PRESS RELEASE — SAN ANTONIO – Feb. 16, 2017 – Rackspace^® today announced that the company has achieved seven gold and three silver Microsoft Partner Competencies for capabilities spanning application development, cloud platform support, data management, business applications, mobility and productivity. Microsoft Partner Competencies recognize companies in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) for their proven expertise in delivering quality solutions in a specialized area of business.

“Rackspace continues to grow its expertise in Microsoft cloud solutions as these 10 Microsoft Partner Competencies prove, making the company a reliable and long-standing member of the Microsoft Partner Network,” said Aziz Benmalek, Vice President, Worldwide Hosting and Cloud Services at Microsoft Corp. “The company continuously strives to deliver positive customer outcomes with service-oriented solutions to meet our joint customer needs.”

To secure these Microsoft Partner Competencies, Rackspace demonstrated expertise through certifications on the latest Microsoft technologies as well as successful customer use cases and testimonials. The company has hundreds of certified Rackers across the globe who hold more than 1,000 technical certifications and an additional 800 sales and licensing certifications that are applied to help customers understand the best way to optimize their spend and license configurations across a suite of Microsoft technologies.

Rackspace renewed five existing competencies and secured five additional competencies in 2017, doubling the number of competencies secured in the previous year. The company is among the top tier of global competency partners and one of the strongest in the managed services industry. The competencies span all six areas of excellence outlined by Microsoft and include Cloud Platform, Cloud Productivity, Collaboration and Content, Hosting, Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions, Application Development, Data Center, Data Analytics, Data Platform and Messaging.{ad}

“Rackspace is honored to be recognized with 10 Microsoft Partner Competencies that span across crucial areas of customer need,” said Ramakant Pandrangi, VP of Microsoft Clouds at Rackspace. “As a 15-year Microsoft partner and the only five-time Microsoft Partner of the Year, this recognition is indicative of our deep-seeded expertise in supporting Microsoft technologies. With more enterprises shifting to Microsoft’s leading cloud platform, Rackspace is well positioned to help enterprises manage their Microsoft technologies in a public, private, hybrid or multi-cloud environment.”

Rackspace offers products and services on a wide range of Microsoft technologies including Fanatical Support for Microsoft Azure, Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Microsoft Cloud Platform, Fanatical Support for Office 365 and Rackspace Support for Microsoft SQL Server as well as a portfolio of solutions on top of these technologies. For more information, visit https://www.rackspace.com/en-us/microsoft.

About Rackspace
Rackspace, the #1 managed cloud company, helps businesses tap the power of hosting and cloud computing without the complexity and cost of managing it on their own. Rackspace engineers deliver specialized expertise, easy-to-use tools, and Fanatical Support® for leading technologies including AWS, VMware, Microsoft, OpenStack and others. The company serves customers in 150 countries, including more than half of the FORTUNE 100. Rackspace was named a leader in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, and has been honored by Fortune, Forbes, and others as one of the best companies to work for. Learn more at www.rackspace.com.