Deutsche Telekom Group and Microsoft Corp. announced an expansion of 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. Deutsche Telekom Group and Microsoft

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 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 in 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, and 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.