14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has signed a new multi-million dollars agreement with the United States Department of Defense for technical support services.
Specifics are not yet available, and neither the Pentagon nor Microsoft commented on this new partnership, but Reuters writes that the deal is worth $927 million and the Redmond-based software firm will provide technical support and consulting for the US DoD.
Although details were not offered, it’s believed that the deal would have Microsoft provide technical support to the United States Department of Defense following its transition to Windows 10.
Windows 10 partnership
Earlier this year, the software firm and the US DoD signed a separate partnership to have approximately 4 million computers upgraded to Windows 10, so this new partnership would make sense given the fact that the majority of systems have already transitioned to the new OS.
Terry Halvorsen, CIO for the DoD, issued a memo to all Combatant Commands, Services Agencies and Field Activities in November 2015 to make the migration to Windows 10 a priority, emphasizing that the new OS comes with important security updates that would help them remain protected in the always evolving cyber threats environment.
“It is important for the Department to rapidly transition to Microsoft Windows 10 in order to improve our cybersecurity posture, lower the cost of IT, and streamline the IT operating environment,” the memo read.
Windows 10 was launched in July 2015 and, since then, Microsoft has been pushing very hard to boost its adoption, not only in the consumer world but also in enterprise. The firm signed deals with a large number of organizations, and the US DoD partnership is clearly particularly important for the company, mostly because it also emphasizes that the security improvements that the OS boasts are strong enough to be trusted by the Pentagon.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to ask for more information on this new partnership with the US DoD and will update the article if a response is offered.