VMware has announced an expanded partnership with Accenture and the launch of a dedicated business group that will help organizations adopt a ‘cloud first’ strategy.

Supported by approx. 2,000 Accenture cloud professionals trained in VMware products and services, the new business group will help clients tap into the capabilities and elasticity of the cloud.

The group is part of Accenture Cloud First, which Accenture launched in 2020 with a $3 billion investment in new capabilities, solutions, partnerships and client engagements to help clients shape, move and operate their businesses in the cloud.

The Accenture VMware Business Group will invest in joint go-to-market and sales operations, training of more Accenture practitioners in VMware technologies and the development of new service offerings, assets and accelerators underpinned by VMware technologies. The two companies will also develop pre-engineered vertical industry solutions, including a platform to help telcos accelerate the rollout of 5G and edge computing services.

The new business group will launch a specialized VMware Cloud Migration Factory to migrate computing workloads to the cloud, using highly automated processes that have been fine-tuned by the migration and modernization of thousands of applications.

The VMware Cloud Migration Factory will give clients access to a controlled environment and dedicated resources to plan, test, migrate and modernize applications at scale to their preferred public, private and/or hybrid cloud — reducing the risk of moving VMware workloads and accelerating time-to-value.

The Accenture VMware Business Group represents a new multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment from the two companies, which have a relationship spanning more than two decades.