I am pleased to share that Persistent recently acquired Data Glove, a boutique Microsoft partner with expertise in implementing Microsoft and Azure enabled transformation. Read the full announcement. Creating a dedicated Microsoft business unit is a logical next step for Persistent. We are scaling our Microsoft competency by increasing our US nearshore presence with 250 employees in the US and Costa Rica, including +125 certified professionals with over 400 certifications in Azure, Azure DevOps, and Microsoft Dynamics.
The increasing adoption of digital post-Covid has transformed how services get delivered and how work gets done to deliver these services. Our clients have successfully transformed their business with Azure-led modernization, and have also leveraged modern workspace solutions and Microsoft business applications for improved employee productivity.
Additionally, we find enterprise clients with legacy applications increasingly moving to the cloud. Clients are looking to embrace cloud incrementally without disrupting business or replacing well-established applications and processes overnight. Microsoft’s enterprise footprint and IT’s familiarity with Microsoft stack, including end-user understanding with Microsoft technology, make the transition to Azure easier. A rich Microsoft and Azure partner ecosystem also helps overcome the talent bottleneck.
Our approach to Azure transformation is to automate the everyday, reusable tasks with industry best practices. This acquisition will help us bolster our practitioner-guided, automation-led cloud transformation with the addition of Azure consultants, IPs and Assets delivering over 100K migrations.
Increasing Persistent’s skill base is an important initiative. Microsoft’s President and Vice-Chair, Brad Smith, just published a timely article on the critical shortage of technical talent in the US, especially in the cybersecurity space, with a commitment to increase training across community colleges. Our new Microsoft business unit will work closely with regional colleges and universities to develop and train the next generation of talent to meet the industry’s growing needs.
According to IDC, the Cloud Professional Services market is estimated to reach $93.8 billion by 2025. (IDC, Worldwide Digital Transformation Professional Services Forecast, 2021–2025, Doc # US47131021, July 2021). Data Glove is also a Microsoft Gold OCP Partner with competencies in Azure Cloud Platform, Data Center, Application Development, Data Analytics, and comprehensive IP to accelerate Azure adoption.
In closing, this offers significant benefits to our clients by strengthening our Azure and mainframe modernization competencies, augments Persistent’s Cloud Automation Stack with expanded IPs and accelerators, and accelerating Microsoft business application and modern workspace solution implementations to increase our client’s business productivity.
