Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella yesterday shared his thoughts on a “mobile-first, cloud-first world” during his keynote address at Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 (WPC14) in Washington DC. The keynote came a day ahead of Microsoft’s announcement of 18,000 job cuts company wide, the largest ever round of layoffs at the software giant.

But yesterday, Nadella’s keynote was all about opportunity. He said he believes there is a “tremendous opportunity” with mobile and cloud solutions, and his company is focused on defining the “next-generation of productivity” as well.

“There are going to be over 3 billion people with connected devices. There’s going to be over 200 billion sensors out there. The amount of application development that spans all of that computing is going to explode,” Nadella told WPC14 attendees. “They’re going to both generate tons and tons of zettabytes of data, [and] they’re also going to consume and reason over that large data.”

Nadella also commented on several topics that of interest to managed service providers (MSPs) partners, including:

Developing a digital infrastructure that connects people worldwide is key, Nadella said, and Microsoft will support this initiative going forward.

“We’re building out that digital infrastructure that ties together people, their activities [and] their relationships to all of the artifacts of their life, be they photos or documents at work,” he said.

Nadella added Microsoft wants its employees to consistently bring their A-game, and his company is on a continuous journey to ensure its workers find deeper meaning in their daily activities.

A full video of Nadella’s keynote is available here.

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