Modernizing Businesses: IBM-Microsoft Transformation

The two leading global IT businesses, IBM and Microsoft, are collaborating.

While some people might view IBM and Microsoft as rivals, we are actually far better collaborators, combining the strengths of both organizations to increase impact and influence at scale. We provide both existing and potential clients the exceptional chance to benefit from the combined value of our technology, cloud, and consulting services as well as our ecosystem of partners to satisfy ever changing business needs.

Through the combination of our matched technology portfolios and advisory services, we have a track record of generating significant innovation and industry firsts. We have a sizable partner network of hybrid multicloud, AI, and security experts, as well as teams that are multicloud savvy and vertically intelligent.

Companies can choose one of the prestigious global systems integrator (GSI) partners from IBM and Microsoft, including IBM ConsultingTM. Businesses can streamline application modernization and accelerate cloud adoption with the help of IBM Consulting and Technology, Microsoft Cloud, and Azure Red Hat® OpenShift® (ARO), all while maintaining flexibility and security. Companies can eliminate silos and open closed systems as a result, which will boost operational effectiveness and promote true business transformation.

Offering cooperative solutions

It’s more than just a platform discussion for IBM and Microsoft. By expediting their hybrid cloud and AI journeys, businesses can attempt to increase costs, productivity, and resilience. Why? Because a hybrid cloud strategy typically yields a 2.5 times higher ROI than a public cloud strategy alone. Additionally, pioneers who invest in AI report a 3 to 15% increase in revenue and a 10 to 20% increase in sales ROI.

Through our dedicated IBM Consulting Microsoft business, we have invested in educating our consultants on the Microsoft Cloud, co-funded and co-developed important solutions with Microsoft, and expanded our pool of subject matter experts and skills through acquisitions like Neudesic. We are the leading Red Hat GSI with an expertise in ARO. This dedication has allowed us to win awards from Microsoft in 13 categories this year, including Microsoft’s U.S. Partner of the Year Winner for GSI Growth Champion.

We are closely collaborating on several modernization projects, such as the one lead for global oil and gas giant OMV Aktiengesellschaft to promote digital transformation, by leveraging our strong expertise in managing big SAP environments.

Many businesses continue to value on-premise technology highly: Mainframe-based applications are essential to business strategy, according to 71% of executives. This is why our technology teams collaborated to create important patterns that will speed up the modernization of mainframe applications, allowing businesses to take advantage of both IBM Z and Microsoft Cloud capabilities to expand quickly and where it makes the most sense to do so.

Through the combination of Microsoft Azure, which has just been certified for Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing, and IBM Maximo Application Suite, the industry-leading intelligent business asset management software, we are also collaborating to promote more resilient and sustainable operations. This dynamic pair has accelerated implementation, reduced costs, and ensured compliance while changing how clients like Sund & Baelt approach business outcomes.

IBM has been recognized as a Microsoft Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner for our noteworthy technological accomplishments. This distinction highlights the interoperability, particular features, market transactability, and proven track record of customer success of the partner solution. In addition to giving IBM improved Microsoft benefits to better serve our clients, it also helps clients find tested software solutions that are most suited for their business needs.

The Microsoft Azure Marketplace’s Strength

The way customers purchase software is being changed by digital markets. Digital marketplaces will displace traditional direct sales by $2 trillion, according to Forrester.

This is confirmed by the requests of our clients to deploy further IBM products on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. The Azure Marketplace is essential for the IBM and Microsoft relationship and our ecosystem partners, with 4 million active visitors per month from 140+ different countries, and is regarded as one of the most popular cloud service providers.

In order to achieve this, IBM has launched more than 35 software solutions on the Azure Marketplace, including the SaaS products listed below: IBM® Netezza® Performance Server, IBM Turbonomic Application Resource Management, IBM Aspera® on Cloud, and SingleStoreDB as a Service with IBM. In addition to the recently released IBM watsonx, we want to publish further offerings on the Marketplace. Watsonx gives companies the ability to use the strength of fundamental models and generative AI through an amazing SaaS experience, with a clear roadmap to be made available on Azure.[1] For our clients, new products translate into greater value, which helps them fulfill their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC). Additionally, Microsoft counts Marketplace purchases against our larger partner ecosystem’s Azure Consumption Revenue (ACR).

Going forward

Great alignment and a shared commitment to continued co-development, co-investments, and co-delivery for our shared clients are the foundation of the developing IBM and Microsoft cooperation. This entails growing our committed workforce and array of services, as well as our network of partners, which is essential to the expansion and success of our joint clients. We are enthusiastic for the major launches and announcements in the next year and are actively working with Microsoft engineering teams to investigate areas of synergies and complementary solutions in hybrid cloud and AI.