The Army has decided to migrate its Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Exchange email into a cloud provided by the Defense Information Systems Agency, announced Army Chief Information Officer Lt. Gen Jeffrey Sorenson.

The entire Army should migrate away from local Exchange servers by the end of fiscal 2011, Sorenson said while talking to reporters Oct. 25. Migration will begin in January, starting with the CIO/G6 office; headquarters department of Army will follow shortly in February, he added.

The switch should save the Army $100 million a year annually over the next five years. Those savings count toward a Defense Secretary Robert Gates effort to redirect $100 billion in overhead spending, Sorenson said.

The move to DISA won't require the Army to acquire new Microsoft licenses. The service canceled earlier this year a planned private sector solicitation for email services after finding that the acquisition was to difficult to accomplish under the 5000 series acquisition directive, Sorenson said.

"We were wasting time and wasting money," he added.

A small pocket of two to three hundred Army users will migrate to Google for email and will even use applications such as Google Docs, Sorenson also said.

For more:
- read a Army press release

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