Microsoft CEO Kevin Turner said Wednesday that Microsoft is determined to “win every deal” against its top cloud competitors.
Turner urged partners to sell more cloud-based services at Microsoft’s 2015 Worldwide Partner Conference.
Turner stated that Microsoft’s cloud properties saw a 44% increase in partners who did business with them in fiscal 2015. This represents a 44% increase year-over-year. He said that Microsoft needs more partners to reach its stated goal of a $20 Billion run rate for its commercial cloud business by FY 2018, however.
“We need more partner capacity. Turner stated that there are not enough cloud partners to scale the company today. Microsoft has increased partner incentives that are cloud-focused in FY 2016, from 32 percent in FY 2015, to bring the number of cloud-focused partners up to 49 percent.
Turner spoke out about Azure’s growth in his keynote address. He said that it has “doubled the footprint of [Amazon Web Services]” and Google today. He said that there are currently 19 Azure compute areas, which is more than AWS or Google combined. The Azure Marketplace has also grown by 340% in the past six month.
Turner highlighted five advantages Azure has over AWS in a single slide. This makes it a lucrative proposition for both partners and customers.
[Click on the image to see a larger view.] “There are some very obvious things that we do that AWS does not do, starting with identity management. We also have the right level support. They don’t support hybrid cloud, as I said. We offer an integrated Platform as a service and Infrastructure as a service and are the market leader in compliance, privacy, security, and compliance. Turner stated that you must be able to do these five things if you want to compete against AWS. “We should win every deal against AWS. We have better technology and a cloud that is enterprise-ready. That’s the bottom line.
Turner also echoed the sentiment for Google Apps.
He said, “We have to win every deal against Google.” “We don’t snoop your e-mail. We don’t serve you ads. We don’t listen to your conversations and drive around in cars. We are not this company.
Turner stated that more than 1,200 Google Apps customers switched to Office 365 in FY 2014, before exhorting WPC attendees “rescuing” the stragglers.
This week, Microsoft’s annual WPC conference is taking place in Orlando, Fla. You can watch the videos of all keynote presentations, including Turner’s here. Redmond Channel Partner provides complete coverage.