Microsoft has landed the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a cloud-computing customer.
The agency is signing up for e-mail software Exchange, collaboration software SharePoint and communication software Lync as services hosted in the Microsoft cloud, the company said today.
The switch will start in the next four weeks and affect 120,000 users in 5,000 offices.
"For us a move to the cloud was a question of performance, service, and cost, and this solution will help us streamline our efforts and use taxpayer dollars efficiently," said Chris Smith, chief information officer of the USDA.
Microsoft is in a heated race with Google to provide e-mail systems to government agencies. Microsoft has landed New York City, the state of California and state of Minnesota recently. Google has the city of Los Angeles. Google also recently sued the U.S. Department of Interior for not considering its bid to provide e-mail.
The software services Microsoft will provide the USDA are specialized for specific security, privacy and compliance requirements of federal agencies. The USDA's services will be run on separate servers in secure facilities, Microsoft said.
Stacy Keibler Rihanna America Ferrera Lea Michele Haylie Duff
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