Partners to benefit from new 5-year partnership with Microsoft and NSW govt

Microsoft and the NSW government have extended their partnership in signing a five-year deal, tapping into the tech giant's cloud services and partner ecosystem.

According to a statement by Microsoft, the agreement will support the NSW government’s cyber security posture and the move of 25 per cent of its ICT services to a public cloud with the supply of collaboration, security, communications, data analytics and modernising services.

Microsoft’s partner ecosystem is also set to benefit from the deal through “investments that will maximise the value of the agreement”.

Select partners are already reaping the rewards from the partnership, one of which being Sentient Dynamics, which designed and built a business evidence and reporting tool for NSW government agency Local Land Services.  

Other partners tapping into the agreement include KPMG, which helped replace the Department of Communities and Justice’s legacy payment and contracting system, and Datacom, which migrated Dams Safety NSW’s Microsoft SharePoint workflows to Power Platform in order to improve its auditing, compliance and water management processes.

Credit: NSW government

“This agreement supports a number of our Beyond Digital priorities and has enabled access for a range of new users – in particular our volunteers, who have played such a significant role across NSW over the past two years,” said NSW government chief information and digital officer Greg Wells. 

“This agreement will boost NSW government employees’ technical capabilities with a comprehensive skilling and investment program, enables participation from SME [small- to medium-sized enterprises] and sovereign suppliers to the NSW government and as provides enhanced security, customer data protections and privacy services. 

“These requirements have been highlighted more than ever during the pandemic and we look forward to continuing to build on the partnership between the government and Microsoft to further improve public services.”

In 2015, Microsoft struck a cloud computing deal with the NSW government, with agencies such as the Departments of Health, Finance and Services, Justice, Family and Community Services and Planning and Environment, being among the first to have access to cloud and mobility services, which includes Microsoft Office 365.