Azure Updates: One Commercial Partner; Virtualized emergency communications; Analysis Services

As lockdowns and closures continued throughout much of the world to limit the spread of Covid-19, governments and industries began to consider ways to reopen economies—cautiously—and get people back to work. Meanwhile, Microsoft has continued its efforts to support customers struggling to operate remotely.

Microsoft partner RapidDeploy has taken the recent crisis as an opportunity to leverage Azure Government for Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforces in the US, according to a report by GovTech. Rather than risking exposure to the virus in communications centers, responders can work from their homes in the new virtualized model of emergency communications and scale based on their needs rather than wait for delayed maintenance service requests.

On April 13, Microsoft CVP for One Commercial Partner Gavriella Schuster addressed partner organizations in a blog post, referring to other recent updates on programs and resources. Due in-part to the shocks brought by the virus and other goals already in the pipeline, Microsoft is providing expanded learning opportunities, redesigning reward models and encouraging partners to differentiate with the Azure Expert MSP program. Additionally, partners will be able to onboard with the Partner Center, call on on-demand support, and refer to one another through the co-sell agreement.

Schuster highlighted the Teams Practice Development Playbook released on April 6 and the Adoption and Change Management Advanced Specialization for partners to showcase expertise in Yammer, Teams or SharePoint. She touted Wipro Limited's launch of a Microsoft Business Unit and turned her attention to some of the partners responding creatively to the Covid-19 crisis. Velrada and the Australian Red Cross are calling vulnerable Australians to check on their well being, while BlueYonder's Luminate Control Tower program aims to increase inventory visibility and Rescale is providing high-performance computing to groups developing test kits and vaccines for the virus.