Exactly this. Microsoft was brilliant to leverage o365 to not just boost their numbers with Azure AD but also to get a cloud provider effectively approved by a

Exactly this. Microsoft was brilliant to leverage o365 to not just boost their numbers with Azure AD but also to get a cloud provider effectively approved by a company’s security department in an enterprise “under the radar”. What security team/department is going to say “no” to the only reasonable upgrade path? Even better in a decent sized multi-national this is often done at the global/core/shared service level so you suddenly have a vetted and pre-approved cloud provider at the global level for all of these other operating companies. I view the former as a shady number boost but combined with the latter the only conclusion is that Microsoft is still the cunning strategists we thought they might not be anymore. It’s genius really and not only shows how much they get enterprises but how ruthlessly they’ll take advantage of that knowledge and the enterprise inroads they have.