A Blog Series for U.S. Partners by Jenni Flinders, Microsoft U.S. Vice President, Partner Strategy and Programs.

An increasing number of your customers are likely considering whether cloud solutions are right for their businesses. It’s quite natural that the more your customers learn about cloud computing, the more questions they have: Private or public? Will information be secure? Should our entire data center be in the cloud?

Bring on the questions! As a Microsoft partner you can guide customers toward the answers and respond with leading cloud consultation, products, and services. As I discussed in a recent post, this marketplace relevance is key to your growth during this time of exciting change.

I understand it is vital your business not simply “offer” cloud services, but maximize on their revenue potential. One high-potential avenue for pursuit is customers’ infrastructure needs, which are evolving in form, function and scale along with cloud adoption. A virtualized data center can set customers on a path leading to large scale benefits such as improved utilization, reduced floor space, and reduced power costs.

Microsoft and the Microsoft Partner Network are eager to support you in pursuing the virtualized data center as a profit center for your business. There are powerful reasons and resources to help you determine the value this opportunity holds for your business:

• Fixed Revenue. In reality, the on-site data center isn’t going anywhere, but that business isn’t going to generate sustainable annuitized revenue for you like a subscription-based cloud solution will. It is your ability to master and sell repeatable services that will increase your profitability.
• Industry-leading Technologies. Microsoft is unmatched in offering virtualization and data center management tools to help you make the sale. Microsoft System Center 2012, our cloud and datacenter management solution, provides a common toolset to manage virtual and private and public cloud applications and services. An integral Windows Server component, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V provides a foundational virtualization platform that enables customers to leverage cost savings while transitioning core virtualization scenarios – including dynamic data centers—to the cloud.
• Customer Success. The need for streamlined cloud delivery is pervasive and you may serve industries that have demonstrated great need and documented high ROI. For the financial services and medical industries, private cloud supplies the speed and security these businesses demand to ensure relevance and reputation. For example, the combined power of Hyper-V’s security features and System Center Virtual Machine Manager is trusted by financial firm HSBC, all in a secure IT environment.

I invite you to watch the video below, which features Catapult Systems, a Microsoft partner that is succeeding in cloud computing and infrastructure consultations and execution, for insights you can apply to your own business.

I urge you to think about the long-term strategic benefit when adding new service offerings. In capturing the data center opportunity, you can expand customer conversations to include overall virtualization requirements and solutions. I welcome you to share with me your thoughts on this area of opportunity through Twitter @Jenni_Flinders, and visit the Microsoft US partner portal for tools and resources to help you secure the infrastructure.

Resources

• Microsoft Cloud Solutions:     Information     Role-based Training
• Microsoft Private Cloud:     Information     Role-based Training
• Microsoft Virtualization:     Information     Role-based Training 

Sincerely,

Jenni Flinders
Microsoft Vice President, U.S. Partner Strategy and Programs

Read other Partnering with Precision posts on this blog.