MS unveils Office 365 for govt

Redmond has released a new build of its Office 365 cloudy productivity suite that's been specially hardened and certified for government use, says The Register.

"Office 365 for Government is a new multi-tenant service that stores US government data in a segregated community cloud," blogged Kirk Koenigsbauer, VP of Microsoft's Office division. "Like other Office 365 offerings, it includes productivity and collaboration services including Exchange Online, Lync Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Professional Plus."

ZDNet says Microsoft plans to add support for IPv6 to Office 365 for Government by September, and “we're taking steps to soon support Criminal Justice Information Security policies with the offering,” officials said in a blog post. These standards will supplement the others already supported by Office 365, including ISO 27001, SAS70 Type II, EU Safe Harbor, EU Model Clauses, the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and the US Federal Information Security Management Act, they added.

Before this release, Microsoft's primary offering for government customers was Office 365 ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations). Office 365 ITAR isn't a public-cloud play but a dedicated service aimed at very large customers. It isolates and separates customers in their own locked-down environment. Office 365 ITAR supports FISMA and complies with ITAR regulatory controls and offers Public Trust High Background Investigations of people who manage the data (like its predecessor, BPOS-F).

Microsoft is locked in a battle for the government cloud apps market with Google, which first offered Google Apps for Government, which is also FISMA-certified, in July 2010, says Information Week. Since then, Google has signed Colorado, Wyoming, Maryland, and Utah as customers.

Most recently, Google was awarded a contract by the Department of the Interior, which had originally selected Microsoft until Google sued. The company objected that the requirements mandated compatibility with Microsoft BPOS and the contract was thrown out and rebid.