North Wales Police has outsourced its email infrastructure to Unisys.

The agreement will see a migration of more than 2,500 email accounts from the current Exchange 2003 to an Exchange 2007 platform based at Unisys' HQ in Reston, Virginia.

The move is designed to free up IT staff to provide better support in other areas.

Robust email is increasingly important as police forces roll out mobile devices for frontline officers, according to Geoff Bradley, IT director at North Wales Police.

"Our officers are increasingly using BlackBerry devices to access line-of-business applications and email in the field, so we need to know we can rely on an effective and fully operational system around the clock," he said.

Unisys will also provide a disaster recovery facility for the force.