Yet another government entity has decided to make the move to Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud offering, moving past Google’s offering. The state of New York (United States) is the latest state government that has chosen Office 365 for their office productivity needs. More than 120,000 state employees will benefit from this move.
“I’m continually impressed by the forward-looking nature of our state customers when it comes to maximizing their available resources. In this move to the cloud, Governor Cuomo’s administration is equally focused on ensuring the productivity and efficiency of its employees along with the security and privacy of its citizens across New York,” Michael Donlan stated. He is the vice president of state and local government for Microsoft.
While the migration to Office 365 will not be complete until the end of this year, the state of New York will have several key features they can enjoy once the migration is complete. With Office 365, there is a “standardized platform” for email, creating and editing a document, calendars, contacts, and improved collaboration by allowing files to be shared efficiently across state agencies.
Each employee will have an inbox size of 25GB, rather than 500MB and employees can access their email and files from almost anywhere. New York state joins the City of San Jose, City of San Francisco, City of Chicago, City of Kansas City, Mo, City of Seattle, along with the State of California, State of Texas, and the State of Washington when it comes to making the move to Office 365.
“Currently, state agencies are using more than 27 different email, word, and data processing systems, so moving to a common platform may save approximately $3 million annually in license fees, hardware, maintenance, energy, and personnel costs. This cloud agreement is the first of its kind to be put in place for the entire state,” Microsoft stated in a press release today.
