Microsoft seems to have been quite aggressive with its cloud computing game since the last several months, in a bid to further the cloud expansion plans in Europe, where it claims it has invested more than $3 billion till date, the company has announced the delivery of cloud from datacenters in France.
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft and Brad Smith, President, Microsoft stated that the company has more than doubled its cloud capacity in Europe in the past year and now intend to deliver the cloud experience from France, starting 2017. Nadella shared that the new investments in cloud are helping customers — including the UK Ministry of Defence, the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Ireland’s Health Service Executive and ZF from Germany — to innovate in their industries and move their businesses to the cloud while meeting European data sovereignty, security and compliance needs.
Nadella said, “We continue to invest heavily in cloud infrastructure to meet the growing demand from European customers and partners. Building a global, trusted, intelligent cloud platform is core to our mission to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. There’s never been a better time for organizations across Europe to seize new growth and opportunity with the Microsoft Cloud.”
Cloud for Global Good
The company has also released a book titled “A Cloud for Global Good” while Microsoft’s CEO and President are visiting Europe as part of a four day tour to meet business and government officials. The book entails 78 public policy recommendations in 15 categories to help make cloud technologies more trusted, responsible and inclusive. Topics include next-generation skills, enhancing security and privacy in the digital age, environmental sustainability, keeping communities safe, and securing a bright future for the next generation. The book’s specific proposals tackle challenges like data flow disruptions that can interrupt critical services, protecting people from online exploitation and fraud, and ensuring those with disabilities can access e-government services
Smith commented, “Cloud computing has the potential to solve some of our world’s most challenging issues, but, as with all technological advancements, it raises important questions for society. We must work together to build a cloud for global good. Our hope is that the ideas shared in this book will help move technology forward while ensuring no one is left behind.”
Microsoft’s European connection
Microsoft plans to offer Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 from multiple datacenter locations in France. In Europe, Microsoft claims to offer its customers innovative regional cloud services to transform their businesses, including recently announced generally available Microsoft Cloud services from datacenters in the United Kingdom (Microsoft Azure and Office 365) and Germany (Microsoft Azure with Office 365 planned for early 2017), with the latter offering a first-of-its-kind model in Europe where access to customer data is controlled by a data trustee, T-Systems International, an independent German company and subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.
The company claims that the collective investments, including datacenter hubs in the Netherlands and Ireland, which continue to expand, together with locations in Austria and Finland will enable Microsoft to meet anticipated customer demand in Europe and offer European customers greater ability to digitally transform their organizations through the cloud, by meeting their security and compliance needs while understanding where their data resides.