According to a statement on the Microsoft blog, the company has revealed that its enterprise cloud services, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics, and Windows Intune, meet the European Union's (EU) rigorous privacy standards.
Notably, this approval also safeguards against the EU's recent vote to halt the Safe Harbor Agreement with the U.S., meaning that customers won't need to worry about the cloud services being interrupted in case the vote succeeds.
The approval couldn't have come at a better time for Microsoft. I would expect that this approval should help bolster the adoption of Microsoft Azure overseas, where the company has previously met some roadblocks due to the EU's strict privacy laws. Furthermore, Microsoft is the only organization that has received this type of an approval from the EU, where customers will be able to feel at ease about their privacy and data. Finally, this news follows closely with the recent exposure around the OpenSSL security vulnerability, where Microsoft has made it clear that its services weren't impacted, helping to bolster the reputation of Azure. To read more, see "Microsoft Azure Reportedly Not Impacted by Heartbleed Vulnerability."
