What you need to know
- Microsoft is folding its U.S. Federal team into its Azure engineering operations.
- The idea is that if the U.S. Federal team is under Azure engineering, it'll result in faster cloud integration for solutions aimed at federal users.
- Microsoft made the announcement on September 8, 2021, via an internal memo.
In case you like to know about the internal workings of Microsoft, here's the latest scoop: The company's U.S. Federal team is being put under the umbrella of the Azure engineering organization. This sector of Microsoft falls under Executive Vice President Jason Zander's purview, as do many other Azure operations, which can be examined at Zander's LinkedIn profile.
Microsoft's U.S. Federal team covers a lot of bases in terms of which U.S. entities it works with. Not only does it deal with the Department of Defense (DoD), but also with the likes of the USPS, NASA, and other noteworthy agencies. As to why this team is being rolled into the Azure engineering organization, the company's logic is that the change will help get products and services for federal users more quickly into the company's cloud portfolio, with Azure benefitting from the two entities' tighter collaborative efforts (via ZDNet).
Here is what Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said in his email communicating the internal shakeup, as reported by ZDNet:
Through our direct experience with JEDI and similar initiatives, we know that working with the U.S. federal government requires the ability to deliver highly customized solutions. Our experience has also taught us the tremendous value of bringing our engineering team and our U.S. federal business unit closer together. Doing so allows us to be more responsive to our customers' distinct needs and make breakthroughs in terms of our product portfolio.
For now, the U.S. Federal team is the only public sector team being brought into the Azure engineering fold.
