Microsoft has continued to increase its focus on China after it announced the full launch of Office 365 in the country. The move comes a month after its Azure cloud computing platform became generally available there, and six months after the local version of Skype was relaunched.
Both Azure and Office 365 are being operated by Microsoft’s Chinese business partner 21Vianet. The two services launched in China in preview simultaneously back in November 2012.
Now that Office 365 is generally available, local versions of Office, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online — running on China-based servers — are open to all customers across the country, having initially been limited to Shanghai and other cities.
Microsoft isn’t the only Western Internet giant with an eye on China. Amazon is preparing to launch its Web Services business in the country this year, having started with a preview version in December 2012.
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