The Cloud OS Network – What it means for Microsoft’s Hosting Provider Partners

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By Marco Limena, vice president Hosting Service Providers, Microsoft Corporation

It’s an exciting time at Microsoft for our hosting service provider partners. Today, we announced the launch of Microsoft’s Cloud OS Network, a select group of more than 25 cloud service providers who have embraced our Cloud OS vision and are deploying hundreds of servers and thousands of virtual machines on the Microsoft Cloud Platform to provide hosted services to our mutual customers around the globe. This worldwide network supports our Cloud OS vision, and I couldn't be more thrilled about the opportunities ahead for our partners and mutual customers. 

With more hosting service provider partners than any other software company, Microsoft provides a consistent, enterprise-grade platform based on delivering more than 200 cloud services to billions of people. The Cloud OS Network is just the latest of many initiatives underway to help our hosting service provider partners continue to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive environment. By leveraging the Microsoft Cloud Platform, these partners can focus on building value-add services and taking them to market faster, while simultaneously meeting their customers’ hybrid computing needs. And our mutual customers will now be able to bridge their on-premise investments with cloud-based deployments, allowing them to innovate faster, deliver new services and capabilities, as well as improve employee productivity and lower costs.

For nearly a decade, Microsoft’s infrastructure and productivity solutions have been a winning combination for our hosting service providers. Today, cloud is at the center of opportunity for Microsoft and our partners, and I will be closely following the service providers participating in the Cloud OS Network so I can report back on what I’m sure will be a very successful endeavor. 

Members of the service provider community who are interested  in offering Microsoft Cloud Platform on-premises and/or hosted solutions for your customers, can take advantage of the same technology and platform through Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V, System Center 2012 R2 and Windows Azure Pack:

Additional information on today’s announcement can also be found by visiting this blog post by Takeshi Numoto, CVP, Microsoft Cloud & Enterprise Business.

The Cloud OS Network and our partnership with its members is just one testament to our continued commitment and focus on providing choice and flexibility to our hosting service provider partners and their customers. I’m looking forward to witnessing firsthand the success of those participating in the months to come.