Distributor Tech Data wants to get VARs up to speed with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Intune with a new program designed to help partners quickly build a cloud business. The TDCloud Academy offers programs to help with business modeling, opportunity recognition and lead generation, sales, marketing, deployment and billing.

To qualify for TDCloud Academy, VARs have to register as a Microsoft Cloud Partner and list Tech Data as their distributor of choice, according to the press release. Just by so doing, partners get access to the exclusive TDcloud website. It’s a tiered program, which means resellers new to the cloud can get the most basic level technical and marketing best practices training, while more experienced cloud VARs get access to more partner-to-partner networking events and similar perks.

TDCloud Academy represents at least the partial culmination of Tech Data’s cloud ambitions — as the distributor competes with cloud initiatives from rivals, most notably Ingram Micro, Tech Data sees this reseller training program as a true differentiator. After all, the products are worthless if channel partners have no idea how to deploy them.

And obviously, Microsoft is a high-profile vendor to home in on for the first class of TDCloud Academy, with Office 365 garnering a healthy aura of buzz. Stay tuned for more cloud updates from Tech Data.