Published on the 09/12/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
Australian hosting of Office 365 and Dynamics CRM, coupled with per-user pricing is being tipped to boost A/NZ demand for Microsoft’s cloud and shows the company is listening to its customers…
When Microsoft switched on the Melbourne and Sydney hosted instances of its Azure cloud in October it was coy about its plans for productivity suite Office 365 which has previously been offered to Australians and New Zealanders from its Singapore data centre.
The company has now announced that both Office 365 and Dynamics CRM online will be available from its Australian cloud by March 2015.
John Case, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Office Division who is visiting both countries this week said that the fact Microsoft had two local Azure data centres in different cities meant back up and disaster recovery could also be provided locally and that A/NZ data would never be located elsewhere.
Case said that while he did not think the lack of a locally hosted version of Office 365 and Dynamics CRM had cost Microsoft customers he did acknowledge that “certain customers for regulatory and strategy reasons wouldn’t consider the cloud”.
That barrier had now been removed he said.
Nevertheless Office 365 has already secured high profile ANZ customers including Korda Mentha and Austbrokers Holdings in Australia and House of Travel and Icebreaker in New Zealand.
Joseph Sweeney, IBRS advisor, said that although the locally hosted cloud was important for many users – particularly Government, health and financial sector enterprises, the real driver of demand would be the per-user rather than per-device pricing and the bundles being offered; “Dynamics will cost $A65 per user per month; Dynamics with Office 365 $A71.”
Case said that pricing was a global offer launched in October and had been well received internationally.
Sweeney added that organisations were keen to take the costs out of running information systems and “throw that up into the cloud,” and that the cloud solutions now made it possible for even relatively small organisations to “run large powerful environments”.
Existing Office 365 customers with an Australian billing address will be transitioned to the locally served software, although they may opt to remain on the Singapore cloud. New customers will receive the Australian option.
Similarly Microsoft’s New Zealand customers using Office 365 out of an Asia Pacific data centre will have their data relocated to Australia.
Sweeney said that the decision to host locally also reflected a change in the management style at Microsoft. “Four or five months ago I asked Microsoft when they would bring 365 here and they said they didn’t have any plans. In less than six months they have changed their mind and executed.
According to Sweeney “this shows Microsoft is becoming a lot more nimble” and responsive to market needs under new CEO Satya Nadella, who replaced Steve Ballmer in February.
“This is something we haven’t seen from Microsoft in a decade,” said Sweeney.
