Microsoft and Telstra expand partnership with five year deal

Telstra and Microsoft have expanded their ongoing partnership with a five-year agreement to combine the tech giant’s solutions with the telco’s network reach.

This will help Telstra shift around 90% of its workloads to the public cloud by 2025, which includes Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud partner as part of Telstra’s multi-cloud approach. Microsoft will in turn become an “anchor tenant” of the high-capacity intercity fibre network that Telstra is spending $1.6bn upgrading to 55Tbps on selected links.

"Digital technology is foundational to the resilience and differentiation of every organisation. Our partnership brings together Telstra's leadership in network connectivity with the breadth and depth of the Microsoft Cloud to address key challenges, including hybrid work and sustainability, and support Australia's growth," said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft.

Transforming Australia's businesses at scale

Telstra intends to utilise Microsoft technology like Microsoft 365, Azure, and Teams to bring to market several new industry-based products to help transform the way businesses look at hybrid working and cloud migration. Initially focusing on manufacturing, retail, agriculture, utilities, and finance, these new digital products will be delivered by dedicated end-to-end Microsoft practice within Telstra Purple, Telstra's managed services and technology consulting business.

Andrew Penn, Telstra CEO, said the deal is aligned to Telstra’s T25 growth strategy to deliver growth, exceptional customer experiences, and continued network and technology leadership.

“As the go-to partner for Microsoft in Australia, this expanded agreement will turbocharge how we deliver compelling, all-digital experiences. The pervasiveness of technology in businesses today and its ability to transform their operations, improve productivity, reduce their environmental impact and meet evolving customer needs means there’s no one-size-fits all solution.

“Beyond our network, one of our biggest differentiators is our 2,000-strong Telstra Purple team of technology experts who partner with businesses to design, deliver and manage solutions across cloud, cybersecurity, software development, data and AI, and workplace technologies. Our strategic partnership with Microsoft is on a scale not seen before in Australia, and it will be Australian businesses who will benefit at a time when the urgency to digitise and transform their operations has never been greater,” said Penn.

Addressing sustainability problems 

The two companies also intend to collaborate on ESG areas to improve sustainability outcomes in Australia and enable Telstra to meet its own commitments.

Together they plan to combine the secure data exchange capabilities of the Telstra Data Hub platform with Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability to help Telstra’s enterprise, government and small business customers to accelerate their sustainability progress and business growth through data insights. Microsoft will also support Telstra in achieving its own sustainability goals using Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability which will provide data insights into sustainability performance.