Intercept proudly announced it has won the 2020 Microsoft Country Partner of the Year award for The Netherlands. The company has distinguished itself among a global field of top Microsoft partners in demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of cloud solutions. This award is the result of many years of cooperation between Intercept and Microsoft. Intercept has been recognized for providing industry-leading and valuable solutions for ISVs.
The Award
The Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards recognizes Microsoft partners who have proven to be leading in developing exceptional solutions based on Microsoft technologies over the past year.
Bart van der Knaap, Director SMC Markets & Partner Channel Microsoft;
‘’Intercept has been a leading partner for Microsoft for many years. The Microsoft-Azure solutions of Intercept are very innovative and really add value for many customers and ISVs. Intercept was one of the first partners to achieve the Azure Expert MSP status and participates in many preliminary programs. Characteristic for Intercept is the focus on customer success; they are always willing to help their customers, partners and Microsoft with their knowledge and support. With its services Intercept has a huge impact on the ISV ecosystem and our Azure activities of today and tomorrow. ‘’
Rinie Huijgen, CTO, founder and co-owner of Intercept says: “We are incredibly proud of the Intercept team. Achieving the title of Country Partner of the Year is the crowning achievement of our efforts. We are especially grateful to our customers. These are the companies that always take us out of our comfort zone. They challenge us to adopt and deploy the very latest cloud technologies. ”
Job Verhagen, general manager and co-owner, adds: “And successfully. In the grand finale we stood next to 7 partners who all had a powerful story. Even though we are a relatively small team, our specialism in Azure means that Microsoft likes to work with us. ‘’
Runner Up Datacenter Migration Award
Intercept has also shown itself internationally. In addition to winning the Dutch Country Partner of the Year award, Intercept is also runner-up of the Datacenter Migration Award. This award is given by Microsoft to the partner that achieves the best results for its customers in the field of innovative and unique Azure solutions.
‘’We are extremely proud to be a runner-up finalist for this award as well.‘’ Says Rinie Huijgen. ‘’It confirms our unique approach to scalable, secure, fast and efficient migrations to Azure.’’
Back in Time
Intercept was born in 2012, at the beginning of the Cloud Age. Rinie Huijgen explains: “We saw a strong need in the market for a knowledge party with a focus on Microsoft technology. We responded to this and it turned out to be an immediate hit. The Public Cloud was still quite new at the time. About a year later, the Public Cloud was revolutionary. We were able to adapt rapidly and put our full focus on Azure. That allowed us to quickly execute migrations to Azure, putting us in the spotlight at Microsoft in the Netherlands and Corp”.
In 2016, Intercept joined as a Managed Partner at Microsoft, the start of a great collaboration. Job Verhagen explains: “As a Managed Partner, we received support from Microsoft on business and technical level. This enabled us to support our customers even better with solutions based on Microsoft technologies. The Intercept team worked hard to bring in all the Microsoft expertise. For example, in the past years we have achieved the most important Microsoft Gold Competences; Gold DevOps, Gold Datacenter, Gold Cloud Platform, Gold Cloud Solutions, Gold Cloud Productivity and Gold Application Development.’’
In November 2017, Intercept obtained the status of Microsoft Azure Expert MSP. A status that only small group of companies worldwide achieved. "To maintain this title, we must successfully complete a rigorous, independent audit on 64 points every year," said Job Verhagen. "It keeps us on our toes, and it is always the ultimate confirmation for the many hours we spend in Azure."
The future
But how do you proceed if you have won the most prestigious Microsoft award in the Netherlands? ‘’Our ambitions go beyond the Dutch borders’’, says Rinie Huijgen. The Intercept team is extra motivated to continue pioneering and to tackle larger and more challenging projects worldwide.’’
Job Verhagen adds; ‘’Fortunately, the cloud technology has no limits. We are busy with plans to build on our success in the Netherlands and want to continue this internationally. We are currently expanding to the Nordics and the UK, to guide software driven companies with their journey to the Azure Cloud.’’
