Summary: Microsoft and Telefónica expanded their global strategic partnership with three focus areas.
First up: Microsoft will open a data centre in Spain – the region tentatively named Spain Central – from which it will deliver Azure, 365, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform services. No word on timing, but the data centre(s) will presumably be with Telefónica although that was not specified. Joint customers will be able to use the data centre and Telefónica infrastructure to deliver new services around 5G and edge that need low latency, security and assured bandwidth.
Secondly: The two will develop joint go-to-market plans for other countries in which Telefónica operates – again no details, but it seems likely this refers to Telefónica’s operations in Latin America rather than its mobile-only operations in Germany and the UK.
Finally: Telefónica has named Azure as its strategic cloud partner for internal operations. The company has already deployed Office 365 to employees across 14 countries and will now accelerate its use of Azure.
Angle: The move comes a year after the two companies struck a partnership to combine Telefónica’s networks with the Microsoft Azure AI platform to design new services for carriers and their customers, including Azure Cognitive Services for customer engagement and business processes. It is similar in scope to agreements Microsoft has forged over the last year with the likes of AT&T and Jio. Spain continues to see hyperscale clouds land infrastructure in the country, mostly in Madrid.
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