Microsoft Partners Aid Transformation of U.S. Public Sector

Many U.S. public-sector organizations are jumping from legacy to cutting-edge technologies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, often adopting Microsoft platforms with help from the company’s ecosystem partners, according to a new research report published today by Information Services Group (ISG) (Nasdaq: III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

The 2022 ISG Provider Lens Microsoft Ecosystem Partners report for the U.S. public sector finds the sudden need for government agencies to serve constituents in a socially distant way, along with new federal funding provided in response to the pandemic, have led to a rapid increase in public-sector technology modernization projects.

“Agencies where old systems were at the end of their useful lives are now moving to the cloud and adopting automation,” said Nathan Frey, partner, ISG Public Sector. “The Microsoft partner ecosystem is especially strong in the U.S., so there are many providers that can help them.”

Public-sector organizations face many hurdles to implementing and integrating Microsoft technologies as they modernize, the report says. Issues include relatively high cost, a lack of familiarity with the technology and an aging workforce accustomed to legacy systems. Typically, government agencies lack the internal expertise to manage projects such as migrating enterprise applications to Azure.

However, some public-sector organizations have carried out mature cloud migrations that take advantage of the cloud’s unique capabilities instead of just reducing costs. This may include using multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments for greater resilience and flexibility, optimizing applications for the cloud and adopting microservices architectures with containerized applications.

“Public agencies in the U.S. may lag the private sector in cloud migration, but the U.S. as a whole is still ahead of other countries in using the cloud,” said Jan Erik Aase, partner and global leader, ISG Provider Lens Research.

Ready-made frameworks and accelerators from service providers, and in some cases end-to-end managed services, are helping organizations make the leap, ISG says. Other highlights of the report include discussions of how some public-sector organizations are using Microsoft 365 to address pandemic workplace disruptions and experimenting with Microsoft Power Platform to encourage innovation.