Microsoft South Africa has made Office 365 services available from its local data centre regions.
The software company says this is part of a move to provide productivity and collaboration capabilities organisations require, while meeting data residency, security and compliance needs.
It points out this will provide businesses with the cloud-powered intelligence needed to enable the modern workplace, as well as empower employees with the tools to drive real-time productivity and collaboration from anywhere.
Microsoft announced the opening of two data centre regions in SA in March.
“Office 365 has for years been providing the foundation of digital transformation for South African businesses,” says Lillian Barnard, MD of Microsoft SA.
“Delivering the richest Office experiences from the newly available Microsoft data centre regions in South Africa is the next step in our journey of partnering with businesses to empower them to do and achieve more, with the security of their data being top of mind.”
Microsoft notes that underpinning these benefits of Office 365 are the robust policies, controls and systems built in to help keep data secure and comply with regulations.
It adds that Office 365 provides in-country data residency for core customer data, for example, to help customers meet their data residency requirements.
According to the company, in-country data residency for core customer data adds additional assurances regarding data privacy and reliability for organisations and enterprises.
It notes the general availability of Office 365 is another step in Microsoft’s investment to enable digital transformation, and create sustained societal impact, in Africa.
“We are committed to accelerating digital transformation across the continent and we have already seen a tangible difference since we opened Africa’s first hyper-scale data centres in South Africa earlier this year. Combined with the first Africa Development Centres in Lagos and Nairobi, which allow us to listen to our customers and partners, we are now able to develop locally and scale for global impact better than ever before,” concludes Barnard.
Share