Empowering AI innovation with Azure AI Foundry
In a recent meeting at the Azure AI Foundry Partner Council, we delved deep into the capabilities and future of Azure AI Foundry, highlighting its unified AI platform, extensive model catalog, and the innovative services and tools it offers. With a rising trend in the use of multiple AI models and the evolving capabilities of AI agents, Azure AI Foundry is at the forefront of streamlining the AI development process. The highlight of the meeting was the announcement of the Foundry SDK, bringing with it a unified inferencing API and support for multiple languages. This SDK promises to revolutionize how developers approach AI projects, offering templates for quick starts and a host of upcoming features and improvements. Additionally, new tools and integrations with GitHub and Visual Studio Code were introduced, enhancing the developer experience and providing seamless transitions between different platforms. A particularly exciting development is the upcoming launch of Sora, a new visual experience within Azure Open AI services. This launch is set to redefine how users interact with AI models, making the process more intuitive and visually engaging. As probably some of the readers are also evaluating, participants were keen to understand the scalability of low-code solutions and the transition to pro-code. For more complex capabilities, Foundry provides a seamless integration experience, ensuring that developers can easily transition between different SDKs and platforms. It doesn’t matter which dev tools you are using we’ll provide you with what you need wherever you are. Looking ahead, future developments such as the Foundry Canvas, observability suite, and management center were discussed, along with new products like Catalog NextGen and Foundry Copilot. These innovations promise to further enhance the capabilities of Azure AI Foundry, making it an indispensable tool for AI developers. Learn more about Azure AI Foundry: Azure AI Foundry | Microsoft Learn Join upcoming Azure AI Foundry Partner Council sessions to continue learning about the Azure AI Platform. February 13: Hello to the AI agentic world February 19: Build your first agent with Azure OpenAI Agent Service workshop February 20: GenAIOps lifecycle and best practices February 27: Managing and optimizing GenAI costs- updated FinOps approach For more information, please contact aipartnerteam@microsoft.com. Links and Resources: Evaluation of generative AI applications with Azure AI Foundry - Azure AI Foundry - Microsoft Learn Microsoft’s Agentic AI Frameworks: AutoGen and Semantic Kernel - Semantic KernelUnlocking the power of co-sell: what to expect in the upcoming webinar series with Rubrik and Tackle
For ISVs, partnering with cloud providers is a powerful growth engine, opening doors to new customers, expanding market reach, and driving revenue. Co-selling is a key lever in this partnership, enabling ISVs to align with cloud providers like Microsoft to accelerate growth, strengthen relationships, and close larger deals. However, developing a successful co-sell practice doesn’t just happen overnight—it requires strategic alignment, scalable resources, and a deep understanding of partner incentives. To help you navigate this journey, Rubrik and Tackle are teaming up for a two-part webinar series designed to help you build, operationalize, and scale a strong co-sell strategy with Microsoft. In these sessions, you’ll learn how to: Develop a scalable co-sell strategy aligned with Microsoft’s goals Streamline your co-sell motion with workflows, CRM alignment, and deal-sharing strategies Strengthen relationships with Microsoft sellers and aligning with Azure’s consumption goals Led by Rubrik Head of Global Cloud Alliances Jasmine Kronk and Tackle’s co-sell experts, this webinar series will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to co-sell with confidence. Here’s a preview of what you’ll learn in each session: Session 1: Building a Winning Strategy to Accelerate Growth with Microsoft Date: February 24, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To successfully co-sell with Microsoft, ISVs need a clear strategy that aligns with Microsoft’s priorities, streamlines collaboration, and maximizes growth opportunities. In this session, experts will share key insights on how to operationalize co-sell, build strategic relationships, and leverage marketplace to accelerate revenue. Here are the top takeaways from this session to help you build a winning a winning co-sell strategy: Use Co-Sell as a strategic GTM motion. Co-selling with Microsoft is not just a checkbox activity; it's a fundamental go-to-market (GTM) strategy that can drive growth, increase deal sizes, and accelerate sales cycles. ISV should leverage co-sell partnerships to shorten sales cycles and close larger deals. Understand the value proposition. To succeed in the Microsoft ecosystem, ISVs must clearly define their unique value proposition. Aligning your solution with Microsoft’s priorities, like driving Azure consumption, creates mutual benefits and strengthens co-sell opportunities. Operationalize co-sell for scale. Streamlining internal processes is key to scaling co-sell efforts. This includes integrating CRM systems, defining deal-sharing criteria, and maintaining a structured approach to pipeline management. Regularly sharing deal updates, tracking performance metrics, and ensuring cross-team alignment helps optimize efficiency and collaboration. Measuring key indicators, such as deals won and revenue impact, ensures ongoing success. Build relationships with Microsoft stakeholders. Establishing a network of advocates within Microsoft is critical for driving future co-sell opportunities. By building trust and understanding, you can create an environment where Microsoft reps actively refer and promote your solutions to customers, ultimately generating more leads and sales. Leverage marketplace as a growth engine – Combining co-sell efforts with marketplace sales streamlines procurement for customers, improves accessibility, and accelerates revenue generation. Session 2: How to Operationalize and Scale Your Co-Sell Motion with Microsoft Date: February 26, 2025 at 9:30 am PST To scale their co-sell motion, ISVs need a structured approach that integrates co-selling into their overall GTM strategy, fosters alignment with Microsoft stakeholders, and prioritizes high-impact opportunities. In our second session, we share key strategies for operationalizing co-sell, from creating scalable resources to building cross-functional support. Here are the top takeaways to help you drive repeatable success and accelerate growth: Co-sell as a strategic element: Co-selling should be treated as a fundamental part of your go-to-market strategy, not just a one-off tactic. It’s about embedding co-sell into your broader sales approach to drive sustained growth. A strategic co-sell motion can accelerate sales cycles, increase deal sizes, and create longer-term partnerships. By making co-sell a core component of your GTM plan, you ensure it aligns with your broader business objectives and supports scalable growth over time. Align product-market fit: For co-sell success, your product must seamlessly integrate within your partner’s ecosystem and address critical customer pain points. It’s not just about having a solution that works technically, but one that directly ties into your partner's goals and creates clear value for the customer. This ensures both parties can demonstrate the solution’s unique value, which not only drives immediate sales but fosters repeatable success and strengthens your co-sell partnership. Understand mutual incentives: Co-selling is most effective when both parties benefit. To maximize this, you need to understand your partner’s motivations—whether that’s driving Azure consumption, hitting specific adoption targets, or achieving quota goals. By aligning your co-sell strategy with these priorities, you create a win-win dynamic that fosters stronger collaboration and accelerates the deal process. Recognizing and addressing your partner’s evolving incentives ensures that both sides remain motivated to drive deals forward. Create scalable co-sell resources: To sustain and scale co-selling efforts, it’s critical to build reusable resources and processes. This includes developing playbooks, one-pagers, email templates, and other assets that can be quickly deployed across teams and regions. With these resources, sales teams spend less time creating new materials and more time engaging meaningfully with partners. Scalable resources streamline operations, maintain consistency, and support seamless collaboration, which ultimately drives more efficient and impactful co-selling motions. Prioritize high-value accounts: Rather than spreading your co-sell efforts across a broad spectrum of clients, it’s more effective to focus on high-value accounts. Start by identifying where your ideal customer profiles overlap with your partner’s customer base, and build upon these existing synergies. This focused approach allows you to dedicate time and resources to deals with the highest potential for revenue growth. It reduces wasted effort on low-impact accounts and increases your chances of closing more significant, higher-value deals with your partner. Join us to master co-selling Whether you’re just getting started with co-sell or you’re looking to optimize existing efforts, these sessions will provide actionable insights you can immediately apply to your strategy. Register now to secure your spot and take your co-sell strategy to the next level!
