Google-backed cloud storage company Egnyte explains why it's betting big on Microsoft, 'the best partner there is' (MSFT)
- On Thursday, Egnyte, a cloud storage rival to Box and Dropbox, announced a multi-million dollar, multi-year deal with Microsoft. Under the terms of the deal, Egnyte will move many of its services to the Azure cloud, and the two will form joint strategies.
- Before, Egnyte was centered on Google Cloud, but it switched its focus to Microsoft Azure two years ago, citing Microsoft's own focus on enterprise customers.
- Egnyte CEO and co-founder Vineet Jain explains why he thinks Microsoft is "the best partner there is."
- Notably, Egnyte counts GV, the firm formerly known as Google Ventures, as an investor.
The cloud storage and collaboration company Egnyte just signed a multi-million dollar, multi-year deal with the Microsoft Azure cloud — because Microsoft is "the best partner there is," says Egnyte CEO and cofounder Vineet Jain.
Under this partnership, announced Thursday, Egnyte, a rival to Box and Dropbox for business customers, will move much of its services to the Microsoft Azure cloud, and the two companies will come up with joint product strategies.
Jain says this partnership was a good fit because most of its customers already use Microsoft Office, where Egnyte already integrates.
"I find that Microsoft, from an enterprise focus — which is what we're all about — is probably the best partner there is," Jain told Business Insider. "We both win by providing one integrated solution. We are very bullish about what the potential of Egnyte and Microsoft could be, and it's off to a good start."
Essentially, Egnyte helps customers choose where they want to store their files — whether that's in the cloud or their own servers. Once those files are stored, Egnyte offers security and access controls that can be appealing to the IT department.
Egnyte still helps customers store data in other clouds, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. However, Jain calls Microsoft the "best partner" out of the three, despite its second-place position to AWS in the broader market, and recommends Microsoft Azure to its customers as its preferred cloud storage system.
"We're not seeing that level of integration or go-to-market programs put together by Amazon," Jain said. "Microsoft is much hungrier. They really want to bridge the gap between them and Amazon."
Previously, Egnyte was centered on Google Cloud — and, in fact, took investment capital from investment firm GV, back in the days when it was still known as Google Ventures. But two years ago, Egnyte decided to switch focus Azure as a storage partner because it is "dominant in the enterprise," Jain says. Microsoft helps customers not just in selling cloud services, but in helping them migrate to the cloud, Jain says.
What's more, Jain says that Egnyte liked that Microsoft provides a hybrid cloud service, where companies keep some of their data on their own servers, and some in the public cloud. Some companies still need to keep some of their workloads on data centers due to regulatory concerns.
Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services have also announced hybrid cloud services, but they are not yet generally available to the public, making Microsoft the de facto leader in the space.
Just in October, Egnyte closed $75 million from Goldman Sachs.
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