Microsoft Highlights Tour de Force for Its Cloud

Microsoft has certainly earned bragging rights with a recent tour de force for its Cloud offerings, which managed to attract a large number of customers, announced at the start of this week.

A number of companies have decided to deploy Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite, a collection of services including Exchange Online, Office SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Lync Online.

In addition, various educational organizations have joined Live@edu, taking the number of schools worldwide using the service to over 10,000, namely over 11 million people.

Volvo is one of the companies that have selected BPOS, with Per Adolfsson, president of Microsoft Sweden noting that the choice was motivated by low cost, streamlined management capabilities and the flexibility that the services offer.

"Volvo Cars is a forward-looking company with a solid tradition of delivering innovative products and services," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

"We are very pleased that Volvo Cars has chosen Microsoft's cloud services. There is evidence that together we share the vision of the cloud creates new opportunities for all," Ballmer added.

Additional companies that embraced BPOS are DuPont, Spotless Group and Sunoco.

“We are delighted that industry leaders around the world continue to choose Microsoft’s enterprise-grade cloud services to keep their employees productive and their technology fresh,” said Chris Capossela, senior vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft.
Capossela emphasized the fact that the number of companies currently running BPOS has tripled compared to the start of 2010 alone.

The software giant also enumerated the new schools which turned to Live@edu, including: San Francisco State University; CSU, Long Beach; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and State Center Community College District (California), University of Montana, Northern Kentucky University, the College of DuPage, Washington University in St. Louis and Aston University in the United Kingdom.

Aston University opted for Live@edu in the detriment of Google Apps, with Steve Goodman, senior server engineer at Aston University noting that Google Apps were found lacking.

“Through feedback from the University committees, it became apparent that Google Apps could not meet a number of basic requirements,” he explained.

“These included the ability to share calendars between students and staff; to meet University discovery and message tracking regulations; to manage dispute resolution and troubleshoot; to support geo-location of data within the European Union; and to host some of the student e-mail On Premises.”