Partnerships are a key feature of the digital business era. Going it alone just isn’t a wise option for digital transformation, and stronger, more resilient strategies are built through collaboration.

This was particularly important during the pandemic, when companies were forced to pivot to cloud operations while simultaneously running their business under the stressful conditions of a global shutdown.

“Everyone had to bring in new services, new offerings very quickly,” said Neil Fowler (pictured, left), general manager of application modernization and connectivity at Micro Focus International PLC. “They couldn’t just sit there and work with what they had. They had to move forward just to be able to stay in business, but also to be able to reduce their costs.”

Fowler and Sabina Joseph (pictured, right), GM of technology partners at Amazon Web Services Inc., spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during AWS re:Invent. They discussed how Micro Focus and AWS’ partnership is strengthened by their shared customer-centric culture. (* Disclosure below.)

An application modernization strategy

When working with a customer to create a cloud strategy, Micro Focus advises on both infrastructure and application modernization. The AWS cloud brings “more access to more scalable, dynamic, elastic, compute resources, as well as all the technology platforms,” Fowler stated.

Micro Focus’ platform enables companies to take the first step of making applications available through APIs, and then allows them to adopt microservices and cloud native applications, according to Fowler. The end goal is to have all of the company’s existing applications running on a contemporary platform with full access to all available technologies.

Micro Focus provides more than modernization services. The company has a number of active listings in the AWS Marketplace, helping customers with application modernization, application, delivery, security, cyber resiliency, database services, and also IT performance management, according to Joseph.

“I think they have a very holistic story to help customers on AWS,” she said.

It’s all about customer-centric innovation, according to Fowler, who emphasized how AWS and Micro Focus are working together toward the common goal of serving customer needs.

“We really want to make sure that what we are working on together is what customers want,” Joseph stated.

Once a customer has a solid cloud strategy in place, and it’s usually a hybrid one, it is prepared to react to the changing marketplace and provide its customers with better solutions. “Your story is a lot more simple, and the customers are going to find a lot of value in what you are doing together,” Joseph added. 

That focus on constantly working toward solving for customer value “really helps us help our customers not just solve today’s problems, but really move forward to be the platform for innovation for the next decade,” Fowler said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Micro Focus International PLC sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Micro Focus nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE