U.S. corporate titan General Electric has signed an agreement to roll out Microsoft Office 365 to its more than 300,000 employees in 170 countries. Microsoft announced the news this morning, calling the GE deal one of its biggest customer wins to date.
The deal gives Microsoft new bragging rights in the competition against Google and others in the world of cloud-based productivity. GE was one of the first big companies to start using Google Apps several years ago.
In a statement announcing the Microsoft deal this morning, GE CIO Jamie Miller said Microsoft’s approach to collaboration “made Office 365 our first choice for providing scalable productivity tools to our employees worldwide.”
GE’s rollout will include Microsoft’s Skype for Business, the Yammer social network, in addition to features such as multi-user editing of documents stored in the cloud. GE will also integrate services from its existing third-party vendors with Office 365, such as the Box online storage and collaboration service.
The deal follows a multi-year push by Microsoft to bring its Office apps online and release versions for competing mobile platforms, Android and iOS.
