HP Moves the US Veterans Affairs Communications Environment to the Cloud

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Nov. 13, 2012 — HP Enterprise Services today announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded the company a five-year contract valued at US$36 million to provide a departmentwide email and calendaring infrastructure to the VA’s 600,000 users with Microsoft Office 365 for Government.

The agreement was awarded under the Veterans Administration Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology (VA T4) program, the department’s information technology modernization contract. The modernization effort will begin with 15,000 people and expand agencywide to 600,000 people when all contract options are executed.

“VA is moving to cloud-based email and collaboration as part of a broader effort to leverage emerging technologies to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and, most important, improve service delivery to our nation’s veterans,” said Charles De Sanno, executive director of Enterprise Systems Engineering, Department of Veterans Affairs.

Under the agreement, HP will lead and manage the implementation of Office 365 to enhance reliability, security, privacy and compliance as well as create geographically diverse disaster recovery. Moving to the cloud enables the VA to fulfill the Cloud-First federal mandate while anticipating improved employee productivity and collaboration and reduced costs.

The VA will use Office 365 for Government, which features a separate community cloud, for email, shared calendars, instant messaging, and web- and videoconferencing. It also includes industry-leading applications for productivity and collaboration including cloud-based Office, Exchange, Lync and SharePoint.

“The VA needed to transform into a 21st century organization that could enable employees to collaborate more effectively,” said Marilyn Crouther, senior vice president, general manager, U.S. Public Sector for HP Enterprise Services. “Together with the VA and Microsoft, the HP team will modernize the VA’s communications infrastructure while lowering costs and setting the stage for other U.S. government agencies to enter the cloud era.”

HP and its alliance partners deliver best-in-class capabilities and practices, innovation and a distinct history of service delivery excellence. For more than 13 years, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has worked with HP on some of the agency’s most critical initiatives, including multiple IT solutions with the Veterans Health Administration and VA Office of Information and Technology.

“The VA’s decision to implement Office 365 for Government with HP Enterprise Services validates our long-standing partnership and our commitment to helping the VA move to the cloud on its terms with the most complete productivity and collaboration tools available while helping to keep its information protected and secure,” said Greg Myers, vice president of Microsoft Federal.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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