Microsoft Corp. is rolling out three new vertical-specific cloud service bundles aimed at organizations in the financial, manufacturing and nonprofit sectors.

Microsoft is sharpening its focus on vertical markets in a time when its top public cloud rivals such as Google LLC and IBM Corp. are pursuing similar strategies. 

The company’s new offerings, which debuted on Wednesday, are Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. They were announced alongside updates to its existing vertical-specific cloud bundle for the healthcare sector.

Each offering includes a selection of services from Microsoft’s Azure public cloud, Microsoft 365, the product line that includes the Office productivity suite, and other parts of the technology giant’s  portfolio. Those services are paired with industry-specific components tailored to the vertical a given bundle targets. The components include connectors to help companies share business information between applications, data models that can be used in analytics projects and technical templates, among others.

Exactly what services and industry-specific components are included depends on the offering. Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services, the first of the new bundles, provides regulatory compliance capabilities to help customers meet legal requirements specific to the banking industry. Also included is a tool called Loan Manager, which Microsoft says will streamline the loan approval process by automating certain manual tasks. 

Next is Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing. It aims to help factory operators implement digital twins, which are simulations of plant equipment that can be used to find ways of improving operational efficiency. Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing will be compatible with industry-standard factory technologies such as those developed by the OPC Foundation, which makes software to facilitate data communications between industrial devices.

Capping off the trio of new vertical-specific bundles is Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit. Set to launch into public preview by the end of June, it will include tools to help nonprofit organizations manage activities such as fundraising and coordinating volunteers. Microsoft also says there will be a “common data model” to help nonprofits organize the information generated as part of their operations.

One of the main goals of the offerings is to make Microsoft’s products easier to adopt. Nonprofits, manufacturers and banks can already sign up for Microsoft solutions such as Azure, but to realize a full return on their investment, they must often customize the solutions to their needs. The vertical-specific bundles under the Microsoft Cloud brand provide pre-packaged customizations that ease the process, thereby saving costs for customers and ultimately making Microsoft products more competitive.

The company has to date announced a total of five such vertical-specific bundles. It also provides Microsoft Cloud for Retail, which debuted only a few weeks ago, and Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. The latter solution, Microsoft said on Wednesday, will soon be updated with additional capabilities focused on enabling remote patient monitoring and care delivery.

The rapid pace at which the company is updating its industry-specific offerings and adding new ones underscores just how big a focus vertical markets have become in the public cloud.  

Photo: Microsoft