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G'Day Australia! Office 365 and Dynamics CRM bounce Down Under

Throw that latency on the barbie and chuck me an ice-cold tube of 'productivity'

Lots of Australian businesses have already jumped aboard Microsoft's cloudwagon, often after having been told that the latency associated with data centres on foreign soil was no impediment to anything at all.

What, then, to make of Microsoft's announcement that Office 365 and Dynamics CRM will be on offer from its Australian bit barns “by the end of March, 2015”? And how to consider Redmond's assertion that the news represents Microsoft “taking that innovation to the next level so customers and partners can do more and achieve more with our technology, which is what counts at the end of the day”?

Those words have been attributed to John Case, Microsoft's corporate veep for all things Office, who delivered the news of the antipodean emergence yesterday. Case's case was that Microsoft now stands for cloud-first, mobile-first, productivity boosts that arrive once you go all-in to Redmond's cloud and hook up Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM using Microsoft tools, Microsoft partners and Microsoft Devices.

Microsoft's Australia MD Pip Marlow also said the arrival means a chance to be more innovative. Exhibit A for this proposition was a local partner called OBS that currently offers forms-driven software for things like self-serve leave applications. The presence of local data centres and a new partner program will mean the likes of OBS can offer their apps alongside Office or Dynamics, an opportunity an OBS said will make it possible to sell to smaller companies.

As you consider such innovations, know that your correspondent first encountered forms-driven workflow in about 1996 in the hands of Canadian vendor JetForm, which became Adobe-bait back in 2002.

But let's not let history get in the way of Microsoft's vision for innovation and productivity, or contemplate how AWS must wish it had thought of enabling ISVs to deliver its apps from the cloud (I'm fuzzier on this bit of history).

Instead, let's think of how much more productive Australians will be now that files don't have to endure the 100 milliseconds Verizon says data takes to move between Australia and Singapore, or the 155 milliseconds between Sydney and the US.

Australia will surely thank Microsoft for returning those precious moments to its working populace. ®

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