Microsoft Partners: Igniting a Fire for 2020 and Beyond

In November, Satya Nadella kicked off Microsoft Ignite with our powerful mission: “How do we empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more?” This vision reinforces that it only takes one organization, team, or person to drive meaningful innovation through technology, and to contribute to a better world in big and small ways.

Ignite sparked meaningful conversations about the future of Microsoft, our partner community, and what’s possible in 2020. With over 1,000 sessions showcasing the latest cloud technologies and innovative client development techniques, we demonstrated exciting new ways to fuel growth. We’re passionate about the significant opportunities ahead for your business, and we’re looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish together!

The latest technologies to empower innovation

Although there’s been no shortage of post-Ignite announcements, I want to emphasize several key meaningful technologies for our partner community. Featured below are the innovative tools and solutions to “fire up” your business growth:

• Azure Arc simplifies complex and distributed environments across on-premises, edge and multicloud, enables deployment of Azure services anywhere, and extends Azure management to any infrastructure.
• Azure Synapse is a “limitless” service that combines big-data analytics and data warehousing for a unified data management experience at scale, resulting in powerful insights into business applications, including Dynamics 365.
• Endpoint Manager is essential for business, especially in our world of BYOD, to effectively manage and secure every device. To that end, we are combining our System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) and Intune services to secure any PC, laptop, phone or tablet under one Endpoint Manager.
• Power Virtual Agents allow users to build and maintain AI-driven chatbots to engage with their customers more directly. We know low-code is the way of the future, and this technology allows the creation and maintenance of intelligent chatbots without having to code.
• Project Cortex is a knowledge network for businesses, which uses advanced AI and machine learning to deliver insights and expertise in the apps we use every day, like Office, Outlook, and Teams. It’s designed to empower people and teams to learn, upskill, and innovate faster.
• Microsoft Teams will provide new features, including Outlook integration, private channels, multi-window views, and much more to further enable collaboration and communication.

How Microsoft Partners can fan the flame in 2020

We have always communicated how Microsoft is a partner-led company, and as we look ahead, this could not be truer. With that in mind, I encourage you to continue fanning the flame of innovation with us in the new year:

• Supercharge your business by co-selling with Microsoft – Partner with us to sell your solutions and accelerate your business growth. Become co-sell ready with our go-to-market services and other programs that will help you market, generate leads, and expand your business.
• Streamline your migration process with Azure Migrate – We have several assessment and migration tools ready to assist your Azure migration efforts, and our Azure Migration hub is designed to simplify your server migration so you can focus on what matters.
• Take advantage of our Partner Enablement – At Microsoft, we believe one of the keys to delivering transformative services is enablement, which is why we have developed an end-to-end partner enablement framework that will assess your organization's cloud capability or hone your team's technical skills.
• Become a trusted Azure advisor – Our customers rely on trusted partners with industry-specific skills and experiences to provide assistance and accelerate their digital transformation. Our Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program will enable you to acquire more customers and drive higher profitability with access to Azure services like Azure Lighthouse and more.

What’s next?

I can’t wait to see everything you will achieve in 2020 and beyond! For those of you who missed Microsoft Ignite in person, you can find the keynotes and sessions here, and be sure to stay up to date on the latest partner news by following the Microsoft Partner Network blog.

Until next time,

Alyssa Fitzpatrick