Heard (a rumor not fact) that local firms are likely to be locked out of an e-mail services tender if they have not deployed a system with 15,000 or more users. Pilot Projects (using local firms) are the best way to begin these initiatives. For example, in 2013, www.uci.edu had over 9000 staff and over 28,000 students. Their pilot project involved less than 2% of the end users :) http://www.oit.uci.edu/wp-content/uploads/MicrosoftOffice365ExchangePilotPro... The pilot involved 117 users across 8 departments with an additional 345 users moved to Office365 Exchange as part of Paul Merage School of Business mass-adoption for their student and staff population. In total, UCI’s Office365 Exchange environment hosted 461 users at the end of the pilot testing. The students and staff within the Paul Merage School of Business have been excluded from the totals represented in this summary. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=851&sid=3737066 *Navy is moving its email to the cloud - only questions are how and when* Thursday - 11/6/2014, 1:25pm ET Jared Serbu @jserbuWFED Navy officials say it's a foregone conclusion that they will eventually migrate their email services to the cloud. The big questions are how, when and what type of cloud services they'll use. A pilot project the Navy launched in October using Microsoft Office 365 will attempt to offer some answers, and if all goes according to plan, it also will close a longstanding gap in the Navy's existing IT capabilities. The target population involves 45,000 Navy reservists who are held to roughly the same training requirements as the active duty force. But the reservists can't access the Navy's networks unless they're physically present at a Navy facility, and 65 percent of those sailors live more than two hours away from the closest one. If officials succeed in integrating Office 365, the cloud version of the ubiquitous office suite, the pilot users should be able to access their email and other portions of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) from just about any computer by September of next year.