Microsoft Guides Partners on Cloud Direction And Why To Get Oriented

Tuesday's keynote at the Microsoft Partner Conference was long on promised results; Scott Guthrie, Microsoft's EVP of cloud & enterprise, began the presentation under a huge banner reading simply "Journey to the Cloud."

"We're in the midst of a shift to generational computing," he said, then detailed the strength of the Microsoft Cloud, including:

• 34 unique Azure regions worldwide, more than Google or AWS combined
• The trusted cloud, with more certifications than any other DC leader
• The Azure stack offering enables the power of an Azure installation in a hybrid or private cloud configuration.
• 85 percent of the Fortune 500 is on the Microsoft cloud, including giants like Johnson Controls and Walmart

Guthrie went on to describe that Microsoft Cloud landscape, depicted below:

The new Dynamics 365 makes the cut, and as we know now, Dynamics 365 will cover what is now known as Dynamics AX, CRM, and Project Madeira. Dynamics NAV, GP, and SL aren't accounted for here, and the cloud viability of these solutions will vary over time.

The payoff is real, and partners are grabbing it

Partners may grumble - "The old competencies were good enough!" and "We still sell on-prem eight out of ten times!" But 2x revenue growth and 65 percent SaaS profit margins are enviable.

"There are now tens of thousands of partners offering managed services in the Microsoft Cloud, applications running on the Microsoft cloud and integrating their ...