Microsoft has elected seven Cloud-based Solution Providers (CSP), who will 
be integrating the Office 365 with their own set of applications and offer the integrated offerings to the SMBs customers.
These partners are GlobalOutlook, ZNetLive, Trimax IT Infrastructure and Services Limited, Sify Technologies, Emkor, Opto Telelinks Limited and XcellHost Cloud Services.
The determination of the pricing of the cloud services will be managed by the CSPs, where Microsoft will help these partners in integrating their own in-house solutions with the cloud offerings. “As of now, CSPs are authorized to sell Office 365 to their customers, while other cloud offerings from Microsoft like Azure, CRM will be rolling out in a phased manner,” said Meetual Patel, General Manager, SMS&P, Microsoft India.
The CSP category is fairly a new program, which has been introduced in a few countries. Cloud Solution Providers are partners who build solutions leveraging Microsoft cloud for SMBs across the country on a pay-as-you-go model.
In addition to CSP, Microsoft has different set of 10,000 partners, who deal in both Microsoft based on-premise and cloud solutions to the various segment of customers.
The company wants to migrate 100 of its traditional partners to become the cloud solution providers at the earliest. Presently, Microsoft has 1000 cloud and on-premise partners in India.
The program also offer the benefits to CSPs to work with the existing Microsoft partners and leverage their customers for the integrated solutions.
Vikram Dham, CEO, Emkor, one of the Microsoft CSP, said, “We are already working with 5-7 Microsoft partners for selling our solutions to their set of SMBs customers. We will be further appointing more partners for our LiME cloud based business process management solutions for compelling with Office 365.”
The selected CSPs have been working with the Microsoft for many years and have been working in the areas of website, Global voice communication, video conferencing, business management, collaboration and desktop as a service.
This program enables SMBs to work with a CSP of their choice for various IT requirements. The CSP will own the complete customer life cycle, provide direct billing, offer combined and customized solutions, directly provision, as well as manage and support Microsoft cloud offerings for their customers.
The program will enhance value to SMBs and expand business opportunities for them and the CSPs. It will allow CSPs to own the complete customer relationship starting with understanding customer requirements, designing customized solutions and offers with Office 365, easy billing and support. SMBs will benefit from the subscription-based payment model that will ease their OpEx pressures.
Karan Bajwa, Managing Director, Microsoft India, said, “Cloud is no longer a trend, it’s a reality be it for enterprise and SMBs. Today, we have solutions across Public, Hybrid and Private cloud. Partners’ contribution towards cloud journey has been reckoning as we have seen the adoption in India is growing in triple digit percentage year-on-year. The new Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers will make SMBs more competitive with enterprise-grade technology and value-added services from Microsoft cloud.”
“As a Cloud Services Partner of Microsoft, we can now offer our clients the full suite of Office 365 products in addition to our comprehensive portfolio of domestic data services extended on a scalable, reliable network infrastructure. This will free our customers from multiple vendor billing and offer connectivity, productivity and support from a single provider,” said Debanjan Kumar, President – Applications Integration Services, Sify Technologies.
“This program by Microsoft has enabled us to provide a value bundle of unique human panoramic tele-presence perspective to O365 users. It works seamlessly with Microsoft Lync in an easy-to-use, affordable solution offering an immersive and interactive experience,” said Raghu Kumar, CEO, GlobalOutlookance Application Delivery & Security Services
