SES today announced plans to advance its digital transformation across its enterprise, operations and development of new services for the cloud-scale era.

As a cornerstone of the strategy, SES signed a multi-year agreement with Microsoft to be an Azure Orbital partner, as well as to accelerate and expand the use of Microsoft Azure across its operations and jointly develop cloud-based video and data connectivity managed services.

As an Azure Orbital partner, SES will be co-locating and managing O3b mPower gateways with Microsoft Azure locations so its customers are always only “one-hop” away from their Azure cloud services anywhere in the world. In addition, SES customers will enjoy improved network performance, speed-to-market, flexibility and scalability to route over Microsoft’s global network and inject value-added, cloud-based managed services such as enhanced security, SD-WAN, and other network functions into the service chain.

Additionally, to support customers migrating to the cloud, SES has established a corporate cloud cross-functional team responsible for driving cloud adoption within its own enterprise and operations, and defining, developing and launching seamless cloud, content and connectivity solutions across all of the company’s key market segments.

“With the breadth and scope of Azure’s global platform and capabilities, Microsoft emerges as an ideal partner in our accelerated transformation into a cloud-first enterprise delivering cloud-based video and data managed services,” said JP Hemingway, chief executive officer at SES Networks who leads SES’s corporate cloud initiative. “We believe our customers, from dense urban areas to remote and rural locations around the world, will be best served by a ‘new space’ ecosystem that enables them to be more agile, scale flexibly and seize new revenue opportunities.”