Office 365 Germany now available to help address the needs of the most regulated organizations in Europe

Microsoft today announced the general availability of Office 365 Germany, a differentiated option to the Office 365 services already available across Europe.

The new offering will help address the needs of the most regulated organizations, such as in public sector and financial services, in Germany, the European Union (EU), and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

Office 365 Germany delivers Microsoft’s industry-leading collaboration and productivity services from German datacenters, with customer data stored at rest exclusively in Germany, and strict customer data access and control measures via a unique data trustee model governed under German law. The data trustee, T-Systems International GmbH, an independent German company and subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, controls all access to customer data by anyone other than the customer and their users. Office 365 Germany helps organizations adhere to strict EU data protection regulations and gives them additional choice of how and where their data is processed.

“Office 365 Germany provides innovative, cloud-based productivity tools that enable our customers to grow their businesses and meet their strict compliance restrictions like data residency in Germany. We are providing our customers a unique, differentiated option in how their data is handled and where it is stored, helping them fuel their digital transformation,” says Sabine Bendiek, Area Vice President, Microsoft Germany.

Christian Glanz, member of the executive board at Deutsche Vermögensberatung, a German financial advisory company which serves around 6 million clients explains: “Office 365 Germany enables our employees to shape their office routine and work truly from anywhere. We are convinced that Office 365 Germany not only meets the strict global data protection and data security standards, but also addresses the specific requirements that many German businesses have on data protection and compliance through the German datacenters and the German data trustee – this also applies to highly sensitive data held by Deutsche Vermögensberatung.”

A recently published study of the German IT analyst company Crisp Research on the state of digitalization and cloud usage in the German public sector, shows that more than 65 percent of the survey participants would consider migrating to the public cloud provided that the datacenter is located in Germany. The directing managers of FWU Institut für Film und Bild in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, Michael Frost und Rüdiger Nill state: “As the media institute for 16 federal states, we are the leader in producing high-quality media for use in schools. Data protection and data security are very important for educational institutions. We therefore support the availability of Office 365 Germany. Since data is stored in datacenters located in Germany and a German trustee has control over it, schools will have certainty that access to data is exclusively controlled by them and the data trustee.“

Campana & Schott helps companies to implement Office 365 to meet their long-term business and communication needs. “Office 365 Germany provides an attractive opportunity for businesses to rapidly and easily use cloud services and comply with data security requirements.” says Dr. Eric Schott, founder and managing director of Campana & Schott.

Office 365 is a comprehensive, secured, and intelligent productivity service for digital work at the cutting edge of the market today. With already more than 85 million monthly active users in companies across the globe, Office 365 Germany will support the growing demand for cloud services in Germany, and across Europe.

In September 2016 Azure became the first cloud service available from the new Microsoft datacenters in Frankfurt/Main and Magdeburg, Germany. Today’s launch of Office 365 further increases Microsoft’s investment in Germany. Additionally, Power BI Pro, a suite of business analytics tools, is also now generally available from the Microsoft Cloud Germany. Finally, later in the first half of this year, Dynamics 365 will reach general availability in Germany.

Please visit Office 365 Germany and Power BI Pro Germany for more information.