Microsoft looks to plug skills gap with Azure training freebies

Vendor insists it is not treading on its learning partners' toes by offering online courses itself

Microsoft has unveiled a range of new Azure training courses for free, or a "deep discount", as it looks to plug the skills gap and better adjust to people's desires to learn online, rather than in classrooms.

The vendor's channel chief Gavriella Schuster took to her blog last night to announce the free Azure training courses, as well as opportunities for Azure certification at discounted levels. Six new courses are available today, another six will be available in the coming weeks, and more in the next few months, said Microsoft.

"These courses are designed to help partners respond to the surging demand, realise positive returns, and grow their market opportunity," she said. "Technology professionals can start with our Azure Fundamentals or those wishing to become multi-cloud specialists can check out our Azure for AWS Experts courses, or dive right into more specific courses such as Azure Storage or Azure Networks. It's also a great way to strengthen customer dialogue about what cloud technology can do for their business."

The IT skills gap has long been an issue in the UK channel, and Microsoft itself has said that it is one of the biggest challenges it and its partners face.

Glenn Woolaghan (pictured), Microsoft UK's partner business and development lead, told CRN that the new courses will help address this.

"One of the biggest challenges in the UK and the globe is the lack of skills," he said. "We're going through a period of rapid digital transformation and customers and partners are struggling to keep pace with the speed technology is changing. Releasing these open online courses is a great move by us to make it much more accessible to partners and customers as well. We're moving away from the instructor-led classroom training. It's much more accessible and suits a broader audience - and a different age of audience. We did a lot of analysis in terms of traditional training and [people of the] average age of the industry are used to going online and doing things at their own pace."

Kelvin Kirby, CEO of Microsoft partner Technology Associates, welcomed the initiative.

"Most partners will find this very useful," he said. "And certainly for us it's a very welcome set of resources that focuses on Azure and cloud services and that's where most partners need the training."

Microsoft already works with a number of so-called Learning Partners, who provide training on its technology. Woolaghan told CRN that the new Azure training has been discussed with them and said they will not feel left out.

"We've had a very good briefing call with the learning partners," he said. "The different individuals want to consume learning in different ways.

"Learning partners add their own value in addition to generic Azure training - much more down the route of a vertical focus. We're working very, very closely with them to add additional value to the baseline offering."