Company expands cloud footprint in Australia and adds new partner program.
09 December 2014 – Sydney, Australia: Today Microsoft Corp. announced plans to deliver Microsoft’s cloud productivity suite – Office 365 – and business application – Dynamics CRM Online – from datacentres in Australia by the end of March, 2015. These locally hosted services will be delivered from two existing datacentres in New South Wales and Victoria and follows the launch in October of local Azure services.
Delivering these services from Australian datacentres will provide customers with faster performance, offer geo-redundant back-up and help address data residency considerations, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, education, government and financial services.
“Microsoft has operated in Australia for over 30 years, and during that time we’ve seen an immense amount of innovation built on top of our platform by customers and partners alike,” said John Case, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Office. “Now, with local Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online services and world-class offerings from our partners, we’re taking that innovation to the next level so customers and partners can do more and achieve more with our technology, which is what counts at the end of the day.”
Pip Marlow, Managing Director, Microsoft Australia, added: “Microsoft has always been a company that has cared about helping people reach their full potential.
“Our mission remains the same but we are now doing it in a mobile-first, cloud-first world. We’re helping Australians do the things they care about from anywhere, anytime and on any device with the help of cloud services that they can trust,” she said.
Customers and partners invest in Office 365 and CRM Online
After a successful pilot phase with Ensyst, Melbourne IT and iiNet, Microsoft also announced the expansion of its new Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) Program with four additional partners joining – OBS, Cloud First, Nimbal (a joint venture between Kloud and XCentral) and OzHosting.
Partners in this program are able to own the complete lifecycle of customers buying Microsoft Cloud Services including direct billing, provisioning, management and support. The program is now open more broadly for partners to join and existing CSP partners will begin introducing their solutions to market over the coming weeks.
“We believe that creating the most complete cloud involves more than just technology. It requires a world class ecosystem, which includes the thousands of Australian partners that we work with every day to deliver innovative solutions,” said Pip Marlow.
Brad Rappell, CEO, Cloud First said, “CSP is an amazing opportunity for partners to create robust global cloud services that are localised for a particular region and industry segment.”
“This week we are pleased to launch ‘Franchise First’, a platform powered by Microsoft online services enhanced with our intellectual property on franchise systems to supercharge the operations of franchisors and franchisees,” he said.
Andy Neumann, General Manager, OBS said, “We are very excited about extending our reach through the Cloud Solution Provider program.”
“We see this as an excellent way to bring together our project consulting experience, managed services and the Intellectual Property we have accumulated over the past 15 years for a whole new audience of customers. We believe that we can drive a new wave of innovation around the way people use the online suite of Microsoft solutions with our Formplicity offering.”
A number of Australian organisations are using Office 365 and CRM Online as they look to enable mobile working, better collaboration and connectivity, enhance customer service and drive efficiencies.
Leading advisory and investment firm KordaMentha is one company looking to an innovative future as it embarks on a period of diversification. The company is looking to better share information internally and enable employees to effectively introduce clients to other parts of the business and chose Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online as a key enabler.
“The uptake of the technology has been significantly quicker than we thought it would be, due to the fact it’s easily usable and our existing knowledge set of Microsoft Office products. Everyone now has insight across the whole firm, rather than individual offices and services lines, and it’s rapidly come to fruition,” said Mr. Korda, Partner, KordaMentha.
KordaMentha’s long-term strategy is to leverage Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online across all devices, services and platforms – regardless of operating systems.
Sydney Water embarked earlier this year on a strategic transition to Office 365 and this investment has already paid significant dividends, according to Sydney Water CIO, Stephen Wilson.
“Sydney Water’s decision in 2013 to invest in Office 365 was part of our overall vision to create a flexible working environment which has significant benefits for the workforce and ultimately, to customers. We have just completed the rollout of the platform to more than 3000 staff and delivery partners and the benefits are already evident – people are collaborating on Office 365 in ways we couldn’t previously. The announcement today from Microsoft will help us get more out of the platform and collaborate more effectively. It will also enable us to get the right applications to the right people in the field in a faster way.”
ASX listed company, Austbrokers Holdings, is Australia’s leading equity-based insurance distribution, specialist underwriting agency and risk services group. The company is looking to better utilise its consolidated ‘big data’ and maximise opportunity management through the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics CRMOL.
“Our strategy is to ensure that our business processes and information systems continue to be a strong source of competitive advantage,” said Sunil Vohra, COO, AustBrokers. “A key reason in our strategic decision to adopt the Microsoft business solution is the ability to build and customise the platform and to innovate and enable our numerous operating businesses.”
More information on how customers are benefitting can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/news/
About Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online
Office 365 brings collaboration, insight and compliance to customers with over 150 features and updates in the last 12 months. Microsoft Dynamics CRM works seamlessly with Office and Power BI across mobile devices to help increase sales and service delivery productivity, deliver smarter marketing, and boost customer loyalty. Dynamics provides the core business apps for the Microsoft cloud, spanning sales, marketing, customer care, commerce, financial management and operations for organisations of all sizes.
With Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft is delivering the industry’s most complete cloud — for every business, every industry and every geography. Microsoft delivers over 200 services to over 1 billion customers and 20 million businesses are served by our cloud infrastructure in over 90 markets, globally.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services, devices and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential. More information can be found at: www.microsoft.com.au
Additional information for editors
By the numbers – Office 365
- Office 365 is one of the fastest growing businesses in Microsoft history.
● Commercial cloud revenue grew 128% and we are now on a $4.9B run rate.
● 75% of Fortune 500 companies have purchased Office 365 in the last 12 months
By the numbers – Dynamics CRM Online
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM has marked 41 consecutive quarters of double digit growth.
● Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is growing 80 percent (Q1 Fiscal 2015) with 2 out of 3 new customers opt for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online cloud solution
● The CRM business has 4.25 million users and now has more than 40,000 customers.
Interested in more stats and facts on Microsoft’s commercial cloud business? Find it here.
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