Microsoft: We are winning the cloud race

Vendor celebrates big hike in VARs signed up to Cloud Essentials programme and claims rivals should be concerned

Microsoft has claimed that its competitors are "dwarfed" by the progress it is making in the cloud space as it announces that it has signed its 125,000th Cloud Essentials (CE) reseller.

The programme was in startup mode until last summer at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), at which point it had 35,000 partners signed up. Following WPC, CE was made more readily available through the Microsoft Partner Network and has now grown to total 125,000 global partners.

Microsoft's senior director of cloud partner strategy Josh Waldo said that the programme's momentum has surpassed his expectations and that rival cloud vendors should be concerned.

He said: "I'll admit, it has surpassed my expectations; I knew there was anecdotal and some statistical [evidence] which showed it was gaining momentum but I didn't expect it to explode like this.

"I feel like Microsoft is in a really good position. We are the largest channel out there and when you look at the competition in the cloud channel alone, we dwarf our competitors. We have a wave of 125,000 partners with an intent to sell [cloud offerings]; if I was the competition, I would definitely be concerned about that."

Baseline advisor fees on the Cloud Essentials programme stand at 16 per cent, and if VARs make three deals of 150 seats within 18 months, they get automatically upgraded to the Cloud Accelerate programme, in which incentive payments stand at 23 per cent following the introduction of a seven-point accelerator fee.