Microsoft flung open the hatch to its out-there-on-the-edge Azure Space program to further bolster the platform’s ecosystem and help with technical and scaling support for customers deploying private LTE and 5G networks in remote and edge locations.

The Azure Space Partner Community is Microsoft’s attempt to bring divergent vendors under a single umbrella to make it easier for them to gain access to end users and for those end users to more easily piece together an edge product.

Vendors that join the program gain access to combined innovation, go-to-market support, and technical support. This includes access to Microsoft’s engineering team, quarterly roadmap reviews, and the ability to help shape the service roadmap.

Microsoft also touted a “premier incentive” program that provides credits and pricing discounts in exchange for Azure consumption commitments, priority service updates, and marketing assets.

The program currently counts more than 20 partners, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Nokia, Explore, and satellite operators SES, Viasat, and Intelsat.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella highlighted some of their work during a keynote at this week’s Microsoft Inspire event.

“Intelsat, for example, is connecting its satellite network to our cloud, helping customers create private LTE and 5G networks in some of the most remote corners of the world,” he said. “[The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] is working with our partner Explore to extend the mission life of their satellites and reduce costs using Azure orbital ground station-as-a-service. They're using Azure orbital with Explore’s mission control software platform to transmit commands to NOAA’s polar orbiting weather satellites.”

Microsoft’s space efforts go back to 2019, when the cloud giant launched its Azure ExpressRoute platform and a series of partnerships with satellite operators SES, Viasat, and Intelsat. That effort was targeted at expanding Azure cloud services to broadcasters, enterprises, and governments in remote and far-edge locations.

Microsoft built on that program the following year with its Azure Space initiative that further tied together its expansive data center and cloud infrastructure.

“Our approach is to supply a multi-orbit, multi-band, multi-vendor, cloud-enabled capability to bring comprehensive satellite connectivity between our cloud data center regions and cloud edge devices,” Tom Keane, VP of Azure Global, wrote at that time in a blog post.

Rival Amazon Web Services (AWS) is taking a more hands-on approach to its satellite work with plans to construct a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network to push connectivity to unserved and underserved communities. Amazon’s Project Kuiper will feature 3,236 satellites and has already gained carrier support from Verizon.

Those efforts are backed by sky-high expectations.

Berg Insight last year predicted that the satellite IoT market would grow from 3.4 million connections at the end of 2020, to 15.7 million connections in 2025. “Only about 10% of the Earth’s surface has access to terrestrial connectivity services, which leaves a massive opportunity for satellite IoT communications,” the firm wrote.