US Virgin Islands government ditches Google for Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365

The US Virgin Islands has made the move to Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud-based productivity suite, ditching Google and even Yahoo along the way. The US Virgin Islands has made the move to Office 365 for it’s government, who formerly utilized a Yahoo email account and various Google accounts.

“As a government entity, we are concerned about data security and privacy, but I felt confident that storing our data at Microsoft datacenters would be as secure as managing it on-premises. Microsoft is transparent about where our data is stored. We’ve been able to maintain our data security at the highest standard because our cloud solution complies with federal standards such as HIPAA, FISMA, and CJIS, which is a big reason why we chose Office 365 over competing cloud solutions,” said Reuben D. Molloy, Director of the Bureau of Information Technology and Chief Information Technology Officer for the Government of the US Virgin Islands.

Business productivity, along with inter-office communications have now been improved thanks to Office 365. The amount of time and money expended in traveling between islands to conduct business meetings has now been cut thanks to Office 365’s videoconferencing capabilities. Microsoft Exchange Online is now being utilized for email and calendaring services, while SharePoint Online is now used to automate manual business workflows.

With Office 365, the US Virgin Islands believes they are one step closer to providing more efficient government services.

Just recently, it was revealed that the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department (California) had also made the move to Office 365. Queensland, the second largest and third most populous state in Australia, also recently revealed that government agencies will soon make the move to Office 365 – a change that affects 149,000 public servants across the state.