Elly Yates-Roberts |
Ahead of Inspire 2019, Microsoft has announced a number of updates to Teams, Dynamics 365 and the Azure cloud – a move which Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner group, believes has resulted in an opportunity for partners that is stronger than ever.
Microsoft Teams will offer new features such as support for healthcare organisations, firstline workers, contact centres, compliance recording and cloud solution providers. Dynamics 365, meanwhile, now has iterations for the automotive and financial services industries. Microsoft also announced a new version of its Dynamics 365 Nonprofit Accelerator.
In addition to these updates, Microsoft has unveiled Azure Lighthouse. The solution gives partners a single control plane to view and manage Azure across all their customers, with the aim of providing a better Azure experience. There is also a new Azure Migration Program to help customers quickly migrate to Azure.
“The opportunities shared by Microsoft and our partners have never been stronger than they are today,” said Gavriella Schuster, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner group. “Customers and partners alike continue to move to the cloud and accelerate their digital transformation, leading us to new and different levels of partnership. Our portfolio of programmes, offers and resources for companies partnering with Microsoft is transforming to help them capitalise on this opportunity.”
In a bid to strengthen the partner opportunity further, Microsoft is building on its co-sell programme which has seen great success.
“To prepare for new opportunities today and into the future, we are making significant investments in many areas of our partner business,” said Schuster. “In the year to come, those investments will supercharge our programs and technologies to help partners grow their business, drive customer success, increase efficiency, and build on their areas of expertise and specialisation.”