Rolling out cloud computing services such as managed hosting to mid-market firms is a key move in expanding the reach of the technology, Microsoft has claimed.
Peter Klein, chief financial officer at the computing giant, told ZDNet.com that cloud computing can allow the company to have more of an impact on mid-market organisations which are often lacking the resources to implement a SharePoint infrastructure.
"You could say a mid-market company has the needs of enterprise IT but the capability of a much smaller business. The cloud really solves that problem by bringing cost-effective, easy-to-deploy technology solutions to mid-market customers in ways they can't today," he said.
It come after Royal Mail signed a six-year contract with CapGemini which will see the latter firm provide outsourcing support in the form of provisioning, integrating and managing cloud-based services from suppliers.
Stuart Curley, Royal Mail's chief technology architect, had previously told Information Age that the organisation's current legacy system is acting as a "barrier" to the integration of new services and products.