Kyndryl weds Microsoft as independent company looks to grow cloud services

IBM spin-off Kyndryl has made the first of what likely will be many strategic cloud partnerships with a pact with business software giant Microsoft.

Under the agreement the companies will develop new products built on Microsoft Cloud and aimed at facilitating digital transformation, Kyndryl stated. Microsoft has also become Kyndryl’s only Premier Global Alliance Partner.

Microsoft will sell products developed by the two companies through its global enterprise sales force and will develop a Microsoft Cloud training ground for employees called Kyndryl University for Microsof. The companies said they will focus on data modernization and governance, AI-driven innovations for industries, cyber security and resiliency, and transformation of mission critical workloads to the cloud. Kyndryl will lead with advisory, implementation, and managed services for hybrid environments, Kyndryl stated. 

“As an independent company, we’re investing in our partner ecosystem to support the success of our customers, and we’re focused on expanding our market opportunity across cloud, data, security, and intelligent automation,” said Martin Schroeter, Chairman and CEO of Kyndryl in a statement.

When IBM spun Kyndryl out earlier this month company executives said Kyndryl will have more  freedom to partner with other major tech companies and cloud hyperscalers such as Google, AWS, Microsoft, and others. 

In addition they said the company will invest in its workforce as well as focus on developing services for hot markets such as 5G, edge computing, cloud, and security.

At the time Schroeter set aggressive goals. “As an independent company, we will be flatter, faster, more focused and organized around high-priority customer needs and opportunities,” Schroeter wrote in the company’s  Form 10 Registration Statement with the SEC.  “We will also have more freedom to invest in and build on our capabilities to serve an addressable market that we expect to expand to over $500 billion by 2024, which is being driven by an explosion in data, migration to the cloud to manage all the data and analytics, and an urgent and obvious need to make information and technology systems more secure.”

Kyndryl more than 90,000 employees, $19 billion in annual revenue, operations in over 60 countries, and a customer base that includes 75% of the Fortune 100.