SMB-focused hosting provider GoDaddy has entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft to offer Office 365 as a service to its clients.
According to the companies, the move will allow GoDaddy to provide "seamless" access to professional email connected to their domain names, cloud storage and a full suite of Microsoft productivity offerings.
Additionally, it will support GoDaddy's push to branch out into more diversified offerings for SMBs.
The organisations also claim that, as well as being more convenient for users, Office 365 is more secure than other offerings designed for consumers and SMBs as it has built-in anti-malware capabilities, as well as defences against spam and phishing attacks.
In a statement, Steven Aldrich, senior vice president of business applications at GoDaddy, said: "We've created a simple way to attach Office 365 to a domain name, helping small business owners look professional and work anywhere, making the business of running their business easier."
John Case, corporate vice president of Microsoft Office, added: "We're excited that GoDaddy has chosen to exclusively offer Office 365 to its small business customers, giving them easy and supported access to productivity tools being used by some of the most successful businesses in the world.
"GoDaddy's relationship with small businesses combined with Office 365, the fastest-growing Microsoft product in history, will help bring the benefits of Office 365 and modern cloud services to even more companies, whether they're seeking to modernise how they do business or simply starting up."
The service is currently available to North American customers only, but will be rolled out globally over the course of the next three months.
