IBM® and Microsoft—the two largest global IT companies—are working together.

While many may see IBM and Microsoft as competitors, we are much better partners bringing the best of both companies together to accelerate impact and influence at scale. We provide current and new clients the unique opportunity to take advantage of the combined value from our technology, cloud, and consulting services alongside our ecosystem of partners to meet ever-evolving business needs.

We have a proven track record of delivering meaningful innovation and industry firsts through the combination of our aligned technology portfolios and consulting services. We boast a robust partner network of hybrid multicloud, AI and security professionals and teams that are vertical smart and multicloud adept.

Companies can engage one of IBM and Microsoft’s distinguished roster of top worldwide global systems integrator (GSI) partners, such as IBM Consulting™. With IBM Consulting and technology, Microsoft Cloud, and Azure Red Hat® OpenShift® (ARO), companies can simplify application modernization and speed cloud adoption with flexibility and security. As a result, companies can break down silos and open closed systems to increase operational efficiency and drive real business transformation. 

Providing joint solutions

For IBM and Microsoft, it’s not just a platform discussion. It’s about providing joint solutions companies seek to improve costs, productivity and resilience by accelerating their hybrid cloud and AI journeys. Why? Because we know a hybrid cloud approach brings an average of 2.5 times higher ROI versus public cloud alone. And trailblazers investing in AI are seeing a revenue uplift of 3 to 15 percent and a sales ROI uplift of 10-20%.

Through our dedicated IBM Consulting Microsoft practice we have co-funded and co-developed key solutions with Microsoft and have invested in training our consultants on Microsoft Cloud while expanding our bench of experts and capabilities through acquisitions like Neudesic. We are the #1 Red Hat GSI specialized in ARO. This commitment has helped us become recognized in 13 categories for this year’s Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Awards, including Microsoft’s U.S. Partner of the Year Winner for GSI Growth Champion.

Leveraging our deep expertise in managing large SAP environments, we are working tightly together on numerous modernization projects like the one led for international oil and gas company OMV Aktiengesellschaft to drive digital transformation.

Many companies still see incredible value in their on-premise technology: 71% of executives say mainframe-based applications are central to their business strategy. This is why our technology teams co-developed key patterns to accelerate mainframe application modernization, enabling companies to leverage both IBM Z and Microsoft Cloud capabilities to quickly grow and extend where best to meet business needs.

We are also working together to drive more sustainable, resilient operations through IBM Maximo Application Suite the top-rated intelligent enterprise asset management software combined with Microsoft Azure, now certified for Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing. This power duo has helped transform how clients like Sund & Baelt approach business outcomes and drive accelerated deployment, minimized costs, and ensured compliance.

Through our notable technology efforts, IBM has been designated as an official Microsoft independent software vendor (ISV) partner. This designation distinguishes the partner solution’s interoperability, specific capabilities, commercial marketplace transactability, and demonstrated track record of customer success. This helps clients better identify proven software solutions that are best-suited for their business needs and provides IBM enhanced benefits from Microsoft to better deliver for our clients.

Power of the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Digital marketplaces are disrupting the way clients buy software. Forrester projects a shift of USD 2 trillion away from traditional direct sales to digital marketplaces.

We are seeing this with our clients who are asking to deploy more IBM software on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. With 4 million active visitors every month across 140+ geographies and ranked as one of the most favored cloud service providers, the Azure Marketplace is critical for the IBM and Microsoft partnership and our ecosystem partners.

To that end, IBM has deployed over 36 software offerings on the Azure Marketplace, including the following SaaS products on Azure: IBM® Netezza® Performance Server, IBM Turbonomic Application Resource Management, IBM Aspera® on Cloud and SingleStoreDB as a Service with IBM. We plan to deliver more offerings on the Marketplace, in addition to the recently launched IBM watsonx. With a strategic roadmap to be available on Azure, watsonx enables businesses to harness the power of foundational models and generative AI through an exceptional SaaS experience.^[1] More offerings mean more value for our clients, helping them use up their Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitments (MACC). And in support, Microsoft recognizes Marketplace purchases as Azure Consumption Revenue (ACR) for our wider partner ecosystem.

Looking ahead

Underlying the strength of the growing IBM and Microsoft partnership is great alignment and a shared commitment to ongoing co-development, co-investments, and co-delivery for our joint clients. This means expanding our dedicated team and portfolio of offerings, and extending and building our overall ecosystem of partners that are critical to our joint clients’ growth and success. We are actively working with Microsoft engineering teams to explore areas of integrations and complementary offerings in hybrid cloud and AI and are excited for the key launches and announcements in the year ahead.

^[1] This statement is based on IBM’s current product plans and strategy and may change at any time at IBM’s sole discretion based on market opportunities or other factors. It is not a commitment by IBM to future product or feature availability.