“What this does, is it reinforces the fact that we are a solid cloud platform that the federal government can put their trust in,” said Dana Barnes, vice president of the Microsoft’s national-security group. “If the IC can trust it, so can the DOD.” The deal is an expansion of a previous one between Dell and the Office of the Director of Intelligence, which licenses Microsoft products to the government. The department manages the NSA, CIA, NRO, and NGA.
Microsoft and Drone Testing
The deal comes just a week after Microsoft secured government permission for a drone testing program. The Redmond giant will work in Kansas on projects like motorist rescue, remote safety assessment applications, and agriculture. Microsoft also provides its services to the Chinese government, the DoD, London police, and many more. It currently holds $1.3 billion in unclassified contracts made over the past five years, will also look to land a $600 million deal to switch Defense Department employees to the cloud.
