Microsoft has joined General Dynamics and Dell in a contract with the U.S. Air Force, granting the collection of companies $1 billion to build a Cloud Hosted Enterprise Services (CHES) program. The program will be part of an ongoing effort by the United States Government to implement more cloud technology into their infrastructure, driving efficient and less costly work.
The program is meant to be rolled out to 776,000 users, and is planned to be ready to go in under a year. “The CHES contract extends the ability of the Air Force to collaborate across the enterprise,” explained Leigh Madden, General Manager for U.S. Defense at Microsoft. “We aren’t just delivering a secure productivity solution, we’re freeing up resources, so our airmen can focus on mission critical tasks,” he added. On top of the US Air Force, the CHES will also benefit the Defense Logistics Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
One of the biggest contracts that the U.S. Government has ever struck in terms of its communications technology, the design of the new CHES is something that can make serious leaps and bounds in the efficacy of the American government. Depending on how this works out in the long run, it could also mean that more aspects of the government will be moved over to the cloud for faster and less expensive operation.
Further reading: Cloud, Dell, Department of Defense, Microsoft, US ARMY
