In the spring of 2014, Jon Thomsen, the new CEO of Atmosera, a private equity-owned managed services provider (MSP), told the company’s board of directors that he wanted to go in a radical direction. For Atmosera, a channel partner amid major pivots, this would be its riskiest move.
Thomsen wanted not only to embrace the public cloud but, specifically, Microsoft Azure over wildly popular Amazon Web Services (AWS). Board members responded with skepticism and trepidation.
