General Electric (GE) is moving more than 300,000 of its employees onto Microsoft’s online business productivity suite, Office 365.
The contract is one of the largest Microsoft is thought to have secured to date, with GE employees from more than 170 countries set to benefit from the move.
As a result, they will have access to cloud-based versions of flagship Microsoft productivity tools, including Outlook, Skype for Business and Word, across a range of mobile devices and platforms.
GE said it intends to connect some of its core line of business applications to Office 365, with the help of open application programming interfaces (APIs), to unlock new features and extend their capabilities.
Jamie Miller, senior vice-president and CIO of GE, said the deal was indicative of its commitment to improving levels of employee productivity.
“Microsoft’s innovative approach to collaboration made Office 365 our first choice for providing scalable productivity tools to our employees worldwide,” said Miller.
As previously reported by Computer Weekly, GE had been hailed as an early adopter of Office 365 challenger, Google Apps for Business, in 2009.
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Whether or not this deal will result in a full scale rip and replace of Google Apps is unclear at this stage, as GE has spoken publicly in the past about the possibility of using the search giant’s tools alongside other business productivity offerings.
Computer Weekly contacted GE for clarification on this point, but was still awaiting a response at the time of publication.
“Microsoft and GE share many values in common – openness, transparency, data-driven intelligence and innovation – all of which are driving forces behind Microsoft’s aim to help people and organisations achieve more,” said John Case, corporate vice-president of Microsoft Office.
“As one of the most innovative companies in the world, GE understands what it takes to unleash the potential of its employees. We’re delighted GE has selected Office 365 as the productivity and collaboration system for its global workforce,” he added.
According to Microsoft’s most recent set of financial results, Office 365 has 50 million active monthly users, while the consumer version of the product is reported to have around 12 million subscribers.
