Australian icon now poster child for Microsoft's cloud

It sounds like an IT provider's dream – an iconic Australian manufacturing company started in 1945, now modernising as it transforms into a technology and communications provider.

E-commerce, cloud and tablets are all on the agenda as Hills Limited – the company behind the Hills Hoist clothesline – turns its focus to markets like interactive patient care.

iTnews reported Hills' IT department was "struggling with disparate system suites and inconsistent business processes". A decision was made to modernise, not only moving onto Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, but also rolling out Microsoft Surface tablets.

The IT provider with a key role in the transformation is Ensyst, Microsoft's 2013 Public Cloud Partner of the Year. General manager Nick Sone said the win has been an interesting one.

"There's a very good integration story there between public cloud and private cloud," he said.

One of the key factors in the decision to move to Azure was native integration with the Surface Pro, Sone said.

"There's no other platform that gives native integration," he said. "With non-native integration you have things that can break. You typically have a clunkier experience as an end user."

Hills is moving to Office 365 and Azure, with Microsoft's Hyper-V part of the mix. The company is running Active Directory, voice calls and video on premise, with Office 365 and Lync in the cloud.

Sone said Ensyst has been consulting to Hills for 12 months and the project has involved the migration to Azure, testing, ongoing management, as well as supplying the Surface devices. Hills has around 25 Surface tablets currently, but Sone said there are plans to roll out "a lot more". He said Hills was also piloting Nokia's Lumia 925.

Sone said he is expecting an increase in interest in Azure once Microsoft turns on its Australian data centre, expected this year.

"What we see from customers is while we're already transitioning customers to the Singapore data centre, there is a huge amount of interest in the Australian data centre."

"We're skilled up so we're ready. Migrating customers into Azure will probably be one of our fastest lines of business," he said.

The Hills rollout has turned into a PR win for Microsoft, with Hills' CIO telling iTnews that supporting iPads was a "nightmare". Microsoft has also jumped on the story, profiling the project on the Microsoft Australia blog.