Johan Aussenac is CEO at WeTransact a Microsoft Certified Software company specializing in Microsoft Marketplace listing, co-sell activation, and cloud GTM strategy for software companies.
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When should Azure be part of your cloud strategy and what does Microsoft offer to help you get there?
Most software development companies building on AWS did so for the right reasons. AWS is mature, well-documented, and has been the default for cloud-native companies for over a decade. This article is not an argument for abandoning that. It is an argument for asking a more strategic question: at what point does adding Azure to your infrastructure also open a fundamentally different commercial channel and what does it cost to get there?
For a growing number of software companies the answer is clear. Azure is not just an alternative cloud. It is an entry point into Microsoft's commercial ecosystem: its seller network, its enterprise relationships, and a marketplace transacting billions of dollars of software annually. Understanding when and how to replicate your solution to Azure and add it to your strategy is increasingly a GTM decision, not just an infrastructure one.
The business case: Why Azure belongs in a multi-cloud strategy
Microsoft as a distribution channel
When a software company lists in Microsoft Marketplace and enrolls in co-sell, Microsoft's own field sellers more than 25,000 globally, are incentivized to include that software company’s product in their customer conversations. This is not passive discoverability. It is an active sales motion, driven by a specific commercial mechanism.
The mechanism is the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC). Large enterprises increasingly sign pre-committed cloud spend agreements with Microsoft. Software transacted through Microsoft Marketplace counts toward these commitments, which means enterprise procurement teams actively prefer Marketplace-listed solutions they help burn down an existing budget obligation. For software companies, this translates to reduced procurement friction and shorter sales cycles inside accounts that already have a Microsoft relationship.
By comparison, neither AWS nor Google Cloud offers this at an equivalent scale. Microsoft's footprint spanning Office 365, Teams, Dynamics 365, Azure, and now Copilot touches more business units and more decision-makers across an enterprise than any other vendor. Adding Azure to your stack means plugging into that network.
Technical differentiators worth knowing
Beyond the commercial case, Azure offers capabilities that are genuinely differentiated for certain software company profiles:
- Azure OpenAI Service. Microsoft holds an exclusive enterprise partnership with OpenAI. For software companies that need GPT-4o or o1 with private endpoints, data residency, and enterprise compliance certifications, this is only available on Azure.
- Microsoft 365 and Copilot extensibility. Software companies can embed products directly into Teams, Outlook, and Word via Copilot plugins and agents, which is a distribution surface with no direct equivalent on other clouds.
- Microsoft Entra ID. Most enterprise identity infrastructure runs on Entra ID (formerly Active Directory). Native SSO and RBAC integration is cleaner when you build on Azure.
- The .NET and Windows ecosystem. For teams and customers already in the Microsoft developer stack, Azure is simply where the tooling is best optimized.
Microsoft's funding and incentives for software companies
One of the most underutilized advantages of moving to Azure is the range of Microsoft programs designed to offset the cost and complexity of doing so. Both of the following are free to join and available to most software companies.
- Microsoft for Startups (Founders Hub). Provides up to $150,000 in Azure credits in the first year, plus access to technical advisory, developer tooling, and go-to-market support. Enroll before you begin any replication. These credits cover compute and storage costs during your build and test phases.
- ISV Success. Microsoft's program for software companies building on Azure. It includes technical architecture guidance, co-sell readiness support, and dedicated Microsoft contacts. ISV Success enrolment is also the prerequisite for co-sell eligibility, the commercial mechanism that unlocks Microsoft's seller network on your behalf.
Both programs include access to Microsoft technical advisors at no charge. This is worth emphasizing: before spending on a replication partner or committing engineering time, software companies can get a scoped assessment of their replication from Microsoft itself, tailored to their specific stack and target architecture.
How to get there: Partner-led or self-service
There are two realistic paths to adding Azure. The right one depends on your engineering bandwidth, your timeline, and how much of the replication you want to own internally.
The partner-led path (recommended for most software companies)
For founders and CTOs, the real cost of replication is not tooling, it is engineering time diverted from product. Every sprint spent on infrastructure is a sprint not spent on customer value. A partner-led approach solves this directly.
- Enroll in a Microsoft program. Start with Microsoft for Startups or ISV Success (or both). This secures your credits, establishes your Microsoft relationship, and is the prerequisite for co-sell access. It is free and should be done before anything else.
- Book a free technical consultation. Use the technical advisory included in your program to scope your replication with Microsoft. Explain your stack, your target architecture, and your timeline. This session produces a documented brief which becomes your handoff document for step three.
- Engage a specialist partner. Take that brief to an Azure Expert MSP, Microsoft's highest-tier replication partners, certified for complex replications and incentivized by Microsoft to keep costs manageable, often including access to replication credits that offset engagement fees. Alternatively, Microsoft Certified Software companies (such as WeTransact) can handle both the replication and the parallel Marketplace listing and co-sell activation, so you arrive on Azure already set up to sell, not just to run.
The self-service path
For software companies with available engineering capacity and simpler workloads, a self-directed replication is viable. The tooling has improved significantly. The key tools are:
- Azure Migrate Microsoft's free hub for discovery, assessment, and replication. Maps AWS services to Azure equivalents, flags compatibility issues, and estimates costs. Start here for any self-service replication.
- Azure Storage Mover Built specifically for moving data from AWS S3 to Azure Blob Storage. Supports parallel transfers, preserves file metadata, and integrates with Azure Monitor for progress tracking.
- Azure Database Migration Service (DMS) Migrates SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and others from AWS RDS or on-premises to Azure managed database services.
- AWS DataSync Useful for transferring large datasets between AWS and Azure storage during a phased replication.
- Azure Data Factory For complex ETL workloads: extracting, transforming, and loading data across clouds with scheduling and conflict resolution.
- Azure Well-Architected Framework Run this assessment against your current architecture before replicating it. It evaluates reliability, security, cost, performance, and operations. The goal is to land in a better architectural state, not simply replicate what existed on AWS.
Whichever path you take, one step is non-negotiable: establishing a proper Azure landing zone before any workload moves. This means setting up your subscription structure, networking, identity, governance, and monitoring upfront. Microsoft publishes a software company-specific landing zone guide and a portal-based accelerator (no infrastructure-as-code expertise required) to make this straightforward. Skipping creates security and compliance debt that is significantly harder to fix retroactively.
The bottom line
Adding Azure to your cloud strategy is not primarily an infrastructure decision. It is a go-to-market decision. The question is whether your company benefits from access to Microsoft's seller network, its enterprise customer base, and Marketplace mechanics that reduce procurement friction for your buyers.
For many software companies, the answer is yes and Microsoft's programs make the cost of getting there lower than most assume. The partner ecosystem exists to take the technical burden off your engineering team. The self-service tools are capable enough for simpler replications.
The commercial opportunity on the other side, co-sell, MACC alignment, Marketplace distribution is real and growing.
To learn more join us on April 2, 2026, at 8:30 AM PDT for Why Azure belongs in your multicloud strategy - Microsoft Marketplace Community and live Q&A. If you miss the session, you will be able to watch it on demand through the same link.
Where to start
→ Azure Expert MSP directory: partner.microsoft.com
→ Software company-specific Azure landing zone guide: Independent software vendor (ISV) considerations for Azure landing zones - Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn
This article was produced in partnership with WeTransact, a Microsoft Certified Software company specializing in Microsoft Marketplace listing, co-sell activation, and cloud GTM strategy for software companies.
