Toyota is transitioning all standard IT services to cloud-based solutions and focusing internal IT on R&D to support the business strategy

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I’m screwing around worrying about what version of mail I’m on, it’s wasted effort. It’s a lost opportunity … to do something more meaningful for our customers or our business.

Business Insider has an article describing how Toyota is shifting IT services to cloud-based solutions based on an interview with Zack Hicks,  Toyota’s top technology executive in North America.

The IT service changes include:

• Replacing IBM Lotus Notes with Office 365 for 200,000 employees
• Replacing Oracle’s Peoplesoft for Workday*
• Distributing reports via Box instead of email or print
• Hosting marketing web sites on Amazon (presume AWS)
• Hosting apps that run in cars on Microsoft’s Azure

When asked why Microsoft Azure was chosen for hosting the in-car apps, Hicks responded:

The great thing about Microsoft is that they’ve learned their security lessons the hard way and they’ve gotten really good at security. Security around the vehicle is No. 1. No. 2 is that you’ve got to have a partner that’s big enough to scale globally.

We’re stepping into uncharted territory. You have to worry about who’s going to own vehicle data. and that it’s the customer’s data. Its not the vendor’s data. That’s a privacy concern for us.

A big emphasis in the article is how IT staff are being freed up from desktop-support drudgery to work on more meaningful projects to improve the core business: technology in cars.

* Workday was founded by the founders of Peoplesoft. Peoplesoft was a hostile acquistion by Oracle