CHANNEL PARTNERS — The first-ever Microsoft Cloud Migration Lab at the Channel Partners Conference & Expo opened with a discussion on how the migration to Office 365 is easier than many partners might perceive.

Migration is “just that easy,” and partners should be careful not to overthink the process, said Sherman Crancer, partner channel development manager with Microsoft.

“It’s separating facts from fiction and providing simple education to understand how they actually sell Office 365,” he said. “It’s a line with the distributor, a line with the migration company; sell the product, migrate it, now you’re making money.”

Timothy Dennis, a SkyKick account executive, also participated in the discussion and said it’s important for partners to know the ease of migration and how to generate recurring revenue once a client base has been moved to the cloud.

“I work for a company that helps handle the bulk of the heavy lifting with that transition, and then helps the partner base grow their cloud practice with that recurring revenue stream once their client base is in 365,” he said. “With Office 365, the market’s not even 10 percent penetrated yet; there’s still a lot of opportunity for partners. There’s a lot of demand and the transition is, quite frankly, a huge pain. It’s costing them time and money, and we’re here to make that more efficient for them.”{ad}

The task at hand is twofold: helping partners that are apprehensive to adopt the cloud, and then helping those that have with the transition, Dennis said.

“This is what’s happening: All the cloud-based applications are being adopted, they’re being created and partners are being forced into this role to manage these existing cloud applications,” he said. “Data is moving off-premises, there’s less and less hardware, and this is what’s happening.”

Migration is catching “like wildfire” in the channel, Crancer said.

“We have several master telecommunication companies (Intelisys, WTG, Telarus) who we endorse from Microsoft,” he said. “They get it. They understand how to help agents get into the channel and actually start selling Office 365. We’re here to support every way to market, and it’s not just through those masters, but through hosting and different avenues. But we’ve got to get the education out and show people that it’s just that easy.”

The Thursday edition of the Microsoft Cloud Migration Lab will feature presentations on disaster recovery as a service.