Vodafone and Microsoft have announced a five-year relationship to support small and medium-sized businesses across Europe to transform digitally.

The two companies will deliver new end-to-end cloud-based services that will leverage 5G, edge computing and IoT capabilities to support growth and deliver innovative tools for hybrid work.

Combining Vodafone Business’ global footprint and strengths in emerging connectivity technologies with Microsoft’s leading cloud platforms, Vodafone’s customers will have direct access to Microsoft 365, Teams Phone System and Microsoft Azure.

The two companies will collaborate and co-innovate to deliver new offerings in areas such as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) and IoT, bringing the benefits of 5G and Mobile Private Networks (MPNs) to life.

The first area of collaboration will be Mixed Reality. Using Vodafone Business’ edge computing services with Microsoft’s software and HoloLens 2 headset, organisations will be able to improve operations and remote working experiences.

The agreement builds on an existing relationship and will provide customers with seamless cloud experiences that are flexible, secure, easy-to-use and future-ready – supporting organisations as they transition operations to run outside of legacy infrastructure with professional and managed services that bring the network, cloud and security together to secure and optimise application performance.

Mark Allinson, Strategy and Development Director, Vodafone Business, said: “For businesses to become truly digital, they need networks, cloud and security to work in harmony. Together with Microsoft we are providing solutions that can be rapidly deployed and easily managed to support new ways of working and constantly improve business processes. This marks another step towards Vodafone becoming a SME Champion and a platform-based business.”

“More than ever before, small and medium-size businesses across Europe and Africa need secure and reliable solutions and services that enable real-time communication, collaboration and innovation in order to transform their businesses and realise growth,” said Rodney Clark, Corporate Vice President, Channel Sales, Microsoft.

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Vodafone Business to bring innovative Microsoft cloud solutions, that leverage 5G and edge computing services and support new ways of working, to market.”

These new services will be available to Vodafone Business customers across Europe from 4 November 2021.