Microsoft is looking to sell in excess of $3 billion worth of Cloud services in collaboration with EDS, an HP company. On April 27, 2009, the Redmond company announced that Microsoft Online Services were opened for business worldwide on no less than 19 markets. Over 4,000 partners have jumped aboard, with EDS at the very top. Together with Microsoft, EDS plans to jointly market, integrate, sell and deliver the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite at a consumer segment made up by enterprise customers.

“This agreement enables Microsoft and EDS to provide highly secure and reliable cloud-based productivity solutions to enterprise customers who want to deliver IT innovation to improve total cost of ownership,” explained Kevin Torgerson, vice president of Service Delivery Operations at EDS, an HP company. “These services minimize the need for infrastructure investments and can be deployed rapidly, which further reduces the demand on clients’ IT resources.”

Microsoft and EDS estimate that over 5 million customers will be interested in adopting the software giant's enterprise-class cloud communications and collaboration services. The Redmond company signed out EDS as the first Business Productivity Online Suite reseller and its largest Business Productivity Online Suite delivery partner. As a direct consequence of their agreement, EDS Workplace Services Offerings now includes the Business Productivity Online Suite, with such services as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting.

“EDS brings a long history of strong customer relationships, enterprise expertise and valuable infrastructure assets. Microsoft brings software-plus-services innovation, engineering capabilities and the most widely used productivity technology in world,” added Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft Online. “Together, Microsoft and EDS are uniquely positioned to offer integrated cloud services that will help customers innovate and reduce IT costs.”