Julie Brill of Microsoft. Handout photo.

Today's world of digital transformation requires more than “flipping a switch” as companies find themselves facing an unprecedented level of legal and compliance risk, according to a new blog post by Julie Brill, deputy general counsel at Microsoft Corp. and head of its privacy and regulatory affairs group.

That's why Brill said Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft released a free new book to guide CEOs and their legal counsel, “Digital Transformation in the Cloud: What Enterprise Leaders and Their Legal and Compliance Advisors Need to Know.” The book was co-authored by Brill, a former Federal Trade Commission commissioner, and Rich Sauer, deputy general counsel in charge of Microsoft's global corporate and legal affairs team.

Certainly legal and business leaders are not naive, and they will spot the book's commercial aspects as the Microsoft name appears repeatedly in the context of trust and security in data handling. But there's more to the book than that.