Microsoft-Accenture joint venture Avanade to launch an Adobe practice
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On July 15, Adobe announced it would partner with the Microsoft-Accenture joint venture Avanade. Avanade will launch an Adobe practice with its first order of business being connecting the Adobe Experience Cloud with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure.
Last year, Microsoft announced it would be partnering with Accenture and Avanade to build custom AI services tailored for specific industry verticals. That effort, dubbed "Dynamics 365 AI solutions," actually doesn't build on the Dynamics 365 platform.
Avanade is one of the largest, if not the largest Microsoft systems integration partner. Accenture is one of Microsoft's biggest partners, with its Accenture Microsoft Business Group focused on services involving Azure migrations; Microsoft Dynamics CRM/ERP; and Microsoft 365, Redmond's subscription bundle of Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Adobe said the Accenture Microsoft Business Group would be helping with the Adobe Experience Cloud/Dynamics 365 and Azure integrations.
Microsoft and Adobe have been partnering more closely in recent months/years. In 2016, Adobe announced that Microsoft's Azure would be its "preferred" (not exclusive) cloud. In 2017, the pair announced further integrations between their respective services, including Microsoft Teams and Adobe's Sign e-signature service. Adobe, along with SAP, was one of the founding companies of the Open Data Initiative which Microsoft announced last fall. (Accenture is a member of the ODI Partner Council which Microsoft announced in March 2019.)
Microsoft officials said in March that "in the coming months" they would deliver "a new approach for publishing, enriching and ingesting initial data feeds from Adobe Experience Platform, activated through Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Office 365 and SAP C/4HANA, into a customer's data lake."