Microsoft is expanding its relationships with space companies through the Azure Space Partner Community, an initiative unveiled July 19 at the Microsoft Inspire 2022 conference.

The Azure Space Partner Community enables Microsoft’s partners to deliver the most comprehensive and innovative offerings to joint customers, helping to shape the future of space technologies and services. The space industry is rapidly advancing and we believe in the power of bringing together this community in an ecosystem.

This ecosystem is enabled with opportunities such as co-engineering, go-to-market scaling and support, alongside many other benefits designed to empower our partners. We are excited to rapidly innovate and advance the industry with our inaugural cohort of partners, and we look forward to welcoming new partners in the days to come.

“By launching the Azure Space Partner Community, we can enable our partners to deliver the most comprehensive and innovative offerings to our joint customers, and help shape the future of space technologies and services,” Stephen Kitay, Microsoft Azure Space senior director, told SpaceNews. “This is an ecosystem of space partners with exclusive access to technical support and scaling solutions.”

Microsoft’s inaugural cohort of space-related partners are Airbus, Amergint, Ball Aerospace, blackshark.ai, Esri, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, iDirect, Intelsat, Kratos, KSAT, Loft Orbital, Nokia, Omnispace, Orbital Insight, SES, SkyWatch, SpaceX, Thales Alenia Space, US Electrodynamics, Viasat and Xplore.

Image Credit:  Microsoft

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“We look forward to welcoming new partners in the days to come,” Kitay said.

Microsoft has played a growing role in the space sector since announcing plans in 2020 to help customers move data directly from satellites into the Azure cloud for processing and storage.

“We’ve increasingly seen an opportunity for this community to benefit from Microsoft engineering and go-to-market resources,” Kitay said.

Azure Space Community partners will have access to Microsoft sales and engineering specialists, go-to-market scale and support, and guidance related to marketing and community involvement. In addition, Azure Space Partners will be eligible for incentives like Azure credits, sponsored accounts and volume discounts.

By establishing the Azure Space Community, Microsoft is “creating more of a structure” to clearly convey the benefits of membership and enable the tech giant to “efficiently onboard” new partners, Kitay said.

Through the Azure Space Partner Community (which falls under the broader Microsoft Partner Program), Microsoft also is acknowledging the growing importance of the space sector.

“It is absolutely representative of the value and importance that Microsoft is placing on this industry and our excitement about growing alongside these partners,” Kitay said. “Space is a big data domain, where massive amounts of data are either moving through space with connectivity solutions or being collected from space and transmitted to the Earth. The need to process that, understand it and then connect it with customers is vitally important.

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Program Details and Deliverables:

Image Credit:  Microsoft

Co-innovation and engineering:
The Azure Space Partner Community will have direct access to Microsoft engineering and specialist resources to turn our partnership vision into reality, including:

• Participation in Azure Space training to learn about and onboard the latest Azure Space technologies.
• Collaboration and innovation with our engineering and sales specialist teams for customer proof of concepts to demonstrate the value of our partnership.
• Access to quarterly Azure Space NDA roadmap reviews and newsletters, and ability to directly influence the produce roadmap.
• Partner highlighting in reference architectures and training materials.
• Priority access to early adopter and private preview programs.

Go-to-market scale and support:
Our Azure Space Partner Community will be able to increase their go-to-market opportunities by participating in the following opportunities:

• Microsoft first party product integration or add-ins, such as in Teams, Power BI, or productivity tools.
• White glove onboarding to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program, to become a cloud solution provider or managed solution provider via direct or indirect channels.
• Support onboarding to the Azure Marketplace as an indirect or transactable offer, with access to a broad set of Azure sellers and customers.
• Joint go-to-market coordination with a regular cadence of customer pipeline reviews.

Marketing and community involvement:
Azure Space provides a unique opportunity for our partners to expand their marketing through public outreach via our marketing channels, such as:

• Opportunities to be showcased in Microsoft customer presentations and sales training.
• Participation in space and spectrum focused Microsoft events – such as BUILD, Inspire or sales readiness.
• Joint public relations and marketing opportunities, such as press releases, blogs, and speaking events at conferences.

Product offering incentives:
The Space Partner Community will also have special access to our premier incentives offered for Azure Space product offerings:

• Azure credits, sponsored accounts, and volume discounts in return for Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment.
• Enterprise Agreement Programs, such as Licensed Service Providers (LSPs) and Azure Online Services Government (AOSG), with rebates based on resell criteria.
• FastTrack dedicated modernization and migration architecture support for qualified opportunities.
• Many other Microsoft Partner Network benefits, such as credits for gold competencies and partner marketing benefits via co-sell programs.

References:

https://www.microsoft.com/azure/partners/news/article/announcing-the-azure-space-partner-community

Microsoft reveals Azure Space Partner Community