Executive Focus: Understanding Microsoft’s Multiple Clouds

• Executives with signature authority should have confidence they understand which Microsoft clouds they are purchasing.
• Microsoft markets over 10 clouds, although most are repackaged versions of two core clouds.
• The clouds are designed for different purposes and customers, and they require separate purchasing, deployment, and management resources.

Microsoft, like many of its competitors, markets multiple clouds, each designed to meet different technical and business requirements and targeted for different customers. However, Microsoft’s clouds are tightly integrated, sharing security and other back-end components, which means executives should not expect their organizations to work with only one Microsoft cloud. The clouds can be purchased under a single contract to help with negotiations; however, they should be viewed separately as they have different deployment techniques, different administration and support personnel, and different purchasing and licensing models. Executives should expect to see separate deployment plans and budgets for each cloud and not expect much consolidation of IT staff simply because it is the same cloud vendor.