Texas WIC has moved to Microsoft's Government Cloud

Enterprise and Microsoft are often synonyms with one another. As Microsoft continues to refine its Office 365, OneDrive, Skype and Azure products for business, its association with enterprise continues to solidify. However, Microsoft’s solutions continue to make headway in various other sectors such as government, education and medical.
Recently, the system for providing nutritional benefits and education to mothers regarding infant and child care in Texas has moved to using the Microsoft Cloud Solution for WIC. The move signals another valuable use case of Microsoft’s Government Cloud.
The Women, Infants and Children program more commonly referred to as WIC is a nutrition program handled at the state level and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Typically, mothers involved with the WIC program are given subsidies benefits on food to promote the improved diet of infants, children and women who are pregnant.
The Texas WIC program information management system was established in 1995, back before the landscape of identity security and cloud computing evolved. According to a Microsoft vice president of U.S. State and Local Government, the old system has “outlived its usefulness.”
Texas WIC’s move to Microsoft’s Government Cloud is intended to solve delays with daily backup and data sync requirements. The delays leave participants waiting for their information to sync before they receive their benefits and causes gaps in benefits coverage during outages.
According to Microsoft:

On top of the improvements in eligibility and health recommendations that will result from the new solution, case workers and beneficiaries alike will also see vast improvements and efficiency in scheduling and inventory management, reduced wait times, improved customer service, and enhanced employee mobility.

Microsoft is confident that the deployment of Microsoft’s Government Cloud solution for Texas WIC’s will ultimately lead to WIC staff being able to focus more on their clients. Rather than spending time troubleshooting sync problems dealing with mishandled coverage for children and mothers, they will be able to concentrate on providing more one-on-one services with participants.