A $4.5 Trillion Opportunity For The Channel

While Nadella said the cloud first/mobile first paradigm generated $2.5 trillion in IT spending, that number will surge to $4.5 trillion with the Intelligent Cloud/Intelligent Edge paradigm.

That's because Intelligent Cloud/Intelligent Edge will expand what is generally considered to be "IT systems" today. "With increasing digitization, where every part of our society and economy is being fundamentally transformed because of digital technology, the opportunity is greater than ever before," Nadella said.

The CEO said this provides a tremendous opportunity for solution provider partners within the Microsoft partner ecosystem.