IAMCP sets sights on rising ‘cloud’ horizons

Amidst increasing adoption of the cloud, The International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners India (IAMCP), West Chapter recently organized an introductory seminar at Pune on Tuesday, June 20th, 2016, pertaining to opportunities in Microsoft’s business. The association explained to its members various benefits and business opportunities with Microsoft and how its strategy of focusing on the cloud has paid off. The session placed emphasis on partnering & learning.

Since the IAMCP India West is the most active chapter and has a very active participation from partners in Mumbai region. The goal of the session was to replicate the success of Mumbai in Pune as well. Microsoft representatives provided in depth presentation on Microsoft’s Azure platform and explained its unique features. Furthermore, Microsoft’s evolving strategies in a changing technological landscape was also focused upon.

Suresh Ramani, President, IAMCP, said, “The purpose of the IAMCP as a platform is to help Microsoft achieve international market expansion. To facilitate this, us as channel partners of Microsoft must seek a greater degree of collaboration and find connections in new markets. The focus of IAMCP which has a presence in over 40 countries is to partner across geographies and competencies. To achieve this partner enablement in the cloud, mobile and productivity platforms is a must.”

The session on Azure highlighted that Microsoft had a a roadmap for various technologies. Azure is a hyperscale cloud, Microsoft’s the technology investments are done with the intent of being able to leverage and to reach out with those funds to a larger set of customers. It was stated that Microsoft’s focus was on the broader market expansion. Emphasis was also placed upon the fact that according to statistics, Microsoft is currently among the top two cloud solutions providers in the world.

The session that expounded that this was achieved since the company believes in providing solutions that make more sense to the customer. The cloud is perceived as a strategic lever for Microsoft’s customers, investment and direction on the cloud. At present, the company has a roadmap for a hybrid cloud which allows it to be on the cloud, on premise or actually be fragmented between the cloud and on premise. So on premise continues to remain an investment area for Microsoft. That is be it the on premise data centre for customers or even Azure.

Suketu Shah, Director, Genie InfoTech and a channel partner for Microsoft said, “I am a member of IAMCP for the past five to seven years but Pune was never a chapter so we dropped terms three years back and now that Pune chapter has come up so we will be a part of it again. Whatever business strategies we have we would like to partner with other players from India, from US and other regions. So we are doing some very unique business practices where we are migrating data to the cloud using Azure, So we can showcase these practices to our partners and together we can bring in more business to Microsoft. From a reseller to a CSP that is the journey that we have seen.”