Microsoft Corp. hopes to build the foundation for future partnerships and cloud revenue with an expansive new program focused on fostering budding tech firms.

The initiative, which launched this morning under the name Microsoft for Startups, will be supported by a $500 million investment from the company over the next two years. Microsoft will provide participating startups with a variety of resources to help fuel their growth.

Chief among them is sales support. As part of the program, each startup will be assigned a “success manager” tasked with finding revenue opportunities. Microsoft’s 40,000-person salesforce and international partner network will provide assistance with landing customers. This arrangement could theoretically give startups access to a sizable portion, if not a majority, of the world’s businesses given the technology giant’s vast reach.

Microsoft plans to sweeten the pot further by providing guidance and ready-made materials for streamlining the customer acquisition cycle. On the technical side, the program will give startups up to $120,000 in Azure cloud services credits, technical support and development tools. Microsoft also intends to throw in access to productivity services such as Office 365 for certain participants.

The financial commitments that the company will make as part of the initiative have the potential to pay off in a big way on the long run. After all, if a company begins to use Azure and other Microsoft products at an early stage, there’s a good chance that it will become a long-term customer. That’s the same reason rivals Amazon Web Services Inc. and Google LLC have their own startup incentive programs.

Indeed, startup support is becoming a key part of the cloud giants’ attempt to get developers at young companies on board in the hope of riding the growth of successful companies as they grow. Google, for instance, has been running a startup accelerator program since last July, in particular focused on startups using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Today it announced a second batch of three new healthcare-focused startups that will get services such as access to Google and Silicon Valley experts, cloud credits, data sets and rapid-prototyping support.

Microsoft is determined to stand out from the pack. On top of the technical and sales resources, the company also plans to establish half a dozen startup hubs that will provide a place for teams to interact with the broader tech community. The centers are set to open in London, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Berlin, Shanghai and Beijing later this year.

Microsoft for Startups will complement the work of the company’s venture capital arm. Microsoft regularly backs promising enterprise technology startups, with one of the latest examples being its participation in a $30 million round into London-based identity verification provider Onfido Ltd.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Image: Microsoft