Microsoft to drive Toyota’s global communications infrastructure
By Digital News Asia October 3, 2012
- Automaker selects Microsoft to provide across-the-board support for 200,000 employees worldwide
- To better support mobile devices, reduce costs, and improve collaboration between employees
US technology giant Microsoft Corp said that Toyota Motor Corp has chosen Microsoft’s technology platforms to build its communications and collaboration infrastructure for the Toyota family of companies worldwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc and other affiliates in North America began the deployment of Microsoft Office 365-dedicated cloud services as their exclusive environment in June 2012.
In Japan and other overseas affiliates, Toyota will be leveraging a hybrid model, with on-premises editions of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Lync and Windows Server.
Microsoft will help Toyota provide these services to more than 200,000 employees around the world during the next two years, the US company said in a statement.
The goal of implementing this Microsoft platform is to better support mobile devices, reduce costs, and improve collaboration between employees with state-of-the-art enterprise social networking, conferencing, messaging and information-sharing tools, it claimed.
“We continually strive to make our business stronger by improving Toyota’s organizational health, and today’s announcement to upgrade our communications is another step toward that goal,” said Shigeki Tomoyama, managing officer at Toyota.
“By seamlessly integrating both cloud and on-premises environments, Toyota will enable its employees to effortlessly collaborate and communicate with each other, whether they are within the same four walls or in locations around the world,” said Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner (pic).
This announcement represents an expansion of Toyota’s collaboration with Microsoft technologies. In April 2011, Toyota and Microsoft partnered to provide next-generation telematics services using the Windows Azure cloud platform. Today’s announcement expands that initial investment and includes participation in Microsoft early adopter programs to test new products before they are released.