Posted by on Apr 9, 2013 in Blog | 0 comments

Microsoft took advantage of its U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit last week to announce eight new public sector customers for its cloud-based Office 365.  The new government and education customers are the City of Kansas City, Mo.; the City of Seattle; the University of Miami; California State University, Sacramento (Sacramento State); the University of Colorado Colorado Springs; the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority; DuPage County; and King County, Wash.

These organizations are adopting the Microsoft Office 365 cloud productivity platform to reduce costs, improve collaboration and modernize their technology infrastructures. Public sector organizations increasingly are looking to move to the cloud because it is a cost-efficient way to boost functionality in these lean budgetary times.

Here’s a breakdown on the new customers and deployments:

  • Kansas City, Mo.  The Kansas City government chose Office 365 to help increase operational efficiency, reduce IT management costs and shrink its energy footprint. Leveraging the latest Microsoft innovations in data-center design, Kansas City is decreasing energy consumption while taking advantage of the productivity benefits of cloud-based collaboration, resulting in real impact for citizens.
  • Seattle.  The city of Seattle is adopting Office 365 to help boost internal efficiencies while reducing costs. The city’s workforce will be more productive on the go, with improved remote access to critical applications and files, all within a security-enhanced, reliable cloud environment.
  • DuPage County, IL.  DuPage County was looking for innovative ways to improve service delivery to nearly 1 million residents while maximizing the ROI on its technology investments. Moving to the cloud will boost efficiency and collaboration while providing personnel with access to the latest Microsoft productivity tools.
  • King County, WA.  This deal is part of the county’s larger strategy to leverage existing IT resources. Through an enterprise service delivery model, employees are boosting cross-agency collaboration while gaining access to the latest videoconferencing, instant messaging and productivity solutions.
  • San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. After reviewing a number of cloud-based email and collaboration solutions, the airport authority decided to adopt Office 365 for its security features, functionality and collaboration benefits. Staff members are already taking advantage of new instant messaging and videoconferencing capabilities through Microsoft Lync, and the move is expected to save the organization $40,000 per year on reduced IT management costs.
  • University of Miami. More than 40,000 students, faculty and staff will move to the cloud, so everyone on campus will have a common platform to communicate and collaborate more effectively. Office 365 also is up to the task of handling sensitive medical data under HIPAA – something the Miller School of Medicine required to move to the cloud.
  • University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). Students at UCCS were unhappy with the old email solution the university’s IT shop provided, and they wanted shared calendaring, common contacts, an easy-to-use Web client and mobile device support. Budget cuts and other IT priorities nixed a move until now.  Some 29,000 student and alumni accounts are on Office 365 for education, and the university is in the process of phasing in Microsoft SharePoint, Office Web Apps and Lync.
  • Sacramento State. By moving some 50,000 accounts to the cloud, Sacramento State will be able to greatly reduce the cost of providing email and related communications services without compromising the quality of service.

 

CLO Inside Scoop: In today’s cash-strapped budget environment, government and education entities of all sizes and at every level must find new ways to do more with less – and that inevitably means a move to the cloud.  New research from MeriTalk recently found 62% of federal managers report tighter budget and 51% have seen the impact of the new frugality on programs they depend on to accomplish their agency missions.  Expect more educational institutions – as well as state and local government entities – to seek out ways to optimize those shrinking IT budgets through the cloud.

 

(For more information contact Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com).