A&N Media has signed up to become one of Microsoft's first public guinea pigs when it comes to implementing Office 365.
The publishing house responsible for The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and Metro will begin rolling out the cloud-based office suite to its local paper group, Northcliffe Media, in the autumn, with the rest of its divisions joining the system through 2012.
It has also announced plans to be rid of all its own servers and datacentres by 2015.
"This deployment will enable our teams to become more productive in and out of the office," said David Henderson, A&N Media's chief information officer.
"A&N connects with over 41 per cent of adults in the UK and news gathering has become increasingly mobile. Office 365 supports our reporters being able to work anywhere, at any time on any device."
The company is also planning to introduce a "bring your own" device to work model and hopes this cloud computing implementation will complement it.
Microsoft was keen to add that A&N Media had examined competitors to Office 365, but claimed it favoured this new release thanks to "its low total cost of ownership, flexible price plans and market leading productivity tools."
"We are confident that A&N Media's adoption of Office 365 will equip them with the tools they need to help them be innovative, productive and efficient in the new world of business," added Microsoft.
Office 365, which incorporates Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online, was launched last week almost 10 months after it was first announced.
