Microsoft Corp. and Telefónica announced plans to further expand their global strategic partnership to accelerate digital transformation for public and private entities of all sizes. Together, the two companies will help their mutual customers leverage the cloud to more quickly, securely and easily innovate and scale their operations to create new business opportunities and improve competitiveness.

Microsoft will deliver intelligent Microsoft cloud services – including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform – from new datacenter regions in Spain. Additionally, Telefónica will accelerate its own internal digital transformation by choosing Microsoft as its strategic cloud partner.

“Telefonica and Microsoft share a commitment to helping Spanish organizations of all sizes, in every industry, thrive in a world of rapid technologic change,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together, we will deliver comprehensive, intelligent, secure and trusted cloud services – spanning Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 – from datacenters in Spain, helping our customers accelerate their digital transformations.”

“The opening of a Microsoft datacenter region in Spain is a game changer, a key milestone in our strategic partnership that will boost Spain’s industrial fabric and digital economy”, said José María Álvarez-Pallete, chairman and CEO of Telefónica. “Cloud is one of the key priorities in Telefónica, as we announced in November, with the launch of Telefónica Tech, the new unit to boost the solid growth of digital services. This global strategic partnership with Microsoft will certainly help to achieve that objective.”

Microsoft and Telefónica Partnership Momentum

Today’s announcement builds on the partnership between both companies with new initiatives and joint plans across three key areas:

• With the expanded relationship, the two companies have identified the opportunity to collaborate to better serve the needs of organizations of all sizes, in critical sectors such as government, health, education, travel, manufacturing, retail, finance, insurance and more, all with significant social and economic impact. Joint capabilities, delivered from a Microsoft Azure datacenter region in Spain and leveraging Telefónica’s infrastructure, will also allow Telefónica and Microsoft’s joint customers to deliver new services that require low latency, security and assured bandwidth, opening up new scenarios around 5G, edge computing and Industry 4.0.
• A new strategic collaboration framework between Telefónica and Microsoft will also provide joint go-to-market plans in Telefónica’s footprint.
• As part of Telefónica’s digital transformation, the company will use the Microsoft cloud for its own internal operations, pursuing efficiency, flexibility and scalability improvements, optimization of operations and cost reductions. Telefónica has also deployed Microsoft 365 to its global employee base to enable more seamless communication and collaboration across the 14 countries in which it operates. As a strategic partner for its multi-cloud strategy, Microsoft will train hundreds of Telefónica employees on Microsoft Cloud services.