SES signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to be an Azure Orbital partner as well as to accelerate and expand the use of Microsoft Azure across its operations and jointly develop cloud-based video and data connectivity managed services.
Under the arrangement, SES will be co-locating and managing O3b mPOWER gateways with Microsoft Azure locations so its customers are always only “one-hop” away from their Azure cloud services anywhere in the world. More specifically, SES will be the medium earth orbit (MEO) satellite partner for Microsoft Azure Orbital. The two companies also agreed to make joint investments in Azure Orbital ground stations for the MEO and Earth Observation segments that SES will deploy and manage based on its industry expertise, with the first Earth Observation gateway being located at Quincy, Western Australia.
The Microsoft partnership is expected to bring improved network performance for SES customers as they route over Microsoft’s global network and inject value-added, cloud-based managed services such as enhanced security, SD-WAN, and other network functions into the service chain.
Additionally, to support customers migrating to the cloud, SES has established a corporate cloud cross-functional team responsible for driving cloud adoption within its own enterprise and operations, and defining, developing and launching seamless cloud, content and connectivity solutions across all of the company’s key market segments. These cloud-based solutions will enable SES customers to enjoy the agility, flexibility and cost-optimisation they require in capitalising on new revenue opportunities. Under the corporate cloud initiative, SES is also moving its IT systems and operations to cloud-based automated services and applications.
“With the breadth and scope of Azure’s global platform and capabilities, Microsoft emerges as an ideal partner in our accelerated transformation into a cloud-first enterprise delivering cloud-based video and data managed services,” said JP Hemingway, CEO of SES Networks who leads SES’s corporate cloud initiative. “We believe our customers – from dense urban areas to remote and rural locations around the world – will be best served by a ‘new space’ ecosystem that enables them to be more agile, scale flexibly and seize new revenue opportunities.”
