Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft expanded their partnership that will help
customers of all sizes accelerate their cloud transformation initiatives.
For many companies, the cloud represents an opportunity to reduce IT costs,
increase flexibility and accelerate innovation. However, to fully take advantage
of cloud computing, it requires a high-performance network that can scale to
meet increasing technology demands. By combining Microsoft’s cloud and AI
capabilities with Telekom’s Cloud Migration Framework and telecommunications
services, the companies will enable customers to increase their productivity,
build more agile and resilient operations, and deliver new cloud offerings
faster.
“We have agreed on the framework for joint strategic growth with our long-term
partner Microsoft. We are delighted,” said Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Deutsche
Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems. “This partnership will enable
us to enhance services for our customers. We will also be supporting each other
with digitalization and network build-out.”
“The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent. We know that
the next decade of economic performance for every business, whether large or
small, will depend on the digital investments made today,” said Jean-Philippe
Courtois, executive vice president and president, Microsoft Global Sales,
Marketing and Operations. “Through this strategic partnership, which combines
the power of Deutsche Telekom’s network and Microsoft’s cloud, customers will
have more opportunities to become resilient, accelerate innovation and
ultimately drive success.”
Trusted cloud infrastructure to accelerate business innovation
The delivery of secure and powerful software applications requires a modern IT
infrastructure. To accelerate business innovation, Telekom plans to migrate the
majority of its internal IT workloads to the public cloud by 2025, and Azure is
a central part of that strategy. Through a companywide training program,
thousands of Telekom employees will learn how to maximize the benefits of Azure.
Moving mainframe workloads to the cloud is one of the targeted areas of the
partnership. Historically, mainframes were designed as scale-up servers to run
high-volume online transactions and batch processing. Using cloud-based
mainframes, businesses can deliver new services based on evolving customer
demands without retrofitting legacy hardware. This means companies can drive
scale, business continuity and energy efficiency while reducing operational and
hardware costs.
Telekom will also offer its customers direct access to the Microsoft cloud
through Azure ExpressRoute. By bypassing the public internet, customers will
have increased agility through faster connectivity to better address regional
compliance and data residency needs.
Enabling digital collaboration and streamlining business operations
To help people and businesses be more connected and productive from anywhere,
Telekom will offer Microsoft 365, including Microsoft Teams. As part of this,
the companies have started a project for German schools to reimagine traditional
approaches to education, enabling remote learning through cloud-based IT
infrastructure, modern devices and the cloud productivity and collaboration
applications within Microsoft 365.
To leverage the benefits of cloud computing for critical business processes,
such as enterprise resource planning and supply chain management, Telekom
supports its customers with moving their SAP environments to Azure. SAP
solutions on Azure offer enterprise-grade security, and business continuity and
reduce hardware expenses, making it easier for startups and smaller
organizations to get started.
Accelerating cloud initiatives: assessment, migration, service
Telekom’s
enterprise customer unit T-Systems has migrated and securely managed large-scale
applications and critical enterprise workloads. With Azure as a preferred cloud
platform for select solution areas, T-Systems is providing these capabilities to
companies across all industries so they can harness the global scale, security
and latest advances without needing to manage installation and maintenance. This
Cloud Migration Framework combines automated assessment, cloud migration and
services management to help accelerate customers’ cloud initiatives.
Small and medium-sized businesses will benefit from these offerings as they can
focus on their core competencies and don’t need to provide the resources and
knowledge usually required to implement a comprehensive cloud strategy.
Telekom and Microsoft will work closely together to continue to address
compliance needs and European regulatory requirements.
Deutsche Telekom and Microsoft expanded their partnership that will help
customers of all sizes accelerate their cloud transformation initiatives.