Office 365 and Dynamics CRM make their Australian debut

Many of Microsoft’s sought after products and services have, historically, been internationally ‘sheltered’, to put it nicely. If you live anywhere beyond North America, Microsoft’s services can appear as spotted as a cheetah in their distribution.

Today, Microsoft is looking to change that, a bit. Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online from Australian datacenters. Along with availability, Microsoft Office 365 also passed the Australian Government’s formal security assessment for Unclassified Sensitive government data or more commonly known as the Independent Registered Assessors Program (IRAP). With IRAP certification under its belt, Microsoft’s Office 365 can help ensure customer data from various areas of private clouds, hybrids clouds, and schools, are protected and easily managed.

Similar to the story we wrote about Azure for government and CJIS certification, Microsoft’s cloud suite has struck another first. Office 365 is now the first cloud productivity service that can provide IRAP assurance to an Australian audience. Microsoft is also pushing Dynamics CRM Online for IRAP assessment.

Microsoft and the Office 365 team are acutely aware of the climate that surrounds cloud connectivity and the growing advocacy for the protection of personal data. “Our comprehensive approach to global and local certifications provides the gold standard in security to federal government agencies, state government, education, healthcare, and commercial enterprises in Australia — all verified by third parties.”

In addition to security, having localized availability should help provide faster performance, geo-redundant back-ups and take into account data residency.