Even before the global health crisis of 2020, many organizations around the world were focused on digital transformation. They were working with trusted technology providers to develop new business models, create new experiences, new products, and new services for customers. The pandemic changed everything, stalling the efforts of some organizations, and forcing others to accelerate their journey to the cloud.

he pandemic fostered new use cases that drove rapid innovation from both Microsoft and partners building on our platforms. For example, healthcare organizations asked us for assistance with tracking the number of available hospital beds and ventilators, and for better and easier ways to support patients with new systems. We co-developed solutions to enable customers to address large volumes of anxious patients with higher efficiency, offering access to a portal with information about COVID-19, a self-assessment tool, and workflow to book an appointment to be tested. During that time, it became more apparent than ever that Microsoft could help customers reach their digital aspirations with our software, and do so faster. In that spirit, we announced our first industry-specific cloud offering, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, which we are launching today.