Microsoft Azure cloud services and Office 365 are winning Kiwi users
State-owned company Education Payroll is joining a growing stream of organisations exploring migrations to Microsoft Cloud services in general and Office 365 in particular.
The company, which operates New Zealand's troubled teacher payroll processing system, is embarking on a project it calls the "modern workplace", to provide tools and technologies to allow employees to deliver their best work while reducing costs and delivering early value.
EPL is planning to test its approach by appointing a partner to help replace Revera's c-Stack email with Office 365.
"This approach will allow EPL to experience your service and assess the quality of delivery to confirm suitability as a delivery partner before deciding to progress with any broader proposal to deliver the full service and the outcomes we seek," the department stated.
"We are not simply looking to upgrade our existing environment to the latest version, nor are we looking to adopt an unproven service.
"As a smaller organisation we want to focus our funding on delivering the best payroll service to New Zealand schools, therefore we do not wish to purchase and maintain large investments in data centre presence and associated infrastructure."
The overall vision is a service based around Microsoft products and services such as Windows 10, Azure, and Office 365, managed from the cloud, delivered “as a service”, in an “evergreen” fashion.
The modern workplace service when completed will replace the vast majority of EPL's current IT services - provided by the Ministry of Education - with a single service management function.
Office 365 appears to be trouncing G Suite in recent projects tracked by Reseller News. While we have reported Callaghan Innovation opting for Google's service, many other organisations appear to be going the other way.
Television New Zealand, New Zealand Police, WorkSafe and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner have all in quick succession indicated they have or will go Office 365.
Globally, Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for revenue and profit in its first quarter, reported last month, as more businesses signed up for Azure and Office 365.
