Daisy partners with Azure to 'reduce datacentre footprint'

Daisy announces plans to 'streamline its offering' following recent acquisitions

Daisy Group has announced a partnership with Microsoft Azure as part of plans to reshape its business and the services it offers to customers.

The move will see Daisy Group move to the Microsoft Azure platform and offer a hybrid solution to its customers with its own private cloud.

Daisy said the move will allow it to "streamline its offering, reduce its own datacentre footprint and stimulate innovation in its customer base", following a series of acquisitions.

"This is a win-win for Microsoft, Daisy and our customers," said Daisy CEO Neil Muller (pictured). "Unlocking the true power of digital is key for all businesses.

"Microsoft's Azure offering is the perfect platform upon which progressive businesses can develop, innovate and expand.

"I am delighted that we have been able to grow and intensify our hugely strategic and exciting partnership with Microsoft in this way. I look forward to seeing our collaboration unlock our customers' limitless potential, and to it delivering us both an exciting future working closely together."

Daisy has made a number of acquisitions over recent years, branching out of its traditional telecoms space into IT and cloud.

The partnership with Microsoft will see Daisy open up access to machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence to customers.

Cindy Rose, UK CEO at Microsoft, said: "In putting its trust in Microsoft, Daisy Group is not only transforming the services it offers but the very culture of the organisation.

"This is an important step for both the business and its customers and further demonstrates how Microsoft Azure can enable any business of any size to innovate and scale to any level."

Datacentre disposal

Daisy's new Azure approach continues a growing trend in the industry of service providers ditching their own datacentre capabilities to instead leverage services from the likes of Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

The trend has been accelerated in the UK by the arrival of datacentres from Microsoft, AWS, IBM and Google, allowing public cloud data to be stored in the UK for the first time.