Here's a page from their Cloud GTM playbook:

The context is compelling:

95% of C3 AI's customer base runs on public clouds:

• 51% on Google Cloud

• 24% on AWS

• 21% on Azure

This shows how deeply B2B AI revenue is now integrated with cloud consumption.

But the recent C3+Microsoft alliance stands out as "the most significant event in company's history" for these strategic reasons, explains CEO:

1️⃣ Sales Compensation Alignment

"Azure salespeople will receive design win credits for each Azure C3 AI sale" - a crucial move that aligns field incentives (notably, he mentioned this first).

2️⃣ Enterprise Access Leverage

All C3 AI solutions are now orderable on the Azure Marketplace.

"All C3 AI products are now orderable on Microsoft paper, incorporating Microsoft's enterprise licensing agreement with over 95% of Fortune 500."

As Siebel emphasizes, "This will dramatically shorten C3 AI sales cycles."

3️⃣ Pilot Funding Support

"Microsoft will subsidize C3 AI pilots and C3 AI production deployments on Azure over the term of this agreement" - reducing adoption friction.

The reach scale-up is massive:

As a result of Microsoft's reach, "the effective number of C3 AI sellers will grow from...order of 100 sales professionals at C3 AI as of October 1, 2024, to potentially order of 10,000 sales professionals operating in every geography, in every vertical market."

But wait, isn't C3 AI competitive with Azure/OpenAI?

Tom Siebel stressed that they're not competing with Azure's AI services - they're building on top of them:

"We use all Azure AI services, but deliver them packaged in turnkey applications that offer economic benefit in a very short period of time."

He also highlighted that C3 AI sales count toward customers' Microsoft commitments - a crucial detail when enterprises have "hundreds of millions and in some cases billions of dollars commitments" to Microsoft.

Going All-In on Cloud Alliances

Microsoft is "an order of a $250 billion business. And so this by far overshadows anything that we've done...

Given the magnitude and great potential of the new Microsoft alliance, we are going to invest in the partnership in a big way. To not do so would be nonrational" - emphasized CEO.

C3 is scaling sales teams, customer support, and marketing to support the alliance.

So here's the question to you:

In an era where every company aims to be an AI company, is deeply integrating with cloud giants' sales motions and marketplaces becoming the new imperative for enterprise scale?