In a deal that solution providers could only dream of ever winning, defence contractor and Microsoft partner Lockheed Martin received a $9.8 million contract to migrate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Microsoft Office 365.
This transition will improve EPA employees’ access to communications and mobility tools and will offer EPA a significant cost savings, according to Lockheed Martin. The new system is expected to save approximately $12 million over the four-year contract period.
Malcolm Jackson, Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information and Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said EPA and Lockheed Martin have a long and productive relationship. I am excited to have them assist us in transforming the way our employees work and collaborate with one another.
Under the terms of the contract, approximately 25,000 users of EPA e-mail will be transitioned to Office 365 for Government, a new multi-tenant service that stores U.S. government data in a segregated community cloud and includes e-mail, calendars, scheduling and collaboration tools for internal and external use. Lockheed Martin will manage the migration and provide engineering and ongoing integration services. The primary e-mail migration will be completed in early 2013.
Lockheed Martin has developed several cloud services such as the Solutions as a Service (SolaS) for secure cloud delivery. Lockheed Martin began its investment in cloud solution development in 2008, with its first cloud implementation in 2009. Since then, Lockheed Martin has entered into alliances with vendors such as Microsoft throught is Microsoft Federal division to provide more cloud solutions.