Introducing Dell PowerScale for Azure: Now in Public Preview
We’re excited to announce the public preview of Dell PowerScale for Microsoft Azure – a fully managed, enterprise-grade file storage solution natively integrated into Azure. This offering brings Dell’s proven scale-out Network-attached storage (NAS) technology directly into Azure, delivering the performance and scalability enterprises expect with the simplicity of Azure-native management. Supporting up to 8.4PB in a single namespace, Dell PowerScale offers the scalability needed for demanding modern workloads. With multi-protocol support (NFS, SMB, S3), it ensures seamless access across diverse applications while maintaining the trusted Dell PowerScale user experience. This Dell-managed solution handles monitoring, maintenance, and updates, enabling organizations to streamline operations, optimize storage, and focus on business priorities with confidence in their data’s security and accessibility. This natively integrated solution uses purpose-built virtual machine infrastructure provisioned by Microsoft in the standard Azure hyper scaler environment. This special VM leverages cache to flash persistent memory technology using NVDIMM-N specifications suitable for the fast linked journaling transactions. These purpose-built VMs enable higher performance throughput and max capacity scale. Capabilities of Dell PowerScale for Azure Multi-protocol access – Global permission structure shared across users and protocols. Seamless scalability – Easily adjust to changing workloads with scale-out capacity. Operational consistency – Same experience as PowerScale on-premises. Smooth data mobility – Transfer data across environments without disruption. Advanced data protection – Safeguard critical information with comprehensive backup and recovery solutions. Snapshots – Fast data backup and recovery. Native replication – Asynchronous replication for data migration or disaster recovery. Why Dell PowerScale for Azure? Dell PowerScale is purpose-built for modern data-intensive workloads that require high performance and scalability — such as AI/ML pipelines, media & entertainment, EDA (electronic design automation), backup & recovery, and enterprise content management. Key Benefits of the Integration: Dell-Managed Service: Enjoy a streamlined storage experience, with Dell handling deployment, monitoring, maintenance, and upgrades — freeing your IT teams to focus on higher-value initiatives. Scalable & Elastic: As business requirements grow, PowerScale dynamically scales capacity and performance by adding nodes on demand, without any downtime. Enterprise-Grade Durability: Data is distributed across multiple nodes within the cluster, ensuring high durability and fault tolerance. Advanced Protection: Uses erasure coding for space-efficient protection and features like SyncIQ for asynchronous replication across sites — keeping your data available even during outages. Secure Private Access: PowerScale integrates into your Azure Virtual Network (VNet) through Vnet Injection, ensuring secure, high-performance data access. Azure-Native Experience: Provision, manage, and monitor PowerScale from within the Azure portal. It supports full integration with Azure Resource Manager (ARM), upcoming support for CLI/Powershell/Terraform, and supports native billing. How to Use the Integration: Mount shared volumes to Azure VMs or Kubernetes running in the same VNet. Run analytics or AI workloads that need parallel access to high-throughput file storage. Support backup, disaster recovery, and archival workflows across sites. Store and manage media assets or research data in regulated industries. Getting Started with Dell PowerScale for Azure Getting started with Dell PowerScale is simple: Navigate to Azure Portal Go to https://portal.azure.com and search for Dell PowerScale in the Marketplace. The offer is named Dell PowerScale for Azure - Dell managed (Public Preview). Contact Dell for a private offer and request a Dell Reference Number. Deploy the Storage Resource Follow guided steps here to configure your resource or cluster Connect Your Workloads Use standard NFS or SMB to mount volumes from Azure VMs or AKS. More Resources You can subscribe to the service through the Azure Marketplace online store or through the Azure portal. Search for it by name: Dell PowerScale for Azure - Dell managed (Public Preview) To learn more about the service, check out Microsoft docs as well as Dell docsBoost Marketplace discoverability with AI-assisted feedback
Enhance your Marketplace listings with personalized guidance delivered through App Advisor. Powered by agentic capabilities trained on Microsoft best practices, App Advisor is a no-cost, self-service growth tool that scans and reviews your listings to provide clear, actionable recommendations. These insights are designed to improve discoverability and strengthen customer engagement—which can drive more clicks, leads, and deals. Try App Advisor today and learn more in our blog. Don't forget to follow the Marketplace blog, Marketplace discussion board and the events calendar to stay in the know!Announcing the Public Preview of Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution
We are excited to announce the public preview of Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution. This Azure service offers native-like integration of Pure Storage's innovative enterprise-grade fully managed block Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) with Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) aiding seamless VMware migrations to the cloud along with scalability, simplicity and data resiliency. Azure Native Integrations enable you to easily provision, manage, and tightly integrate independent software vendor (ISV) software and services on Azure. By leveraging the power of Azure, Pure Storage Cloud Service offers you many benefits, including scaling flexibility, native Azure experience, unified billing, and cost-effectiveness. You can easily discover and sign up for this via the Azure Marketplace. "We’re pleased to see Pure Storage’s integration with Microsoft Azure Native service. Through this collaboration, Pure and Microsoft can better serve customer needs by enabling them to provision, use and manage Pure Storage on Azure just like other Azure services. With this integrated offering, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers to quickly leverage Pure's enterprise-grade storage with Azure cloud services securely to open up a whole new set of possibilities for customers bringing enterprise-scale environments to the cloud. Together, Pure and Microsoft are helping customers save time and operational overhead while driving innovation." - Scott Hunter, Vice President Product Management, Microsoft Developer Division. Gartner report from Sept 2024 states that by 2028, consumption-based storage as a service (STaaS) will replace over 33% of enterprise storage capital expenditure (capex), up from less than 15% in 2024. Pure Storage® is a pivotal storage player among the Enterprise customers in revolutionizing the storage, management and resiliency while ensuring flexibility. From AI to archive, Pure Storage delivers a seamless cloud migration experience with one unified Storage as-a-Service (STaaS) platform across on-premises, private and public cloud, and hybrid environments. They are a 11x consequent leaders in Gartner® Magic Quadrant report for Primary Storage Platforms, with highest rating in Execution & Vision. Thus proving why, they are undoubtedly the Enterprise favorites! Some key customers for Pure Storage include Meta, ServiceNow, AC Milan, Comcast and many more! Fig 1: Magic Quadrant for Primary Storage, Sep 2024, Gartner Inc. How will Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for AVS help me? Fully managed block-storage-as-a-service solution, providing decoupled scalability and flexibility across Compute and Storage solutions. Optimized Total Cost of Operations (TCO) up to 40% with data reduction and compression tools. Seamless data mobility and migrations of VMware workloads across on-premises, hybrid and multi-cloud solutions to the Azure cloud. Enterprise-grade Data protection and Data resilience, with solutions such as Hybrid Disaster Recovery support in the roadmap. Get started with Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution Setup and subscribe to your Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud, available easily in the Azure Marketplace. You can start your journey free of cost and pay as you use the service. Look for “Pure Storage Cloud" in the Azure Marketplace and sign up via Contact Me button to show your interest for the preview. Fig 2: Contact Me offering on Azure Marketplace Once you have been allowlisted for the preview, you can also look for it using the search bar on Azure Portal or visit the marketplace on Azure portal to see the offer in your list of private plans. Fig 3: Searching for Azure Native Pure Storage via Azure portal Pure Storage in Marketplace private plans via Azure portal Provisioning a Storage Pool via Azure: Follow the instructions in the QuickStart to easily spin up your Pure Storage resource. Once you have created the Pure Storage resource on Azure, follow the simple steps in the Microsoft Learn docs, or navigate directly via the Overview blade to create Storage pools. 2. Quick-and-easy Connect to AVS: You can now easily connect your Pure Storage with your Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) using the “Connect” button in Storage pool. Resources Subscribe to the “Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud for Azure VMware Solution” available as Pay as You Go via Contact me in the Azure Marketplace. Create an Azure Native Pure Resource and storage pools via the service, see QuickStart: Get started with Azure Native Pure Storage Cloud Service in Microsoft Docs. To learn more, check out the Pure blog and Pure’s Press release. Learn more about the Pure Cloud Block Store and how to use it with AVS here.Marketplace Business Central products available in CSP channel
Business Applications adds new offer types to Microsoft AppSource to assist Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners in building solutions with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform products when they transact through the commercial marketplace.Ability Summit 2026: Accessibility-first innovation and your next partner opportunity
Accessibility is increasingly both a business imperative and a meaningful commercial opportunity for partners. At this year’s Microsoft Ability Summit, leaders across technology, education, and advocacy reinforced a clear point: accessibility-first innovation is creating new demand across AI, collaboration, learning, and customer experience. For partners, accessibility represents a clear opportunity to grow customer value. Accessibility-first innovation is becoming a mainstream expectation, opening opportunities to build differentiated services and solutions across AI, collaboration, learning, compliance, and customer experience. Organizations are increasingly viewing accessibility as part of a broader shift in how they approach AI, employee experience, and customer engagement. For partners, that shift creates an opportunity to lead higher-value conversations around innovation, trust, and long-term business impact. I encourage you to read Microsoft Chief Accessibility Officer Neil Barnett’s full recap of this year’s announcements and stories from the summit, including updates across AI, developer tools, Windows, devices, learning, Xbox, and inclusive packaging design. Why accessiblity matters for partners now Accessibility is becoming part of how customers evaluate experience quality, employee productivity, compliance expectations, and technology trust. Organizations are looking for technology that works consistently across real-world scenarios, roles, abilities, and environments. That expectation is accelerating as AI adoption grows. Accessibility is increasingly becoming part of how customers evaluate transformation readiness, technology trust, and the quality of the experiences they deliver across their organizations. A 2026 Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Microsoft found that assistive technology is already part of everyday work and life. Consumers reported using assistive features across at least six activities in the past month, on average. The same study found that 63% of respondents reported some level of difficulty with daily tasks related to vision, hearing, learning and cognition, mobility, and/or mental health. It also found that 71% of respondents would use assistive tools more often if enhanced with AI capabilities, and 55% said they feel a stronger commitment to employers when companies prioritize assistive tools and features. For partners, this points to a broader opportunity. Accessibility-first design can expand participation, strengthen employee and customer experiences, and build greater trust in technology, making it an increasingly important part of long-term transformation strategy. Where partners can lead The opportunity for partners is to bring accessibility into the conversations that are already shaping customer priorities, including AI transformation and adoption, modern work, application innovation, employee experience, customer engagement, and compliance. As accessibility becomes more central to business and technology strategy, partners can differentiate by making it part of the broader value they bring to customers. Partners that bring accessibility-first innovation into these conversations can deepen trust, expand strategic relevance, and create more differentiated value over time. This opportunity spans organizations of every size. Across both SMB and enterprise customers, accessibility is increasingly part of how leaders think about growth, workforce experience, customer connection, and technology modernization, and the Microsoft partner ecosystem is well positioned to meet that need. Partner opportunities in Microsoft Marketplace Microsoft Marketplace offers a useful view into how partners are translating accessibility-first innovation into practical customer value. The examples below illustrate how that opportunity is taking shape across different business and technology scenarios. Level Access makes digital accessibility a streamlined, scalable part of everyday operations The Level Access platform supports a continuous approach to accessibility, embedded into design, development, governance, and training workflows. Unlike point tools or episodic audits, this integrated solution helps organizations accelerate remediation, reduce risk, and demonstrate progress over time. Organizations can extend the power of the Level Access platform through private offers with capabilities such as LevelDocs for accessible content creation and remediation in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; LevelCI for automated web accessibility testing within CI/CD pipelines; and Mobile Testing for native iOS and Android accessibility across physical and virtual devices. Retain Connector by Inclusively Many organizations have invested heavily in benefits, workplace accommodations, mental health resources, and employee support programs. But employees, especially those navigating disabilities or workplace barriers, often don't know what is available or how to access it. Retain Connector by Inclusively closes that gap directly inside the tools employees already use. Deployed within Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 with no heavy integrations required, Retain acts as a workforce intelligence layer that lets employees describe their needs in plain language and get routed to the right benefits and resources through Inclusively's Success Enabler framework without needing to know what to search for or where to look. For employees who may feel hesitant to disclose a need or navigate a fragmented benefits landscape, the anonymous, conversational experience lowers the barrier to getting support. For HR and people leaders, Retain surfaces something equally valuable: real-time, aggregated insights into the benefits and barriers employees are actually experiencing. That intelligence helps organizations understand unmet demand, allocate benefits investments more effectively, and demonstrate a genuine commitment to inclusion not just in policy, but in practice. Creating differentiated value through accessibility offerings Taken together, these examples reinforce a broader point: accessibility is becoming an increasingly important part of how partners create differentiated value across both employee and customer experiences. Marketplace solutions can strengthen how partners bring accessibility-first innovation into customer conversations and platform experiences. The Microsoft Accessibility Partner Onboarding Guide also provides a useful foundation for partners looking to expand their accessibility focus on Microsoft platforms. The opportunity ahead for partners Accessibility is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversations customers are having around AI, modern work, security, application development, and industry transformation. The opportunity is not to treat accessibility as a separate conversation. It is to make accessibility part of how customers modernize, adopt AI, and build more trusted digital experiences. Ability Summit 2026 reinforced that accessibility-first innovation is shaping the future of AI, productivity, learning, collaboration, and end-customer experience. For partners, the opportunity is to turn that innovation into real customer impact. It is about building AI-powered experiences that are more trusted, more inclusive, and more effective for the people they serve. As Frontier Transformation accelerates AI adoption, partners are uniquely positioned to turn accessibility-first innovation into lasting business impact deepening customer relationships, expanding strategic relevance, and building stronger momentum as accessibility-first expectations continue to rise for our customers. Additional resources Read the Ability Summit 2026 blog by Neil Barnett, Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft. Explore the Forrester Consulting thought leadership paper commissioned by Microsoft, May 2026. Visit the Unique Unites Us accessibility hub. Watch for Ability Summit sessions to be available on demand in the coming weeks.
From insight to action: how Adobe and Microsoft are helping marketers move faster with AI
Today’s marketing leaders are under pressure to do more than ever—deliver meaningful personalization, accelerate execution, and prove measurable business impact. At the same time, teams are navigating increasing complexity: fragmented data, disconnected tools, and insights that arrive too late to act on. AI can change this—but only when it’s embedded directly into how people already work. That’s why Microsoft and Adobe are deepening our partnership: bringing customer experience intelligence, AI-powered workflows, and enterprise-grade AI directly into Microsoft 365 Copilot—so teams can move from insight to alignment to execution in one continuous workflow. The result is faster decisions, more coordinated execution, and clearer business outcomes—without breaking flow or context. Bringing customer experience intelligence into the flow of work Marketing teams don’t struggle because they lack data. They struggle because insights live in one place, collaboration in another, and execution somewhere else entirely. That disconnect slows teams down and creates unnecessary friction between analysis and action. Together, Adobe and Microsoft are changing that dynamic by connecting Adobe’s customer experience capabilities with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Cowork—so insight, collaboration, and next-best action can happen where work already happens: in Copilot Chat and in everyday apps like Teams, Word, and PowerPoint. Marketers can ask questions, explore insights, align with teammates, and take action without jumping between tools—turning intelligence into impact at the moment it matters. Adobe Marketing Agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot: now generally available A major milestone in this journey is the general availability of the Adobe Marketing Agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot, now available via Microsoft Commercial Marketplace. The Adobe Marketing Agent brings Adobe customer experience intelligence directly into Copilot, enabling marketing teams to: Accelerate time from insight to decision Move seamlessly from analysis to execution Keep humans firmly in control, with AI supporting—not replacing—decision‑making Importantly, the agent is enterprise-ready by design. IT administrators can deploy and manage the experience through the Microsoft 365 admin center, ensuring security, governance, and compliance at scale. Expanding executive experiences with Copilot Cowork Looking ahead, Adobe skills designed for customer experience orchestration will be accessible in Copilot Cowork—in a future release. This upcoming experience will enable customer experience leaders to engage with customer experience insights in a more direct, conversational way, bringing strategic visibility into the same Copilot environments where decisions are made and actions are coordinated. Built on Azure to scale securely and responsibly The technology foundation of this innovation is Azure. Adobe Experience Platform, Adobe Experience Platform Agent Orchestrator, and Adobe AI Agents are built on Azure and leverage Azure AI models, providing the scalability, security, and reliability enterprises require. By running on Azure, these agentic experiences benefit from Microsoft’s global infrastructure, enterprise‑grade security, and responsible AI commitments—supporting customer trust as organizations scale AI across their business. Designed for interoperability across agent ecosystems Modern enterprises don’t operate in a single ecosystem—and their agents shouldn’t either. Adobe agents are built to interoperate with agents created using Microsoft Azure AI Foundry or Copilot Studio, enabling customers to orchestrate richer, cross‑functional workflows across marketing, sales, service, and operations. This architecture is designed to enable organizations to compose agentic solutions that reflect how work actually happens—across systems, teams, and business processes. Moving from experimentation to execution This partnership reflects a broader shift in how organizations adopt AI—moving from experimentation to embedded, enterprise‑ready execution. By bringing the full power of Adobe Experience Platform together with Microsoft’s AI platform, cloud infrastructure, and Copilot experiences, we’re helping teams move faster with clarity, confidence, and control. This is how AI becomes not just powerful—but practical. Learn more Adobe + Microsoft partnership page Adobe Marketing Agent for Microsoft Copilot pagePartner Blog | Driving channel velocity in an AI-first world: Microsoft Marketplace at Channel Partners Conference
The recent Channel Partners Conference & Expo brought together thousands of channel leaders, technology providers, and ecosystem partners to explore what’s next for the channel—and how partners can accelerate growth in a market being rapidly reshaped by AI. With an audience deeply focused on differentiation, scale, and customer value, the conference highlighted how cloud, AI, and modern commerce models are redefining the partner opportunity. Microsoft Marketplace participated as a Platinum sponsor, reflecting the central role the channel plays as customers move AI from experimentation into production. As partners guide strategy, deployment, and outcomes, Marketplace provides the commercial foundation—connecting partners, software companies, and customers through flexible, channel-led sales models that scale. “Microsoft Marketplace gives enterprise and SMC customers a direct path to procure Devicie against their Microsoft commitments, while our channel-led sales motion extends our reach through the trusted partner relationships that help customers achieve better device management outcomes.” Connor O’Reilly, Channel Sales Manager, Devicie Continue reading here
Microsoft Partnership Multiplier Series for ISVs (SDCs) with Juhi Saha
Eighty percent of Azure Marketplace listings never generate meaningful revenue - this session reveals why and shows you how to be in the winning twenty percent. We'll move beyond basic listings to explore the monetization hierarchy: when contact-me offers work versus when transactability becomes essential, how private offers unlock enterprise opportunities, and advanced strategies like MACC consumption programs. You'll learn the pricing models that convert versus those that create friction, discover what truly drives marketplace visibility and field seller recommendations, and understand the co-marketing tactics that actually work. Walk away with a clear offer design strategy and your path to first marketplace transaction. Register for the event here About Juhi She specializes in turning partnerships into a company’s fastest growth engine. A seasoned operator, over the past two decades, she's helped startups, scale-ups, services companies and global enterprises transform complex ecosystems into real revenue, driving billions in pipeline (and valuations), accelerating exits, and scaling globally while de-risking the investment into partner-led growth. At Microsoft, she launched and led Pegasus, the company’s flagship program for high-growth VC-backed startups, unlocking hundreds of millions in pipeline. She also built fintech and AI partnerships that shaped Microsoft’s GTM strategy with key industries. As VP of Partnerships at Clearbit, she designed and ran a new partner business that generated double-digit revenue growth and positioned the company for acquisition by HubSpot. Earlier leadership roles at Intel and Qualcomm gave her a foundation in product, operations, and ecosystem expansion. Today, as CEO of Partner1, she advises CEOs and CROs on how to: ✔ Grow profitably and globally through B2B partnerships while de-risking investment in partnerships ✔ Accelerate co-sell and marketplace revenue with Microsoft, AWS, GCP, AI and other key ecosystems ✔ Align GTM, sales, and partner strategies to unlock non-dilutive, scalable growth She also serves as a board director and strategic advisor to fintech, AI, and SaaS companies scaling through ecosystem-led growth. With a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from UC San Diego, and three patents that run on every mobile device, she pairs deep technical expertise with real-world impact. Combined with go-to-market expertise, She brings the rare ability to bridge vision with execution, and partnerships with revenue.Partner Blog | Unlocking the profitability multiplier: Maximizing revenue with Microsoft Marketplace
As organizations look to build their AI-first strategies, Microsoft partners are central to turning that ambition into customer outcomes and advancing frontier transformation. Customers are asking for guidance on how to right-size their cloud and AI investments to maximize impact without compromising on security or governance. At the same time, expectations are rising—software companies need mechanisms to scale their software and shorten time-to-value while channel partners need to curate AI solutions that map to specific customer outcomes. Speed is becoming a key differentiator and Microsoft Marketplace is designed to accelerate how we go to market and sell together. To better understand the overall value of Marketplace, we asked Omdia to study the partner revenue opportunity. The findings estimate Marketplace is a $300 billion partner revenue opportunity by 2030. Continue reading here Don't forget to follow the Marketplace discussion board and join in on the conservation!The Microsoft Marketplace opportunity for channel ecosystem
Microsoft estimates, based on IDC data, that the total addressable market (TAM) for small and medium enterprises will reach $777 billion by FY26—and is on track to surpass $1 trillion by 2030. This represents more than 400 million organizations worldwide with fewer than 3,000 employees. As organizations look to become AI-first, Microsoft partners play a critical role as trusted advisors in navigating this transformation. Microsoft Marketplace is the platform that scales AI-first transformation, connecting your solutions and offerings to millions of commercial customers. Building on the momentum from Microsoft Ignite and the recent announcement of the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace, we’re excited to introduce the general availability of resale enabled offers. Continue reading here
