One is not enough: How Edifixio adds Azure to meet demand and provide customer choice

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Choices in the Cloud

Why does a leading Amazon Web Services technology partner add an Azure practice to its business? In the case of Edifixio, the motivation was to transform itself into a cloud services broker capable of giving customers the freedom to choose their cloud platform. The company expects Azure to become a major contributor to its cloud business.

Edifixio is very selective about the companies with which it goes into partnership. So, when the Paris-based provider of digital solutions for the “extended enterprise” decided to head into the cloud, it chose Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.

“We did look at Microsoft Azure,” says Edifixio’s Frédéri Mandin. “But in 2010, Azure had just come out and Amazon was years ahead in capabilities. When we commit to a partnership, it’s real, not a logo on our website. We invest in a dedicated team to work with our partner, to build services, to establish a relationship.”

But two years ago, Edifixio entered into a partnership with Microsoft over Azure and added the Microsoft cloud service to its offerings. It made the investment—in new hires, in training, in certification, in relationship-building—to create a dedicated Azure team.

What happened?

“Our customers wanted Azure”

“One thing that changed was that our customers wanted Azure and we didn’t want to turn away good business,” says Mandin, the Azure Practice Manager at Edifixio.

“A big part of being responsive to our customers is giving them the freedom to choose the solution that best meets their needs,” says Mandin. “The services coverage that Microsoft delivers, across SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, ensures that we can find such a solution. We are now a cloud services broker, able to serve customers regardless of the platform they wish to use. That’s good for their businesses—and for ours.”

Indeed it is. In one year, Azure has grown to account for a very significant portion of Edifixio cloud-based revenues, according to Mandin.

Azure: Faster, easier, lower-cost

Azure is an important part of a cloud solution provider’s business, according to Mandin, because it meets the need for faster, easier, lower-cost cloud solutions based on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.

“We adopted Azure because it was far more mature than it had been, and because its PaaS offering was stable, functional, and usable” he says.
When a solution can run on either a PaaS or Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environment, Edifixio recommends PaaS.