WASHINGTON -- Since the company started, Microsoft has relied on its partners to resell, build on and sell services based on its products, driving billions of dollars in sales.

As Microsoft goes "all in" on cloud computing, as Chief Executive Steve Ballmer says, it will need its 640,000 partner companies to go all in as well. Or at least be willing to forgo what's worked for them in the past --selling clients on upgrading PCs and operating systems, Office and Windows Server software.

Today at the Worldwide Partner Conference, the new corporate vice president for Microsoft Partners, Jon Roskill, used his keynote speech to talk about how partners can make the transition.

"We started 34 years ago and we realized right off we couldn’t go it alone," Roskill said. "To succeed and drive innovation we needed a vibrant community everywhere in the world."

To get the partners themselves eating Microsoft's dog food (how the company describes testing software on its own workers), partners will get 250 licenses of its cloud platform Azure, communications suite Microsoft Online Services, PC remote management software Windows InTune and online customer-relationship-management software Dynamics CRM Online.

Partners have to join Microsoft new sales-incentive programs for cloud services: Microsoft Cloud Essentials and Microsoft Cloud Accelerate.

Companies that sign up get a yearlong subscription for training classes and phone support as partners help customers test and deploy Microsoft cloud services.

Microsoft also has an online profitabliity modeler that gives companies thinking about starting to sell cloud-based services a three-year profit-and-loss forecast, profit margin estimates and sales predictions.

Microsoft partners include software resellers, computer makers, software developers, Web developers, systems integrators, IT consultants, distributors, hosters and telecommunication companies.

One more change: Microsoft Partners Network is now Microsoft Partners. Appropriately, Roskill quoted Winston Churchill. He said his grandfather started a Churchill archives at Cambridge University in England. "To improve is to change. To be perfect is to have changed often."

This is how Roskill put cloud computing in the context of tech evolution below.

Timeline:

'80s: Graphical user interface replaces text-based computers and computer-use grows.

'90s: Servers proliferate along with PCs.

'00s: Web 1.0 and e-mail and the Web browser come along.

'10s: Cloud computing starts.

To get more details on the partner incentive programs, here is the company's announcement.