CSC has won a contract to provide IT support for 30,000 employees
of the United Kingdom's postal service that will be using
Microsoft's cloud-based offerings for e-mail, collaboration, and
chat. It's a big win for Microsoft Online, and also shows how
outsourcing companies are adapting their businesses to cloud
computing.
CSC is calling the deal an "expansion" of its current contract with
the U.K.'s Royal Mail Group, signed in 2003, for desktop and server
IT support. Under the new terms, CSC will set up employees with
Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite, introduced this
year, which includes Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications,
and Office Live Meeting, hosted in Microsoft data centers and
purchased on monthly subscriptions. CSC will also provide help desk
support to employees for those applications.
CSC is the first Microsoft partner "to lead and win a cloud
computing services agreement of this scale," the outsourcing
provider said in a statement issued Monday. CSC is one of the
world's largest IT outsourcing providers, with 92,000 employees and
$16 billion in revenue last year. Royal Mail Group's head of
technology service delivery, Carol Olney, said the deal is part of
the postal service's goal to invest in new technology to improve
efficiency and customer service.
Cloud computing threatens to take away business from IT outsourcing
companies, since many of the benefits are the same: Reduced costs,
less internal development of software, reduced management of
applications and hardware. That's why companies such as CSC are
looking to adapt and participate in the trend toward cloud
computing. CSC now offers "cloud services," which are designed to
help businesses "easily and securely adopt cloud computing
solutions, allowing them to reduce the costs of managing and
maintaining business systems while giving them access to the latest
Microsoft Online Services," the company said in its statement.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has recently stepped up efforts to sells its
online applications as Google intensifies its efforts to replace
Exchange/Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes on desktops. Earlier this
month, it dropped its prices by up to 50% on Exchange Online.
Companies using or migrating to Exchange Online include
GlaxoSmithKline, with 110,000 seats, and Aon, with 36,000 seats.