The Texas Department of Information Resources (TDIR), responsible for proving statewide leadership and oversight for management of government ICT, announced the move on 15 February as part of the state’s IT modernisation strategy.

The deployment will give Texan government employees access to cloud-based email and collaboration tools, including web conferencing, document sharing and real-time collaboration, and calendar sharing. The different systems currently used in government will be consolidated to streamline and improve collaboration and communication abilities across agencies.

“Office 365 will increase efficiency and help our agencies better serve the needs of citizens without compromising on security or privacy”, said Todd Kimbriel, Director of E-Government for the TDIR. The deployment will also bring significant savings in ITspending through greater efficiencies and increased capacity.

The platform complies with the high standards of security set up the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services, which requires an FBIbackground check of every administrator with access to government data. The system also supports the state’s security and privacy requirements under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.