Cloud Solution to Keep Hyatt's 40,000 'Deskless' Associates Connected

Hyatt Hotels & Resorts has purchased Microsoft's cloud-based Business Productivity Online Suite for approximately 17,000 individuals working at Hyatt's corporate office and Hyatt properties in traditional information-worker roles. In addition, Hyatt purchased licenses for 40,000 "deskless" associates who work in the hotel chain's U.S., Canada and Caribbean locations without access to a PC full-time.

"Many people working in our hotels aren't available full-time at their desks, but still need access to the same e-mail, instant messaging and other collaboration tools as the rest of our employees," says Mike Blake, CIO at Hyatt Hotels & Resorts Corp. "The flexibility of Microsoft's cloud services allows us to maximize our productivity, helping us focus on those activities that are most critical, such as strengthening guest relationships, generating new revenue streams and improving operations."

The announcement was made at Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting.

In addition to enterprise cloud offerings, Microsoft runs some of the world's largest consumer cloud services, with more than 600 million unique users on MSN, more than 500 million active Windows Live IDs, 23 million users of the rapidly growing Xbox Live gaming service, and handles over 4 billion Bing search queries monthly.