Microsoft sees huge opportunity for Azure in China

Ralph Haupter, president of Microsoft Asia, spoke to CNBC recently about how organizations in Asia are looking for ways to digitally transform their businesses by taking advantage of latest technologies. He also mentioned that China is a huge opportunity for Azure as there is heavy demand for cloud both from private and government organizations.

“China obviously is a huge opportunity that’s defined by size (and) acceleration of innovation…you have, by definition, high demand and digitization,” Haupter said, adding that many government initiatives were betting heavily on technology.

“China regards technological innovation as an important driving source for development, which let us see China’s huge market potential for the cloud business,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice-president of Microsoft cloud and enterprise group.

The public cloud services in APAC is expected to grow 17.7% in 2017 to $10 billion, according to Gartner. By 2020, total public cloud services spending is expected to rise to $15.8 billion. Microsoft will try to grab this opportunity through their Azure service delivered by 21Vianet.

To ensure a compliant, enterprise-grade public cloud experience, Microsoft has partnered with 21Vianet within China to deliver Microsoft Azure to our customers in the region. 21Vianet is a trusted and reliable partner who can deliver the quality and reliability that Microsoft Azure customers require, delivering Azure service from multiple locations in China to enable critical disaster recovery scenarios. In fact, 21Vianet has already delivered fully functional cloud services to more than 3,000 customers in China, including CNTV, LineKong, GMW.cn and Coca-Cola China.