience, the greatest choice, and the most opportunities" to customers, and integration has to be center stage for a truly "seamless user experience across all devices." Companies that effectively integrate their on-premise and cloud applications - and everything in between - have more efficient and streamlined business processes with real-time access to the information to effectively service their customers and partners.

A Quick Look at the Microsoft Technology Stack

Call it whatever you like - infrastructure, IT environment, or ecosystem - Microsoft's technology stack still dominates the IT landscape and continues to be as attractive to customers as it is challenging to competitors. An integrated stack is a great selling point: Windows, SQL, SharePoint, Dynamics, and Office are all Microsoft, all compatible. Great! But do they really integrate together right "out of the box?" As Dynamics customers well know, these products didn't all originate in house and they still need some glue (aka integration) to truly play well together. Now, add products from other vendors - Microsoft ISVs and/or non-Microsoft ISVs - into the mix, and integration becomes essential to realizing the full value of all of your application investments. Business productivity using Microsoft products continue to improve with continued process enhancements and advanced functionality focused on collaboration and visualization, but data integration remains a challenge.

The temptation for Microsoft customers and partners to "write a quick little integration" is high, especially when your IT department or consultants include expert software engineers. Buyer beware: coding integrations is not only inefficient, but also costly, time consuming, ...