Rackspace Unveils Microsoft-Focused Productivity Business Unit

Rackspace (RAX) is building a new business unit around offering a variety of cloud productivity and collaboration software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, mostly revolving around hosted Microsoft (MSFT) software it already offers as cloud services. The new Cloud Office at Rackspace unit is intended to bring the company’s portfolio of productivity and collaboration products under one umbrella organization.

Included in the solutions are hosted Microsoft Exchange and Rackspace Email, Microsoft Lync and Microsoft SharePoint, as well as Jungle Disk backup services. Of course, the entire portfolio is backed by Rackspace’s Fanatical Support services and support offering.

“We’ve combined the power and expertise of Rackers, who understand that each customer has unique needs in their work environment, with a broad selection of productivity tools to help customers manage and run their business in a way that meets their specific needs,” said Bret Piatt, general manager of Cloud Office at Rackspace, in a prepared statement.”

The San Antonio-based business unit will be staffed by more than 400 employees in San Antonio and Austin.

The Cloud Office at Rackspace was formed to provide fully managed business productivity tools for businesses of all sizes to help them improve communication and collaboration. According to the company, the new business unit will enhance customer productivity with a team of specialists that will be responsible for deploying, managing and troubleshooting so customers can focus on their core businesses.

“As we continue to see widespread adoption of hosted productivity solutions from SMB to the enterprise, businesses are increasingly looking for help to introduce these technologies into their organizations and manage them in a way that reduces pain points and maximizes employee productivity,” said David Smith, research director and lead analyst at Aragon Research, in a prepared statement. “Rackspace’s significant experience in cloud hosting and business productivity positions them as a competitive choice in the cloud productivity market, particularly for organizations that are seeking a fully managed model.”