Microsoft Channel Chief Schuster On Why Multi-Cloud Partners Are 'Doubling Down' On Azure

Microsoft is attracting thousands of new partners into its partner network every month—many of them lured by the fast-growing Azure cloud platform—while solution providers that work with competitors such as Amazon Web Services are doing "more and more" with Azure, Microsoft Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster said in an interview with CRN.Partners who work in "some of the other ecosystems around us, with AWS or Google or Salesforce" are among those helping to fuel Azure's growth, Schuster told CRN."I don't know that those are the new partners because a lot of those already had Microsoft in their portfolio. It's just that now they're doubling down on our cloud services," Schuster said. When it comes to those partners, she said, "I do get the sense that more and more of their business is committed to the solutions in our portfolio.