'This will be our best year ever' - Microsoft channel boss on FY19

Vendor talks up partner relationship at Inspire global conference

Microsoft and its partners are closer than they have ever been, and things are only going to get better, according to Gavriella Schuster, Corporate VP of the vendor's One Commercial Partner.

In a rousing keynote this week at the firm's Inspire global conference in Las Vegas, she urged partners to get behind the $4.5tn (£3.45tn) digital transformation market opportunity, predicted by analyst IDC.

"We have the highest attendance of partners at this conference," she said.

"It is three times more than the number of countries we had represented at our first ever Fusion conference back in 1997. The world has changed quite a bit since then.

"We have been through a lot together to get to this era of digital transformation, and the whole world has changed around us. The one thing that is consistent is the power of our partnership and the success that we have delivered together year after year.

"All that change has only brought us closer together. We are closer than ever before. We are going to learn, build and plan together. This is the week that gets us off to the fastest start to a fiscal year that we have ever had. We should have our best year together ever, this coming year."

Schuster said that while she could not share Microsoft's full-year financials (due on Thursday), she could share three quarters of the year's successes, with Office 365 enjoying 42 per cent growth, Dynamics 365 up 65 per cent, Azure up 93 per cent and Cloud Solution Provider up 234 per cent.

"This is tremendous success and we haven't even hit blue sky," she said. "IDC forecast last year that the total market for digital transformation is $4.5tn. Looking at Microsoft, Wall Street predicts we will hit $100bn of annual revenue [this fiscal year] - and for every $1 of Microsoft revenue that is $9.64 of partner revenue. That is nearly $1tn just this past fiscal year of Microsoft services. That is amazing.

"So with the predicted double-digit growth in cloud, I ask you all: 'What is going to be your next $1tn business?' That is why we are here, to identify the next opportunity. As we stand on the threshold of a new frontier, we need to lean on each other more than we have ever done before."