HPE & Microsoft cement 30+ year partnership with new go to market alliance
As their flagship partner conference Inspire gets underway in Washington, DC, Microsoft have announced the formation of a new go-to-market teaming with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
The alliance, an extension of the 30+ year partnership between the two companies, comes via Cloud28+, an open community launched by HPE to spur the adoption of modern cloud technology in enterprise environments. The two companies hope the alliance will offer new and versatile opportunities for their individual and often overlapping partner ecosystems.
Alyssa Fitzpatrick, GM for Worldwide Channel Sales at Microsoft believes the partnership is “all about choice and trust”.
By joining Cloud28+, we will help empower customers with market-leading hybrid IT offerings fueled by partners who know and serve them best. We see Cloud28+ as a real differentiator in terms of helping our customers and partners build their own ecosystems.
We recently caught up with Alyssa and HPE’s Carrie Francey to find out more about their shared strategy – watch the video above.
Azure Stack
Central to the alliance will be the joint Azure Stack ISV onboarding program. To help companies create new revenue streams and improve their market visibility, this program will connect software vendors to Microsoft and HPE service and solution providers. These providers, in return, will benefit from dedicated lead generation and other tools for increasing their sales of Azure Stack solutions. For customers, these efforts will create a broader and more open catalogue of options, letting organizations fine-tune their infrastructure to leverage the tools modern hybrid IT infrastructure can provide.
The partnership will help further Cloud28+’s primary mission of providing customers everywhere a seamless experience, both on-site and off, by developing a shared set of resources.
Build and Innovate Together
First launched in December of 2015, Cloud28+ was recently declared the world’s largest cloud aggregator by 451 Research. Today, Cloud28+ has more than 500 partners that have helped create a catalog of more than 18,000 build and consume services. Partners include service and solution providers, distributors, ISVs, and system integrators, along with public service and university organizations. This diverse network ensures a broad service catalog and gives customers a platform to build their own dedicated consortium of solution providers. In total, Cloud28+ partners support more than 300 data centers, located in every worldwide region.
#partnershipfirst first with @hpe and @microsoft through #cloud28+ @CLOUDXP10 pic.twitter.com/77R6q93ycP
— Andrea Shumaker (@AndreaGarcia31) July 10, 2017
One of the team behind the growth of Cloud28+ is HPE’s Xavier Poisson, VP, Indirect Digital Services. Over the past two years he’s seen Cloud28+ become “a transformation engine around shared values that boosts broader business opportunities for everyone involved.”
With IT at the core of every business today, Cloud28+, gives all members – whether customer or partners – the opportunity to quickly connect, share knowledge, and innovate together.
We recently caught up with Xavier and Microsoft’s Yonca Yalcin to hear about their joint go-to-market strategy for Azure Stack.
Benefits for partners include access to a worldwide community, which provides opportunities for creating effective alliances with other partners to help strengthen existing assets while forging ahead with new ideas. Also available is access to Cloud28+’s digital marketing engine, which provides an economical means of launching campaigns and tracking success. Members can publish articles, track results and launch campaigns tied to product offerings both regionally and globally.
IoT Tipping Point
The latest alliance between HPE and Microsoft comes at the tipping point for IoT, and their efforts aim to help customers leverage the flexibility and power provided by edge computing. Cloud28+ is home to HPE’s Connect IoT hub, which connects users to both established companies, including Deloitte, and the smaller technology partners leading innovation in the field. The variety of solutions available make Connect IoT a go-to marketplace for companies of all sizes, from startup to global scale.
“HPE and Microsoft are taking a step together to enable the channel in a new way and its ability to compete effectively in a digital, platform-driven world,” notes Crawford Del Prete, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Products and Chief Research Officer, IDC.
This is an important partnership for HPE and Microsoft. Combining the power of the HPE channel community through Cloud28+, with all the possibilities of Microsoft Azure Stack, makes for a strong partner value proposition and a compelling environment for customers to more easily engage.
In the spirit of openness, Cloud28+ is freely available, there is no cost for searching the platform or connecting with partners. Also provided is a portal through which customers can submit requests for proposals. Partners of both Microsoft ISV and HPE Partner Ready will have immediate member access to Cloud28+. Partners can join Cloud28+ for no fee as a company or individual, and there are no brokerage fees involved.
Learn more about Cloud28+ and join at www.cloud28plus.com.
