Microsoft Azure Fires Shots At AWS With Taser Customer Win

Electrical weapon manufacturer Taser is moving its cloud services onto Microsoft Azure, the company has announced today.

US based Taser, which is also responsible for law enforcement ‘Axon’ body cameras and evidence cataloguing database Evidence.com, was using Amazon Web Services for its crime footage storage, but is now migrating to Azure so it can provide the “most secure and compliant cloud capability” to its customers.

“We’re incredibly excited to announce our partnership with Microsoft, a recognised public sector leader with valued products across police agencies’ technical needs,” said Taser CEO Rick Smith.

Revolutionary

Microsoft seems happy enough with the new customer, which also sells its non-lethal Taser weapons to the Metropolitan Police in London. Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft’s public sector business in the US, said that Taser is revolutionising how law enforcement captures, processes, and shares digital evidence.

The Axon Flex camera is worn on the body or the head allowing officers to capture their point of view, while the Axon Body camera is worn on the body. Taser claims that they reduces the number of false complaints and decrease use of force. Azure will be used to create an integrated approach to capturing and managing evidence including ingesting, retrieving, sharing, analysing and archiving the video.

“By combining this expertise with Microsoft’s intelligent cloud, device and data technologies, we will collectively bring to life not only the ‘mobile precinct’ approach for positive policing, but we’ll do it within the highest of compliance standards of privacy and security around the globe,” said Kolcun.

Claiming the partnership with Microsoft will deliver a “trusted cloud platform for law enforcement”, Taser will further look for integration with Windows 10 devices for its Axon platform and Evidence.com solution.

Microsoft said today: “Officers will be able to securely capture, store, and manage digital evidence through a trusted cloud platform that connects each part of the investigation process and streamlines operations from beginning to end. Microsoft Azure will also power next-generation analytics and collaboration with stakeholders throughout the criminal justice system.”

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