NZ to benefit from Office 365 and CRM delivered from Australian datacentres

Microsoft has today announced it will deliver its cloud productivity suite, Office 365, and its business application, Dynamics CRM Online, from Australian data centers by the end of March 2015.

Following the October launch of Microsoft Azure services from Australia, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online will soon be delivered from two existing data centers in New South Wales and Victoria. 

"Customers and partners tell us that our productivity and business application services, delivered from Australia, together with world-class offerings from our local partners will help New Zealanders do more and achieve more - and that is what counts at the end of the day," says John Case, corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Division, who is in New Zealand tomorrow.

Microsoft New Zealand's managing director, Paul Muckleston, says offering these services to New Zealand companies from Australian data centers will provide local customers with faster performance, offer geo-redundant back-up and help address data residency considerations, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, education, government and financial services.

"New Zealand Office 365 customers are assured that their data will only reside in the Australian data centers," says Muckleston.

"As we look ahead to a more innovative future, we're investing to help New Zealand businesses become smarter, more connected and competitive, getting all the benefits of cloud computing, so they can do more and achieve more any time, any place, from any device," he says.

A wide variety of New Zealand organisations are using Office 365 and CRM Online as they look to enable mobile working, better collaboration and connectivity, enhance customer service and drive efficiencies, including Beca, House of Travel, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Inspired Accountants and Icebreaker.

Office 365 is one of the fastest growing businesses in Microsoft history. Commercial cloud revenue grew 128% and the company is now on a $4.9B run rate.  75% of Fortune 500 companies have purchased Office 365 in the last 12 months.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has marked 41 consecutive quarters of double digit growth and is growing 80 percent (Q1 Fiscal 2015) with 2 out of 3 new customers opting for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online cloud solution.  The CRM business has 4.25 million users and now has more than 40,000 customers.