St. Paul, MN August 8, 2012 - Microsoft, the State of Minnesota's business partner on the Enterprise Unified Communications and Collaboration (EUCC) move to the cloud, has received the national Top Tech Integrators Exceptional Service Award for their collaborative work on the project. Microsoft was nominated by MNIT, Minnesota's enterprise IT organization, and selected by e.Republics Center for Digital Government as one of the 11 best organizations in the country that tailor technology solutions for government.

The Exceptional Service Award recognizes an integrators role as a key change agent or catalyst for process or operational change within an agency or jurisdiction. Earlier this year, MNIT Services and Microsoft joined forces to move 40,000 email boxes into the Cloud, increasing benefits like collaboration, system security and mailbox capacity, while also realizing decreased costs.

Our partnership with Microsoft resulted in ground-breaking work for state government, said Ed Valencia, CTO for the State of Minnesota. This project pushed the boundaries of innovation by focusing not just on innovative technology, but also through such a strongly collaborative business relationship. Were very proud of the groundbreaking work our team completed with Microsoft as our partner.

The EUCC transition was completed in a short time with very little disruption to users. The system is expandable and available to other jurisdictions as well like boards, commissions, cities and counties. The City of St. Paul has recently migrated to the system, for example.

Winners were selected from nominations, submitted by public sector IT entities, of companies who partnered on projects addressing such areas as health and human services; finance and administration; transportation; and economic and business development.

The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. The Center is a division of e.Republic, a national publishing, event and research company focused on smart media for public sector innovation.