The United States Air Force has extended its partnership with
Microsoft and will now transition more email accounts to a cloud-based solution by the close of this year. Microsoft, which has headquarters in Richmond, Washington, United States, is one of the major players in the cloud arena. Traditionally recognized as a software provider whose Microsoft Office communication and collaboration software became ubiquitous, the company has recently focused on the cloud with solutions like its Azure cloud platform and Office 365. It is the latter solution that Microsoft will leverage to cater for the Air Force’s requirements.
The United States Air Force has around 310,000 members with 70,000 reserves. Following Halloman Air Force Base in New Mexico - which already moved 68,000 users to the cloud last month - a total of nine new Air Force bases will transition to Microsoft’s cloud-based solution. Microsoft will initially provide Office 365 to the Air Force, and later offer its One Drive cloud storage solution. Beyond that it will provide its SharePoint team collaboration and document management solution and Skype for Business offerings.
“The goal of the project is to increase capability and flexibility for our users,” explained the Executive Director of Air Force Network Integration Center (AFNIC), Markus Rogers on the Air force's website. “We’ve completed the ‘first-to-test’ phase of agencies, and have started migrating 10 other continental United States Air Force bases: Holloman, Malmstrom, Goodfellow, Offutt, Whiteman, Fairchild, Patrick, Davis-Monthan, Shaw, and Hanscom,” he added.
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