FS: What has the feedback been on the preview of these services?
CK: Our Azure for government private preview cloud has allowed us to bring key partners as well as some customers into that environment to try out the workloads, to see its capability. The feedback we’ve been getting is very positive.
Customers like the Department of Corrections for the State of Illinois is using it from a storage perspective to be able to secure their information. Partners, like InfoReliance, who have built out one customer with Office 365 see that as a natural extension to continue to enable their customers to move to the cloud in a secure way.
But we also recognize that there will be some workloads that they may need to have on site, those are predominately on Windows server and so we can support that in an integrated fashion. And I think that’s unique for Microsoft and provides great cost-savings for the customer. It simplifies their environment and allows them to move forward.
I think the other thing that’s really interesting for our partners, and part of the reason we announced this before the partners conference, in the discussions I’ve been having, it’s not just the Windows platform, but our Azure for government program supports Linux, it supports Oracle, we have over 2,000 applications that we’ll manage from a single sign-on perspective. So, if I’m a CIO for a government agency, I may not be aware that different departments have stood up software-as-a-service solutions but with Azure for government and our active directory enterprise mobility suite, we’ll allow them to manage it to enable those solutions, and it could be things like Salesforce and SAP and other environments.
The other great message for our partners is on the development side. It’s not just about Microsoft’s development tools, but you can use Python, you can use Java, you can use PHP. We have a comprehensive offering that really brings together a great solution both for partners and for customers, and the types of solutions that will help governments move forward.
FS: What is the bigger challenge for agencies that are moving to the cloud?
CK: I think the biggest thing relative to the challenges that customers, when they think about the cloud, I mean there is apprehension, because it’s an approach that they see as new. It’s one where they want to make sure that the data is secure and make sure that they have control over that. And controls, compliance and governance is a big focus for us. It’s one we’ve invested a lot in, both from the technology, but also from the governance and the other elements for things like HIPAA compliance and health care.
Microsoft steps up to sign those legal requirements for our customers, to help them and assure them that we stand behind our technology and how we deliver and make sure we meet those. The Criminal Justice Information Service, CJIS, is one where the FBI CJIS requirements when you have criminal justice information has to be secured in a particular way. Microsoft has agreements and is working through over 15 states today, and we sign our agreements with the state CJIS officers.
Our approach to FedRAMP, I think we have a long history around making sure that we’re addressing government requirements, both in our products and solutions on premise but also now as we take that to the cloud. And I think the other piece is that as they move forward into the cloud, it’s looking at and moving those first applications forward but doing it in a planned, full way that it’s not a stovepipe implementation. Let’s not move some virtual machines over, but let’s think about your overall infrastructure, your overall line of business solutions, your productivity tools, your mobility tools and how we’re going to do that.
And I think that’s the game changer and the dialogue that we can have with our customers, that is a different dialogue. We’re thinking about this comprehensively, we’re not thinking about it as one particular element, but really taking our knowledge, taking their feedback and putting together cloud solutions that address the needs of government across the board.
