Credit: PA

The Cabinet Office has inked a £4.7m two-year contract for the fulfilment of its Microsoft licensing and cloud services needs.

The deal was signed under the terms of the Digital Transformation Arrangement 2021 (DTA21) – a memorandum of understanding between the government and the software vendor that came into effect on 1 May.

The MoU, which lasts for three years, represents a renewal of the first iteration of the DTA, introduced in 2018.

Both the new-look arrangement and its predecessor cover the provision of the core productivity applications – such as Teams – that comprise Microsoft 365, as well as Azure cloud services and programs. 

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“DTA21, allows all eligible public sector organisations to benefit from discounts and beneficial terms for Microsoft 365, Azure as well as associated support and consulting services, and for the first time – Dynamics 365 and Power Platform cloud services,” said Microsoft, when the renewal of the MoU was announced in April.

The Cabinet Office’s DTA21 contract commenced on the first day of eligibility, 1 May, and runs for two years until a concluding date of 30 April 2023. The department also has the option of extending the deal for two additional terms of 12 months each.

Little in the way of detail is provided in the procurement notice, nor in the contract itself, which is heavily redacted. But the Cabinet Office indicated that the engagement covers the “provision of Microsoft licences and Azure”.

The deal – which was awarded via the second lot of the G-Cloud framework, dedicated to cloud software – was signed with Trustmarque, a Capita-owned Microsoft reseller partner based in York.