New Microsoft partner boss puts cloud top of his agenda

Interim boss of SMS&P, and replacement for Clare Barclay, sets out his plans

Microsoft's interim partner boss Chris Perkins, who is replacing Clare Barclay in the short term, has said cloud is the top of his agenda, and urged partners to take advantage of the investments Microsoft is offering in the space.

Perkins takes over as general manager for Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners from Clare Barclay, who is to become Microsoft UK's chief operating officer. Perkins is taking on the role on an interim basis until the summer when Microsoft's new financial year begins. He previously ran the firm's corporate accounts business.

On a Microsoft partner blog hosted by partner sales director Laura Bouchard, Perkins said cloud is top of his agenda.

"This is the time of year when we look at the business, how it has performed in the first half, how it looks for the second half and beyond," he said.

"And the core discussion around those things are how do we grow our cloud business across all of our cloud services. From a partner perspective, it is clear to me we will only hit those growth targets we are pursuing with the scale partners can bring. We've got to make sure partners are making the most of the investments which are available to them. When you look at it, there are investments in all sorts of ways - Cloud Hero training, proof-of-concept training, cloud workshop funding - all sorts of investments available to partners."

Cloud has been a priority for Microsoft for a number of years, and it has made several changes to its licensing programmes to reflect the move - better rewarding partners who have made the change to selling cloud services.

In its Q1 ending 30 September, Microsoft called out many of its cloud offerings for being star performers. Its Office commercial products and cloud services revenue grew five per cent annually, driven by Office 365, while its Dynamics products and cloud services revenue grew 11 per cent over the same period.