HCI vendors capitalize on digital transformation with private cloud adoption

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HAMPTON, N.H. — In many ways, digital transformation equates to rising cloud adoption. Enterprises need the increased agility and flexibility that a cloud environment provides but also want the cost structure associated with cloud. However, new regulations on data sovereignty continue to emerge and security concerns are mounting as data becomes an increasingly valuable asset, creating challenges for enterprises seeking cloud environments. Hardware vendors that initially lost business to cloud providers revel in this shift, as clear markets for both public and private cloud enable infrastructure and services vendors to co-exist.

Despite the need for greater control and security of data, enterprises still demand the agility and flexibility afforded by cloud environments and are increasingly demanding opex-based consumption models. Insights from TBR’s recently published 1H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research report further detail these trends and the impact they will likely have on the data center infrastructure and cloud markets.

Many customers purchasing HCI are doing so for cloud environments

More than 90% of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) customers surveyed in TBR’s 1H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research are leveraging or will leverage HCI for cloud installments: 54% are leveraging HCI for hybrid cloud, 30% are leveraging HCI for private cloud, and 8% are not currently leveraging HCI for cloud but intend to do so in the future. HCI is well-suited for the cloud as it is highly software-enabled, making spinning it into a private cloud relatively seamless compared to traditional infrastructure environments. Further, HCI sales tend to be more supported with services than legacy infrastructure sales, enabling customers to experience a more collaborative sale. Findings from 1H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research indicate 59% of respondents purchased their HCI solution direct from the vendor, while 62% of respondents received or requested additional hardware services, such as firmware and break-fix, with their HCI purchase.

HCI is a lucrative opportunity for vendors as it combines hardware, software and services into a single sale, increasing margins for hardware vendors and enabling vendors to leverage strategic marketing to sell across their entire portfolio stack rather than one-off piecemeal hardware sales. Further, many HCI vendors successfully bundle additional non-HCI sales on top of HCI purchases, as a customer already strongly considering a given vendor’s HCI architecture is likely to consider other solutions in the portfolio. Respondents in the 1H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research indicated they frequently make additional hardware purchases with HCI sales. However, these additional hardware sales were not necessarily associated with the HCI appliance, with customers purchasing additional hardware for their data centers in many cases. This suggests a broad portfolio is paramount to enterprise success as IT shops look to reduce the number of suppliers they manage while seeking hardware components to maintain existing infrastructure requirements of legacy workloads and building out new environments for native cloud workloads. This will prove advantageous for multiline vendors in the space such as Lenovo, Dell EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) but will challenge niche vendors such as NetApp and Pivot3.

 

The rise in consumption-based pricing makes HCI more desirable for cloud installments

Of 1H18 Hyperconverged Platforms Customer Research respondents, 81% are considering consumption-based pricing models for future HCI purchases. The reasons for considering consumption-based pricing vary, with less than one-third of respondents doing so for the shift to an opex model alone, indicating that purchasing decisions are more complex than simply to shift expense structures. However, customers are still intrigued by these new pricing options.

 

The more interest increases for consumption-based HCI purchases, the greater challenges public cloud vendors will face from infrastructure vendors. Dell EMC and HPE both have a strong presence in the consumption-based pricing space, and there are other infrastructure vendors playing in this space less vocally. Competing will be a challenge for public cloud providers as infrastructure vendors message increased security and control without cost increases to battle public cloud options.

There will always be a place for both public and private cloud in the data center market

Although competition will continue to heat up between public cloud and private cloud vendors as evolving market dynamics alter messaging, the need for both installments in the digitizing world will remain. However, as economics become more favorable on the private cloud side, partly due to HCI and consumption-based pricing, customers may consider private cloud options for workloads they previously would have considered a public cloud environment.

For additional information about this research or to arrange a one-on-one analyst briefing, please contact Dan Demers at +1 603.929.1166 or [email protected].

 

Leading operators are accelerating their 5G timetables, justifying the investment due to the competitive advantage 5G technology provides

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HAMPTON, N.H. — The efficiency gains offered by 5G are spurring operators to accelerate their deployment timeframes, according to TBR’s 3Q18 5G Telecom Market Landscape.

“5G is up to 10 times more efficient on a cost-per-gigabyte basis compared to LTE,” said TBR Telecom Senior Analyst Chris Antlitz. “This is the driving force behind most operator commitments to deploy the technology thus far. With data traffic continuing to scale globally, operators will need to invest in new technologies, such as 5G, that can help them more cost-effectively support that traffic while providing an overall better quality of experience for their customers.”

 

TBR estimates over 85% of 5G capex spend through 2020 will be driven by operators in four countries: the U.S., China, Japan and South Korea. Most Tier 1 operators in these countries have aggressive 5G rollout timetables and intend to leverage the technology for fixed wireless broadband and/or to support their mobile broadband densification initiatives. The seamless software upgradability of new RAN platforms to 5G will facilitate deployment at incremental cost, keeping overall spend scaling quickly but at a relatively low level compared to prior RAN generation upgrades.

TBR’s 5G Telecom Market Landscape tracks the 5G-related initiatives of leading operators and vendors worldwide. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the global 5G ecosystem and includes insights pertaining to market development, market sizing, use cases, adoption, regional trends, and operator and vendor positioning and strategies.

 

The exaggerated expectations created by IoT hype play a big role in how vendors approach IoT in 2018, for better or worse

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HAMPTON, N.H. — Internet of Things (IoT) vendors are succeeding by focusing on business problems, not transformation, according to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) 3Q18 Commercial IoT Market Landscape. Shane O’Callaghan of TSM Control Systems, a PTC customer, explained it at LiveWorx2018 in the most straightforward manner: “IoT is not a technology project; it’s a business project.” TBR believes leading vendors are gaining market traction because they are molding their IoT go-to-market strategies around solving tactical business problems with solutions proved by case studies.

Vendors that focus on technical aspects are unlikely to gain breakthrough success and will be relegated to being component suppliers to vendors more engaged with customers at a business-problem-solving level. At LiveWorx 2018, PTC CEO Jim Heppelmann told analysts PTC may have been looking too far forward, focusing on cutting-edge technology, and had trouble explaining IoT to customers and how its platform, ThingWorx, would improve outcomes.

Like PTC, some vendors appear to be caught between trying to evolve from a component-positioned, technical-messaging vendor and a vendor trying to solve business problems. And many vendors are struggling to rise above the messaging of more successful peers or put a unique twist on their solutions to differentiate them amid an increasingly saturated and hypercompetitive market.

In its 3Q18 Commercial IoT Market Landscape, TBR deeply examined paths vendors are taking to evolve.

  • Emphasizing partnering is one approach most vendors use. Partners are critical because most IoT projects include components from several vendors, and very few of those vendors have a relationship with the customer.
  • Increasingly, IoT is embedded in both hardware and software products from independent hardware vendors (IHVs) and independent software vendors (ISVs), respectively. IT vendors are leveraging large- and small-scale ISVs and IHVs to bring their technologies to a broader market beyond providing custom solutions.
  • Some vendors are narrowing their focus and messaging to verticals in which their expertise matches the challenges experienced in the vertical.
  • Some vendors are beginning to sell off underperforming business units or looking for attractive acquisitions in their areas of focus. TBR expects 2018 to be a year of consolidation and acquisition activity.

The 3Q18 Commercial IoT Market Landscape looks at technologies and trends of the commercial IoT market. Additionally, TBR catalogs and analyzes by vertical more than 350 customer deals, uncovering use trends, identifying opportunities, examining maturity, and discussing drivers and inhibitors.

GE and Microsoft are getting more serious

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General Electric Co. (GE) and Microsoft have been strengthening their Internet of Things (IoT) partnership for at least a year, and a July 16 announcement documents a new, closer stage in their relationship. TBR believes this partnership benefits both parties. GE makes its Predix IoT platform more attractive to the growing number of customers standardizing on Microsoft Azure for cloud services. Microsoft improves its industrial IoT (IIoT) and operational technology (OT) credentials, as well as its ability to go to market in the IoT world where the collaboration of IT and OT create challenges for IT companies.

GE and Microsoft announced their “largest partnership to date,” according to a Microsoft press release, with GE standardizing its Predix solutions on Azure, and both companies integrating the Predix portfolio with Azure’s capabilities, including Azure IoT and Azure Data and Analytics. The companies will also co-sell and go to market together. GE will deploy Azure across its business for additional IT workloads. This latest partnership builds on last year’s announcements in July and October of closer cooperation between the two companies.

GE first introduced Predix in August 2015 as an end-to-end cloud IIoT solution. While the Predix cloud was interoperable with other cloud platforms, the emphasis was on a complete solution. Following a large investment and marketing effort, it became clear that competing directly with general-purpose cloud platforms was both unnecessary and counterproductive. Providing a complete platform wasted GE resources and placed the company in direct competition with huge cloud vendors. In 2017 GE adopted a strategy of focusing on its differentiated capabilities and highlighting Predix’s interoperability. The July 16 announcement makes GE’s relationship with Microsoft much stronger than its partnerships with other vendors.

While the newly announced partnership helps GE, the future is not clear for GE Digital, the division that offers Predix. In November 2017 the company announced cuts of more than 25%, about $400 million, within GE Digital. Predix development is increasingly focused on GE’s primary businesses — aviation, power and renewable energy — but as of April, a company spokesperson said only 8% of GE’s industrial customers were customers of GE Digital. TBR believes that a sale of GE Digital to Microsoft is likely, as GE narrows its focus and Microsoft expands its footprint in IoT and IIoT.

TIS margins declined in 2017 as vendors invested in service delivery evolution, including automation, tools and training

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HAMPTON, N.H. — According to Technology Business Research Inc.’s (TBR) 2017 Telecom Infrastructure Services (TIS) Margin Benchmark, Tier 1 telecom vendor average TIS margins declined year-to-year in 2017 due mainly to restructuring at Ericsson, though growing investment in R&D, particularly for professional services, also had an impact.

“Vendors invested in service delivery evolution to stay ahead of adverse TIS market trends, such as legacy decommissioning and growing SI complexity,” said TBR Telecom Senior Analyst Michael Soper. “Professional services in particular is a focus area for vendors as they invest in tools and training to cope with increasing network complexity.”

Ericsson’s restructuring impacted all facets of its services business, driving margins down across the board. The company’s contract exit and rescoping activity hurt margins in 2017, but will enable Ericsson to emerge on better footing by the end of restructuring in 2019.

Except for Ericsson, vendors grew their maintenance margins, offsetting the impact of legacy infrastructure decommissioning with an influx of support revenue for recently deployed gear in China. Vendors are investing in automation in this space to sustain high margins where the full impact of legacy decommissioning and software-mediated networking are felt.

TBR’s 2017 Telecom Infrastructure Services Margin Benchmark provides annual analysis of deployment services, maintenance services, professional services and managed services margins for Tier 1 telecom suppliers. Suppliers covered include Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE.

Carriers are focused on supporting hybrid and multicloud environments as more customers integrate solutions from multiple providers

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HAMPTON, N.H. (July 18, 2018) — According to Technology Business Research, Inc.’s (TBR) Carrier Cloud Market Forecast 2017-2022, total Cloud as a Service revenue from the telecom market rose an estimated 13.5% year-to-year to $6.5 billion in 2017, driven by portfolio and geographic expansion. However, TBR projects revenue growth will decelerate to an 8.8% CAGR through 2022 as webscale providers become more dominant in the market. Though carriers have launched new native public cloud platforms over the past several years, such as Orange’s Flexible Engine and Deutsche Telekom’s Open Telekom Cloud, these offerings have not been able to slow customer demand for webscale solutions from providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google that are becoming staple services for businesses.

“Carrier cloud providers will emphasize hybrid and multicloud solutions over the next five years as customers look for integrated suites and ties to existing network and IT assets,” said TBR Analyst Steve Vachon. “Carriers are focused on fostering deeper interoperability and accessibility to webscale solutions to support hybrid and multicloud environments and bolster revenue from value-added services as well as from network platforms such as SD-WAN and IP-VPN.”

TBR’s market forecast also examines how carriers are integrating emerging technologies to enhance their cloud portfolios. Total other cloud (which includes SaaS, PaaS and BPaaS) revenue from the telecom market increased an estimated 16.2% year-to-year to $2.2 billion in 2017, driven by the adoption of services including unified communications, CRM and office productivity solutions. These workloads will become more deeply integrated with artificial intelligence and analytics capabilities over the next several years, which will create new cross-selling opportunities for carriers. Carriers are also integrating NFV and SDN technologies to enhance their enterprise solutions, enabling operators to offer a more agile cloud portfolio that can be delivered with greater quality of service to customers on demand.

 

Hybrid, multicloud, reunited partners featured in TBR’s upcoming cloud & software research

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Going into the second half of 2018, TBR’s Cloud and Software Practice anticipates providing additional research around a few issues that have been top of mind among TBR’s clients and our analysts. The common theme across the three issues highlighted in this report is the growing focus on how cloud and software are jointly being used to deliver real solutions for customers. Highlights of the research center on how establishing hybrid capabilities is a primary challenge for enterprises and a growth driver for vendors, from the initial design and integration through to the ongoing management and optimization of the increasingly complex environments. Additionally, offering multicloud is the first priority for customers and creates opportunities for vendors other than category leaders such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Salesforce. Lastly, partnerships that were previously threatened by cloud are now realigning for new opportunities created by on-premises hybrid delivery and solution bundling. Look for more insight into these topics in our upcoming research.

Hybrid enablement is an increasingly critical predictor of vendor success
There is no question that cloud and software solutions are being increasingly deployed into hybrid environments and have been for some time now. The real customer pain point in regard to a truly hybrid environment — one or more cloud assets integrated with one or more on-premises assets for the seamless flow and sharing of data — is around enabling each of the solutions to fit into the environment and integrate with the others for optimal utilization.

Cloud and software vendors alike are investing to capitalize on this growing opportunity around empowering enterprise IT departments to integrate sprawling environments on their own, with the help of automated tools and platforms. Salesforce’s acquisition of MuleSoft is one of the more noteworthy examples as it has vast implications for both Salesforce and the market. This is because MuleSoft offers licenses alongside its subscription offerings despite Salesforce’s “No software” mantra, and because many organizations utilize one or more of Salesforce’s cloud offerings, which will soon feature and/or be integrated with Salesforce Integration Cloud, a solution that will be based on MuleSoft’s well-known Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).

Software vendors are making similar investments, such as Red Hat announcing its own iPaaS — Fuse Online — and VMware’s continued updates to the vRealize cloud management suite. Additionally, many continue to expand their partnerships with cloud vendors and systems integrators to improve their hybrid technology and hybrid enablement portfolios, increasingly going to market with a software-led services approach.
Cloud brokerage and hybrid integration pure plays continue to generate buzz as well, providing attractive solutions for enterprise IT departments struggling to keep pace with integrations, orchestration and skill sets. We expect some of these vendors to be acquired over the next couple of years as cloud and software vendors look to quickly build out their hybrid integration and enablement tool sets.

Consolidation around leading PaaS & IaaS vendors does not reduce competition
The public cloud IaaS market, substantially made up of businesses that complement scalable infrastructure with general purpose PaaS, has consolidated around the four leading U.S.-based cloud vendors — AWS, Microsoft, IBM and Google — and one international vendor, Alibaba, which has been successful in the highly exclusive Chinese market and is diligently focused on effectively competing with these U.S.-based vendors on an international stage.

Among the insights gleaned from TBR’s upcoming Cloud Infrastructure & Platforms Customer Research, it is becoming evident that even in discrete use cases and niche industries, the general-purpose nature of these vendors has enabled them to be considered across needs. Many customers agree that there is a delicate equilibrium yet to be found in first balancing on-premises and cloud deployments, and then balancing vendor lock-in concerns, usage volume discounts, vendor specializations and multivendor environment complexity. TBR will closely watch and assess how each vendor overcomes its perceived downfalls and positions itself to help customers best weigh the benefits and drawbacks of increasing cloud adoption.

In particular, customers almost universally recognize Google Cloud as the third option behind AWS and Microsoft Azure, citing TensorFlow as a key technology that will drive Google’s growth into a more prominent cloud vendor, but in the same breath identify that Google’s enterprise vision has not matured from “talk the talk,” particularly outside of the executive office of Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene. Meanwhile, Azure has become a viable alternative to AWS for many customers that note general ubiquity in each vendor’s ability to support various enterprise needs. TBR expects the closeness in AWS and Azure functionality, strained by the maturation of Google’s enterprise vision and Alibaba’s increasingly competitive entry into Western markets, will cause the converging market to grow quickly around this competition.

Partnerships are being both stressed and created as the cloud market evolves
The increased focus on cloud delivery methods has certainly stressed many long-held partnerships between traditional hardware, software and service vendors. The model of solution creation, distribution, installation and support was one that had multiple participants in the traditional model but became more focused on the cloud provider in the transition to cloud. Cloud is also an opportunity for new or nascent vendors to take share in markets such as business applications, where SAP and Oracle have been dominant. SaaS vendors fill portfolio gaps and augment vendor offerings for verticalized use cases, enabling legacy players such as Microsoft and SAP to adapt and compete with born-on-the-cloud providers. An example of this shift in vendor landscapes comes with the release of Dynamics 365 Business Central, which will help Microsoft gain footing over SAP in the SMB space for business applications and provide new opportunity for Microsoft’s SaaS partners. However, as each vendor expands its cloud portfolio, its respective ecosystem will be required to adapt. SAP’s acquisition of CallidusCloud will improve the vendor’s position in the cloud front-office space, but it also places SAP in direct competition with its ecosystem of Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) providers. Now more than ever, the market will see vendor shares susceptible to ongoing changes as the market for core business applications remains relatively immature for cloud.

Hardware and services partners were previously hard hit in the transition to cloud but will have more opportunities with a growing mix of public and private cloud options becoming available. Microsoft will continue to leverage hardware and services partners to deliver and implement its hosted private cloud, Azure Stack, which has already doubled its geographical reach in recent months. This new opportunity for longstanding hardware partners such as Dell EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise to collaborate in delivering Microsoft’s Azure Stack offering does little to offset the erosion those vendors have seen as Microsoft built out its own Azure public cloud offerings, reducing customer demand for hardware.

Note: TBR provides extensive, sustained coverage of the strategies and select performance metrics of all the vendors mentioned above, as well as their competitors and key technology partners. Contact the authors for additional details.

By Allan Krans, Practice Manager and Principal Analyst; Cassandra Mooshian, Senior Analyst; Meaghan McGrath, Senior Analyst; and Jack McElwee, Research Analyst

Telecom operators drill down on IoT opportunity in logistics

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Despite the hype to the contrary, in commercial Internet of Things (IoT), not all verticals are created equal in terms of opportunity. There is near-term opportunity in some verticals, while opportunity in other verticals will take a few years to mature. The verticals with the longest and deepest histories of using IoT are oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing (including automotive), and logistics. Because these verticals have a long history of using primitive IoT, mostly in the form of telematics, customers in these areas are more familiar with what IoT can offer, how it can be applied to their businesses and where measurable ROI can be found. Unsurprisingly, segments that have most experience with IoT continue to generate the greatest amount of IoT-related revenue.

Telecom operators were early to advertise that they were leaders in the verticals mentioned above. However, now that the chips are down, TBR believes operators are focusing on real, mature IoT opportunity, leading to them drilling down on logistics. Logistics aligns well with telecom operators’ capabilities due to the mobile and distributed use cases. Verticals such as manufacturing provide less opportunity to telecom operators due to the more static and condensed nature of factories. Here are some examples of commercial logistical moves from leading operators:

  • In March 2017 Verizon announced the combination and rebranding of its Verizon Telematics, Fleetmatics and Telogis acquisitions into Verizon Connect. Verizon notes that the rebranding completes the integration of its connected vehicle division with its acquisitions of fleet and mobile workforce management companies Fleetmatics and Telogis. TBR believes the rebranding of Verizon’s telematics businesses into Verizon Connect was a smart move because focusing its IoT business around connecting mobile workforces differentiates Verizon, letting customers clearly know what they can use Verizon Connect for, highlighting its expertise and also making it more partner-friendly. Verizon Connect is now a module that can enhance a broad IoT platform such as Azure IoT.
  • In May 2018 AT&T entered into a partnership with operational technology (OT) behemoth Honeywell to develop IoT solutions for aircraft and freight deployments worldwide. AT&T delivers Honeywell worldwide connectivity, and Honeywell gives AT&T a larger door into industrial engagements.
  • In February AT&T launched two comprehensive solutions with Geotab’s fleet tracking platform, AT&T Fleet Management for Enterprise and AT&T Fleet Management for Government, to provide customers with a holistic view of their transportation assets to improve costs, productivity and safety.
  • TBR believes Telefonica, Vodafone and Orange are also competing for logistics engagements using well-populated landing pages touting their ability to provide logistics-based IoT solutions. Orange, for example, signed a three-year multimillion-euro agreement with Finland-based Cargotec in 4Q17 to codevelop an IoT-based cargo solution.

While vendors will compete for logistics business opportunities worldwide, TBR believes Verizon will try to consolidate and win share of the field service and trucking industries in North America; AT&T will focus on air and sea shipping or asset tracking worldwide and leverage its advantage in connected car gained through multiple contracts with leading automakers; and Telefonica, Vodafone and Orange will battle it out for EMEA and LATAM share.

 

What should be on Warden’s to-do list as Northrop’s new CEO

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But there’s also an opportunity here for the company to broaden its pursuits to capitalize on the current bullish services environment in the federal sector due to the need for technology modernization. — Joey Cresta, Analyst

EY, SAP and Microsoft: A powerful triad for the Business of One era

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Attending several EY analyst events in the past month has been a real eye-opener to the changing dynamics of a company that has traditionally been viewed as an advisory-led firm with strong credentials in the tax, audit and advisory domains, yet until recently offered precious little in the way of IT-centric services. This is not your father’s EY, as the company has been investing heavily in partnerships and in automating its IP in ways that radically reduce “run the business” IT costs while continuing to excel at “transform the business” advisory engagements.

A large part of EY’s accelerating performance can be laid at the feet of its partner ecosystem where the company has deepened partnerships with technology providers such as SAP and Microsoft, whose own services firms lack permission to play in the C-Suite or are just taxed based on current workloads and the industrywide skills shortage.

In short, the “axis has flipped” on what works with respect to ecosystem participation in the Business of One era, and this partnership triad appears to have many of the emerging bases covered. Figure 1 outlines the way in which TBR segments services portfolio options in one of its core market landscape constructs. TBR segments services into several different components, and it is through this kind of analysis that the power of the EY, Microsoft and SAP relationships truly come to life.

At the top of the triangle (A) sits the advisory-led services, where EY has competed successfully for decades. Here is where board and C-Suite objectives get clarified and then codified for execution by the IT practitioners in the front-office (C), middle-office (T) and back-office (B) layers. While both SAP and Microsoft have some advisory offerings, EY has the account credibility and existing relationships with the C-Suite, especially with the CFO through the company’s audit and tax services. In this way, EY can pull SAP and Microsoft into accounts where they have previously not had much visibility.

 

The front- and back-office technology segments are where Microsoft and SAP, respectively, have strong brand credentials. Microsoft has essentially owned the business productivity space for decades through Microsoft Office and has done an excellent job pivoting that business over from license to subscription software in the move to Office 365. SAP, likewise, has been a long-term premier provider of the core back-office systems of record now being migrated to the cloud as adoption there accelerates.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the middle-office integration layer, where the power of the partnership will bear the most aggregate benefit, as each participant has valuable domain knowledge to contribute. SAP has tight rules and policy guidelines by industry, Microsoft has the platform and tool sets to rival any competing cloud platform through Azure, and EY has the skills in translating business objectives into IT policies and rules for process optimization. The end result for enterprise customers is a faster, more economical and more agile use of IT for digital transformation.

The assessment by no means says that collectively EY, Microsoft and SAP will become Business of One de facto standards, but it does suggest these three working together in major accounts will give many of their competitors pause.