According to Fortune Business Insights, the global cloud computing market is forecast to reach $1,712.44 billion by 2029, up from $480.04 billion in 2022.

Among leading cloud providers, Microsoft Corporation perhaps knew this prediction better than the rest as it recently beat Wall Street estimates—of $2.23 per share with $2.45 per share—in the fiscal third quarter, driven by growth in its cloud computing among other products and services.

“The bottom line is that despite all the concerns that the sky is falling in big tech, the truth is companies still see value in cloud computing and there's still a huge percentage of workloads that can be moved to the cloud,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst for TECHnalysis Research, speaking to Reuters.

In another news, Irina Ghose, Chief Operating Officer for Microsoft India, recently said the organization’s strategy in India is focused on delivering cloud and AI solutions. For Microsoft, India is an important market and there is a strong demand across industries in the country.

According BofA Global Research, Microsoft Azure bagged a market share of 30% by the end of 2022 in India, while Amazon Web Services (AWS) dropped to 55% from 71% in the same period.

“The promise of India reflects in our investment in the region to double our cloud capacity since the pandemic and we are making new investments in local cloud infrastructure. As India continues to navigate the global macroeconomic headwinds, we believe that we can help India Inc. to stay resilient,” Ghose told CNBC-TV18.com.

“For decades, Microsoft and its partners have shared a common goal: to help customers succeed. We are committed to helping individual consumers, small, medium and large enterprises, find the right tools, resources, and digital solutions they need to thrive in a digitally enabled economy,” she added.

The Microsoft and HCLTech partnership

Enterprises today face multiple challenges and opportunities, from managing risk and driving a sustainability agenda, to achieving cost optimization, expanding into new markets, and engaging with customers and employees. The HCLTech and Microsoft partnership is built on HCLTech’s world-class digital innovation and engineering capabilities along with Microsoft’s market-leading enterprise technology to help customers confidently unlock the benefits of Microsoft’s entire portfolio of products and services.

With a dedicated Microsoft Ecosystems Unit, and as a Microsoft Cloud Partner and Azure Expert MSP, HCLTech is uniquely positioned to help businesses transform into more agile and adaptive enterprises using HCLTech’s innovative and industrialized services across the entire Microsoft solution stacks and cloud services, including Microsoft Cloud, Microsoft Security, Azure, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 and the Power Platform.

“Our relationship with HCLTech spans over 30 years and with thousands of Microsoft-certified professionals, we’ve seen the capabilities and collaboration accelerate as HCLTech invests in Microsoft Business Unit and delivers breakthrough, industry-focused innovation on Microsoft Cloud. We are especially excited about HCLTech’s focus in healthcare industry, investments in Telco 5G and Cloud Native Labs, allowing our mutual enterprise customers to realize tangible benefits as they continue their digital transformation journey,” said Marianne Roling, General Manager, Global Systems Integrations, Microsoft Corporation.

Its joint offerings include HCLTech Cloud Workspace, HCLTech Cloud Office, Real-Time Premise Insights, award-winning Net Zero Intelligent Operations (NIO) and  Connected Assets in Regulated Environment (CARE) solutions and data center and cloud migration services on Azure.

In June 2022, HCLTech won the Microsoft Partner of the Year Award (PotYA) for Healthcare and Life Sciences (global winner) and the 2022 UK Microsoft Partner of the Year Award (country winner). HCLTech was also named a finalist in the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for Internet of Things (domain finalist). PotYA recognizes Microsoft partners who have developed and delivered outstanding Microsoft-based apps, services and devices during the past year. HCLTech was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in LSH sector globally and in the United Kingdom.

How HCLTech partners with Microsoft in the cloud journey

Powered by over 40,000 cloud professionals and 3,000 use cases, HCLTech’s CloudSMART offerings and services enable organizations to accelerate innovation and agility at scale by moving to the cloud and continuously modernize business applications, SAP, data and networks to adapt to changing business requirements without incurring technical debts.

While its Green Data Center Solutions standout in the hybrid cloud services, HCLTech offers a range of management platform solutions in the multi-cloud services category, including VelocITy that offers end-to-end service delivery of hybrid and multi-cloud solutions and HCL MyCloud that provides optimal governance and monitoring of organizations’ cloud infrastructure.

Here’s how HCLTech has recently increased its footprint, cemented its commitment and secured recognition for its work in the cloud.

1. One of the leading global pigment manufacturers, Heubach Group, recently selected HCLTech to drive its digital transformation agenda. In this agreement to help Heubach Group achieve its strategic objectives of a rise in productivity and growth, HCLTech will deliver an IT system for the group across 11 countries to include deployment of hybrid cloud, cybersecurity solutions, end-user services and secure networks.

   “At HCLTech, we’re committed to supercharging progress for enterprises across industries and our multifaceted partnership with Heubach Group is a testament to that. We’re excited to be helping this market leader transform, empower its employees and power growth,” said Pankaj Tagra, Corporate Vice President and EMEA Lead, Diversified Industries, HCLTech.

2. HCLTech recently became a Platinum Member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). Earlier, as a Gold Member, HCLTech has experienced how the membership of the CNCF helps support the evolution of the cloud native community and has accelerated the development of products and solutions. The new membership will enable HCLTech to support the market success of the broad selection of CNCF projects and technologies.

   “As a long-time sponsor of CNCF, we have seen how membership helps us support the evolution of the Cloud Native community and establish Opensource at the heart of this journey. HCLTech Cloud Native Labs has led the industry in helping clients adopt CNCF projects and technologies. Moving up to Platinum will help support the market success of CNCF projects and technologies and, importantly, help reflect the interests of our global clients. We are bringing focus to CNCF projects that are becoming popular enablers of modern transformation programs,” said Alan Flower, Executive Vice president and Head, Cloud Native Labs, HCLTech.

3. HCLTech has been recently recognized as a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: Multicloud Managed Services Providers, Q1 2023 report that recognized it for its technical strengths and broad capabilities and deems it a good fit for enterprises looking to extend their managed services support to cloud, especially those focused on Microsoft Azure platform.

   “At HCLTech, we recognize the growth in industry cloud solutions and have designed a suite of customized products to meet the evolving need of enterprises. Our CloudSMART suite of cloud solutions include top-of-the-line industry offerings, capabilities, products and platforms that customers can use as a one-service model. We are delighted to be recognized as one of the leaders among the top 11 service providers,” said Kalyan Kumar, Chief Technology Officer and Head, Ecosystems, HCLTech.

How HCLTech partners with Microsoft in the digital transformation journey

In April 2021, HCLTech announced its multimillion-dollar digital transformation and hybrid cloud contract with UD Trucks, a Japan-based manufacturer and seller of heavy-duty trucks that operates in more than 60 countries.

Formerly part of the Volvo Group, UD Trucks became a part of Isuzu Motors in April 2021. The company’s IT team found itself tasked with designing and implementing a new Microsoft Azure HPC + AI (HPC) instance, and the team had only about a month to get it operational.

As the timeline grew tighter, UD Trucks turned to Microsoft for a use case proposal, and it responded with a scenario that seemed within reach. To move quickly, however, the project needed an executing part­ner. Fo­rtunately, HCLTech, which had previously operated as a strategic partner with Volvo, had recently signed a hybrid cloud agreement with UD Trucks and had the company’s complete confidence.

The result was a fruitful three-way collaboration with UD Trucks defining the requirements, Microsoft facilitating information and resources, and HCLTech providing key technical configuration insights and skills. As the executing part­ner, HCLTech helped provision Azure resources to create a test environment. Azure support­ teams worked with HCLTech and UD Trucks to troubleshoot and optimize the setup. UD Trucks finally had what it needed, with no time to spare.

“As automotive brands look to accelerate their digital transformation and embrace the cloud, they needed a partner like HCLTech to successfully navigate the complexity of IT ecosystems and have a digital foundation ready for the future,” said Tagra. “Corporate transitions create special scenarios which require expertise at the intersection of end-to-end business processes and technology. Our engagement with UD Trucks is a fantastic illustration of how HCLTech can support setting up core IT capabilities leveraging HCLTech CloudSMART strategy and accelerate next-generation digital services for our clients.”