Blogs
Microsoft Ignite 2025: the ‘need-to-know’ highlights
Catch our comprehensive summary of the highlights from Microsoft Ignite 2025, combined with the resources and links you need to dig into the detail!
As published on ARN Channel News.
AI is driving the next wave of cloud expansion as businesses migrate existing applications and create new cloud-native workloads centred on data and advanced analytics. According to Foundry’s 2024 Cloud Computing Study, Asia Pacific businesses expect a 66 per cent budget increase for cloud solutions with a lot of the work done through partnerships. Consider how the global SaaS market is experiencing unprecedented growth that will reach US$1.3 trillion by 2030.
This presents ISVs with significant opportunities as customers struggle to overcome skill shortages, integration complexities, and scaling challenges in their pursuit to capitalise AI. However, for ISVs to step up and help customers bridge the gap—in turn enhancing profitability—they too need to overcome their own set of challenges.
ISV startups often face high CAPEX, a lack of skilled tech talent, and difficulties navigating go-to-market strategies. Meanwhile, more established ISVs have to deal with complexities in platform management, performance issues, and high OPEX, which hurts customer experiences.
Recognising the unique roadblocks ISVs face, Crayon extends its ISV Innovation Hub to Asia Pacific, providing new value for regional partners through its end-to-end solution proven to drive innovation and growth. ISVs leveraging the hub can expect access to customised, end-to-end solutions that help overcome technical and business challenges and complement their services—all backed by Crayon’s expertise in IT services, Innovation and business growth.
The hub enables ISV leaders to work on their business rather than in it by providing comprehensive support at every stage:
Startup ISVs like Signiflow attest to Crayon’s capabilities and commitment to address their unique challenges in carving their spot within the marketplace. Andre Minnaar, Regional Director at Signiflow shared how partnering with Crayon lengthens its global reach while maintaining its agility to outmanoeuvre the competition. “We can now take on large organisations in areas such as banking and financial services to help customers struggling with e-signing and document management, either in the cloud or their own environments,” he added.
In the case of Netcare International, its strategic cloud partnership with Crayon further cements its position as a leader. “With Crayon enhancing our communication channels with Microsoft, we should now be on the path to significant growth. More importantly, we can now offer customers scalable solutions at the best possible price with the new Solution Partner strategy,” explained Finn Schnohr, Founder and CEO at Netcare International.
Success with Crayon is also found on regional shores. Key to Crayon’s strength with ISVs is its understanding of local markets and deep technical expertise to help ISVs navigate the complexities of cloud and AI adoption while accelerating growth in Asia Pacific and beyond.
As Prasanna Siriwardena, CEO at Sri Lanka-based LOLC Holdings, mentioned, this meant the company had access to a “one-stop shop” for building its go-to-market strategy.
“The business and marketing support has been so useful. We are receiving good guidance on scrutinising the product and the perspectives we should take. In addition, we appreciate Crayon’s technical support and ability to liaise directly with Microsoft to support us,” Siriwardena said. “Having both capabilities in a single team has been the best benefit. It’s a one-of-a-kind level of partnership which means we don’t have to go to different partners for these services.”
Meanwhile for PeoplesHR, another Sri-Lankan company with a strong presence in Asia Pacific, Crayon’s regional scope was key to enabling the ISV to provide strategic services.
“Crayon gave us access to partners and alliances in new territories,” Luxsho Logan, VP Sales at PeoplesHR said. “For any Azure customers, leveraging Crayon’s expertise and network will broaden your reach and help you get through the noise in what would otherwise be a very competitive market.”
As ISVs continue to grapple with high operating costs, platform management challenges, and customer retention issues, having a reliable distributor partner like Crayon can make all the difference. The ISV Innovation Hub is designed to alleviate the key pain points of a modern ISV business, resulting in unprecedented opportunities for both growth and scale.
To learn more about how Crayon’s ISV Innovation Hub can help your business grow, visit the ISV Innovation Hub today.
Blogs
Catch our comprehensive summary of the highlights from Microsoft Ignite 2025, combined with the resources and links you need to dig into the detail!
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Connect Data Protection to strategic objectives via this Whitepaper

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Our APAC channel business is now part of a global organisation. That means there is a whole new world of value on offer for our partners. We can help you to tap into all of it.