Dive Brief:
- Microsoft announced it will partner with Dell to push Surface Pro tablets to enterprise customers.
- As part of the partnership, businesses will soon be able to purchase Microsoft’s tablets through Dell’s enterprise sales division.
- The company said it plans to partner with other large tech companies such as HP in a similar effort.
Dive Insight:
Microsoft said the Dell partnership is the first step in a bigger plan to promote Surface Pro tablets for business use. HP said that it will also soon sell Microsoft's tablet through its enterprise sales force.
Microsoft hopes that selling tablets through large IT vendors will also help it drive business adoption of Windows 10. Analysts anticipate businesses will be slow to move to Windows 10. Although millions of consumers have upgraded, experts say Windows 7 will remain the dominant enterprise OS for at least the next three years.
The battle for enterprise customers appears to be heating up, with numerous partnerships formed over the last month aimed at enabling companies to better promote their technologies to enterprise users. Last week, Apple announced it will partner with Cisco to give business users of iOS devices a “fast lane” on Cisco-powered networks, and it teamed up with IBM last year to push its iPad to business users.
