Unified Communications Group Team Blog

Today, at Tech∙Ed in Berlin we announced that Exchange 2010 is available. This version of Exchange is like no other for many reasons.  One reason is that we built it as a service from the beginning, and over two years ago it became the e-mail service for universities around the world via our Live@Edu offering. In building Exchange 2010, we also broke new ground with low cost storage support, built-in archiving, and a truly unified inbox across the PC, phone and browser. Here we are today, with over 15 million users on the service, thousands of IT organizations testing Exchange Server 2010, thousands of technology consultants trained, and more positive buzz than we’ve ever had for a release of Exchange.

While this is an exciting day, it happens during a very challenging time. Your world is complicated.  IT organizations like yours are under cost pressure like never before, and you need to justify every investment you make.  Security, availability, data protection and compliance requirements are becoming more intense.  The evolution of software-plus-services creates new possibilities that require you to think carefully about many decisions you make today.  Today’s workers have high expectations – higher than ever before – of what technology can do to make them more productive in their jobs. These issues are particularly relevant for IT Professionals, like you, that make a living managing the communications technology for their organizations. 

In building this release of Exchange, we’ve worked hard to address many of the issues you are facing.  Let’s talk about cost savings. Exchange 2010 early adopters are consistently telling us that they are seeing huge savings from our new low-cost storage options.  BGC Partners (one of the world’s leading inter-dealer brokers) has already saved $1 million by replacing their SAN with DAS (direct-attached storage) using Exchange 2010, and expects to save 50 percent on their storage costs.  Morgan Keegan (a US-based investment firm) is cutting storage costs by 15% and has saved $400,000 in hardware costs by using DAS with Exchange Server 2010.  Morgan Keegan expects to boost IT administrators’ productivity by up to 30 percent and reduce recovery time by 20 percent.  What’s remarkable about these examples of storage cost savings with Exchange 2010 is that these companies are also dramatically increasing users’ mailbox size. We are seeing more and more companies now giving their users huge mailboxes -- like Elabs at 5GB; and Nasdaq at 10GB.  Now, low cost storage AND large mailboxes are possible.

Built–in archiving and voicemail are two other areas where we are seeing IT organizations save money with Exchange 2010.  TriWest Healthcare Alliance is saving about $250,000 with Exchange 2010 by avoiding the cost for an independent archiving and retention system, and Lifetime Products is saving over $70,000 per year by avoiding a 3rd party voice-mail contract.  Today Forrester released a study of Exchange 2010 “Total Economic Impact” where they found that organizations can expect a 48% ROI with Exchange 2010 and a payback period of under 6 months.

Last week we announced the amazing progress we are making in helping organizations efficiently manage e-mail by moving all or some of their users to the cloud.  Exchange Online (part of our Business Productivity Online Suite) is now available in 36 countries, and in recent months some of the new customers we have added include Aon Corporation, Aviva PLC, Barry-Wehmiller, Hofstra University, Lions Gate Entertainment, McDonald’s Corporation, Rexel Group, Swedish Red Cross, Tyco Flow Control, University of Ohio, and Westcon.  Hundreds of others have chosen the Business Productivity Online Suite in recent months.  Here’s what McDonald’s is saying about Microsoft Online:

“Within McDonald’s, collaboration and communication tools are critical to our success and ongoing innovation, and with Microsoft Online Services, we found a cost-effective yet familiar, intuitive solution that we could trust with our business communications. We have already completed over half of the corporate rollout and, by early in the next year, we will be fully deployed throughout our organization. With Microsoft Online Services, we expect to reduce our IT costs and increase our productivity.” -- Chris Millington, global chief technology officer and senior vice president of Shared Services, McDonald’s

Exchange 2010 is delighting end users by unifying communications within a single inbox.  With the new Voice Mail Preview (possibly my favorite new feature!), you get a speech-to-text preview of voice mails right in Outlook, and with new SMS Text Messaging, you can send and receive texts from your inbox.  So all your communications – for e-mail, IM, voice mail and text messages – are in one spot.  One of my favorite things to show my family, friends and customers (or anyone willing to let me demo for them!) is MailTips.  MailTips warn me – before I send an e-mail – if a recipient is out of office, if I am about to send a mail to a large group, or if a recipient is outside of the company.  I know this will help me from committing an embarrassing e-mail gaffe! 

In addition to saving me from embarrassment, MailTips are also a first line of defense in protecting company data – by warning me before I send information outside of the company.  In addition to giving me – as an e-mail user – more ways to protect company information, Exchange 2010 also gives IT the ability to encrypt messages based on sender, receiver or even the content of the message and attachments (for example, anything with the phrase “internal use only”).  And with the latest release of Forefront Protection for Exchange, IT can add an additional layer on top of what is built in to Exchange 2010.

So - starting today - we hope IT professionals like you will enjoy learning more about Exchange 2010 and trying it out for yourself.  You can see our launch keynotes from Tech∙Ed Berlin (including my on-stage demo!), Exchange Connections in Las Vegas, and lots of cool demos at our virtual launch – www.thenewefficiency.com. Enjoy! 

Julia White
Director, Microsoft Exchange

Two weeks ago we announced that Exchange 2010 was code complete and, as we get ready for launch, we’re seeing some amazing results from our early adopter customers.   They are so good, that I can’t help sharing some of these early highlights – just a sneak peek of what is to come. 

One server, many solutions

One of the things I’m most excited to see is the evolution of Exchange from an e-mail server to a multi-workload communications backbone.  Some organizations are now bringing in Exchange to do the job once managed by four or five different systems, and the results are really impressive.  With Exchange 2010, you’ve got a full e-mail, calendar and contacts solution, built-in information protection, built-in mobile e-mail and mobile device management, a full voice mail replacement, and a brand new archiving, retention and discovery solution.  Exchange administrators have seen their roles grow from simply providing great e-mail to providing an end-to-end communications solutions.  Customers are seeing impressive results in each of these workloads.

It does e-mail

It always has, but in 2010, it does it better.  With the new high availability, disaster recovery and back up capabilities combined with the significant IO reduction a few very cool things become possible.  First, what used to take multiple applications to achieve mailbox resiliency becomes possible using just Exchange.  Second, a very large mailbox – even 10 gigs+ becomes very affordable and supportable.  With Exchange 2010, a major government agency increased mailbox sizes by 10x, reduced failover times by four hours, decreased IT admin and storage costs and expects cost savings of up to $1 million per year with Exchange 2010. 

It makes everyone mobile

Let’s face it – people want access to e-mail, calendar and contact information from everywhere. Outlook Web App, Outlook Mobile and Exchange Active Sync have long been the leading solutions for web e-mail and mobile phone access for businesses.  But, we didn’t rest on our laurels with 2010, and it shows in the positive user feedback– from the improved OWA UI with integrated IM/presence, to conversation view in mobile, to EAS device management – every user can now have a rich mobile experience, while you don’t have to pay anything more since it’s all ‘in the box’.

It replaces voice mail (and gives a text preview!)

A mid-size innovative manufacturing company deployed Exchange 2010 voice mail avoiding a $43,000 annual maintenance contract for their legacy voice mail and reduced IT support required by more than 1000 hours – providing an additional $28,000 savings.  And, with the new text preview, a national auto dealer has improved their sales rep response time to voice mails by 50%, which means a better sales experience for customers. 

It archives and discovers

At a regional healthcare group, they are able to use the integrated archiving, retention and discovery capabilities of 2010 saving them the cost and maintenance of using third party solutions that resulted in $250,000 they didn’t have to spend – and that was just the first year savings. 

It protects people

Using the combination of Exchange 2010 and Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, a global electronics firm has seen a 90% reduction in unwanted e-mail, meaning less time deleting and more time making new gadgets for you and me.  And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg -- there’s a lot more around information protection we’ll showcase at launch. 

When you think about the full value of Exchange together it’s an impressive package!  And, I’m really pleased that many of you clearly agree -- a recent customer survey we did showed that 40% of Exchange customers are planning to move to 2010 within the next 6 months.  This certainly validates the feedback I’ve gotten from our customers and partners about the value delivered by Exchange 2010.

Since I know many of you are underway with deployment planning, I wanted to take this opportunity to make sure everyone knows the licensing options, so you can plan accordingly.  Just like 2007, Exchange 2010 will offer a Standard CAL and an Enterprise CAL.  Standard CAL includes all e-mail, calendar and contacts capabilities, mobile messaging with Exchange ActiveSync, plus the new over-the-air updates of Outlook Mobile on Windows Mobile 6.1+, and Outlook Web App.  The Exchange Enterprise CAL adds e-mail archiving, discovery and retention functionality, integrated voice mail (i.e. unified messaging) and Forefront Protection for Exchange. 

On the server side, Exchange Server Standard will now support high availability, so all customers can take full advantage of the new database availability group capabilities.  Exchange Server Enterprise enables configurations with up to 100 databases per server. 

All of the specifics around pricing and licensing will be available when we launch, but just to give you an idea, a customer buying a new license will pay about $55 for Standard CAL and about $35 for Enterprise CAL.  Existing customers with Software Assurance, of course, only pay for the renewal of Software Assurance, so this price is much lower.  And for the servers, a typical customer can expect to pay about $550 for Standard Server and $3200 for Enterprise Server.  As you know, pricing depends on the license type you choose, and if you buy via one of the CAL suites further discounts apply, so definitely take this as a ballpark vs absolute.  As always, your reseller partner or Microsoft rep can get you the specifics on pricing once Exchange 2010 is available. 

I can’t wait to share more of the incredible results our Exchange 2010 customers are seeing and talk with you about your Exchange 2010 plans.  I hope you can join us at TechEd Europe in Berlin, Exchange Connections in Las Vegas or online at www.thenewefficiency.com as we launch Exchange 2010.  It’s going to be a great time!

Julia White
Director of Exchange Marketing
Microsoft

Today is another exciting day for the Exchange team. We’re pleased to announce that Exchange Server 2010 is feature complete and folks can download it today. This milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to making Exchange 2010 the most effective messaging and collaboration solution available. For more information, please check out our blog post on the Exchange Team Blog.

You can download the Exchange 2010 release candidate from the TechNet site.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Thanks,

Julia White
Director of Exchange Marketing
Microsoft

For small and medium businesses (SMBs) considering Software as a Service (SaaS) e-mail options, there’s a lot of information to wade through, but not a lot of useful guidance on how to choose the service that will provide the best business value for their SaaS e-mail investment.

Collaborative Strategy Guild has published a new whitepaper, Gauging the Real Value of Software as a Service (SaaS) E-mail for Small and Medium Businesses, the first in a series of reports designed to help SMBs sort through the hype and make solid, well-informed decisions about their e-mail investments.

According to the report, “Competition for the SaaS e-mail market is currently being waged over cost; however, price alone does not always equal value. E-mail clients and services can either foster or hinder productivity, and in varying degrees. Although price is an important determining factor for choosing a SaaS e-mail provider, the combination of cost savings plus productivity gains defines the real value of e-mail to an organization.” 

The report goes on to discuss how e-mail can support business processes and user productivity. It provides an overview of the market and vendors and offers an “E-mail Productivity Framework” to help IT decision-makers in SMBs evaluate their e-mail investment by examining their organizations’ needs.

This report is a great resource for SMBs and anyone evaluating SaaS e-mail.

Today, in our fourth quarter earnings call, we shared the latest results of our efforts to free customers from the costs and antiquated architecture of Lotus Notes and Domino.  In our last fiscal year (July 2008 - June 2009), more than 4.7 million people began the switch to Exchange and SharePoint from Notes.  In today’s economic climate, this is strong testimony to the cost-savings and efficiency gains that companies can get by moving off Notes.  Customers are recognizing that investment, even in tough times, can make them stronger for the long haul. 

We’re seeing a few key trends driving these migrations:

Cost Savings Today, Productivity Tomorrow

Cost savings is the number one driver for migrations.  Notes systems simply cost more to run and manage.  A Ferris Research survey of 917 companies Ferris Research survey of 136 organizations found that Notes systems can cost twice as much as Exchange 2007.  But, most businesses have their eyes on the longer term productivity gains that Exchange and SharePoint deliver.  With today’s economy, businesses understand that investing in the right applications can reduce costs in the short term and drive greater efficiencies, productivity and overall business value in the long run.

Online Services Ignite New Demand

The launch of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online is a key driver for migrations.  This past year, as these services have gone live, some major Notes customers – including Coca-Cola Enterprises, GlaxoSmithKline and Ingersoll Rand – are making the move from Notes to the cloud because of Microsoft’s software plus services strategy. In fact, GlaxoSmithKline will save an estimated 30% over the next year as a result of making the switch. This is a strategy that gives these businesses the ability to combine software and services and segment their users to lower costs in a smart way.

On the other hand, Notes customers wanting a cloud-based solution have limited options.  IBM’s “Goldilocks approach” (companies cannot be too small or too big to move to the cloud as the IBM service starts at 1,000 users and stops at 10,000) and the added costs of cobbling together solutions based on different platform choices (Domino, WebSphere, DB2) give customers few choices.  As a result, Notes customers are choosing Microsoft Online because it provides them with a flexible, single platform that is accessible from a familiar interface across the PC, phone and browser.

The Developer and Partner Ecosystem

At 400,000 strong, our partner and developer communities are amazing!  Every one of those 4.7 million Notes switchers started their migration with a Microsoft partner, and today, those partners are better than ever at helping customers cost effectively move off of complicated, proprietary Notes applications.  Eddie Bauer was able to move over 1,000 people off Notes and migrate their applications over a weekend.  And, when it comes to building the next great application, developers and partners are lifeblood.  The power of any collaboration platform lies in the applications you can create.  With Notes, the skills are dwindling and expensive.  With SharePoint, they are booming and in-demand.  Just take a look at the trend from Indeed.com, and you can see where companies are investing for the future.

No doubt IBM will respond by saying this blog post is just FUD.  But objective third-parties like Gartner differ with that assertion.   IBM may even respond with a press release announcing ‘new’ customers, who are, in most cases, simply deciding to keep Notes a bit longer.  But with millions making the switch, I suppose a company choosing to keep Notes is pretty newsworthy these days.

Julia White

Director of Exchange Marketing

Microsoft

This month’s customer spotlight focuses on a newspaper company using Exchange Server 2007 to help their reporters quickly and efficiently cover more breaking news. As you may know, Exchange Server is currently the most widely used messaging server and growing, and is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications solution. What you may not know is how some of these companies are uniquely benefiting from Exchange Server deployments.

That’s where Utusan Group comes in! Utusan Group, a Malaysian publishing company with over 1300 employees, quickly recognized how they could increase productivity by implementing Exchange Server. Providing readers with up-to-the-minute news is paramount for any news reporting agency and reporters are so barraged with numerous potential stories that they often find they do not have the time to cover every topic. Utusan’s journalists were using a free e-mail solution to receive reports of breaking news and file their stories with the editor. Due to the time sensitive nature of news reporting, having an e-mail solution that is reliable is vital to the success of their business. After experiencing reliability issues with their previous solution, Utusan decided to upgrade to an enterprise-level offering. Their choice: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 because of the product’s extensive capabilities and reliability. With Exchange Server 2007, Utusan’s reporters can quickly and securely file their stories via e-mail from the field and move on to cover the next breaking news assignment. The result: More timely news articles for their readers.

To read more about Utusan’s experience with Exchange Server 2007, please see their case study.

Here are a few other links to interesting accounts of customers experiencing benefits with Exchange Server 2007:

·         Indiana University staff enjoys greater flexibility and telecommuting options with “anywhere, anytime” access to their e-mail and voicemail.

·         Employees of Central Technology Services, a subsidiary of Central Bancompany, save 15 minutes a day with Exchange Server.

·         Construction giant Webcor Builders takes advantage of Exchange Server’s integrated e-mail, search and archiving capabilities.

·         QubicaAMF, one of the largest bowling manufacturers and suppliers in the world, uses Exchange Server to help simplify communications and increase productivity.

·         Golden Pyramids Plaza experiences a 30 per cent boost in productivity with Exchange Server.

For additional case studies, you can also visit the Microsoft Case Study site: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

While Exchange Server 2007 is currently available for purchase, in April Microsoft introduced a beta of the Exchange Server 2010 that builds on all of the great features Exchange Server 2007 currently offers. For those of you interested in testing the latest version of Exchange or would like more information on the product, please check it out at:  http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010.

Today, the Unified Communications Group is pleased to kick off the initial charter of the Microsoft Unified Communications Consultant Program (UCCP), a program designed to provide consultants with the resources needed to enhance their expertise in Microsoft unified communication solutions.

The UCCP offers consultants a rich forum to develop direct and ongoing relationships with Microsoft subject matter experts, consultant program managers, product group teams and executive leadership, while learning firsthand about the benefits customers and partners are experiencing with Microsoft unified communications solutions.  The goal of the UCCP is to help consultants evaluate Microsoft unified communications products and effectively translate their expertise into exciting, new opportunities for their customers.  

The initial charter of the UCCP has engaged a small group of independent telecom consultants who are experienced in delivering strategic assessments, Request for Proposal (RFP) development, and the evaluation process and product selection of unified communications technologies for enterprise clients. 

Energy. We all need it, we all use it, and there’s probably no other industry sector out there that better understands the importance of squeezing the most out of precious resources. So what steps are they taking within their own organizations to be more productive in these tough times? For this month’s customer spotlight, we look at the energy sector and how Microsoft unified communications products are helping businesses in this industry conserve two important internal resources: time and money.

Genesis Energy, a Houston-based energy company, is always looking for innovative technologies to help reduce costs and increase productivity. When the company decided to relocate its headquarters into a different building, they were faced with the question of what to do with their aging PBX. Uprooting their outdated phone system and moving it to the new location was not an option.

Genesis’ IT department investigated their options for replacing their old PBX. After evaluating Microsoft’s offerings and several competitor products, Genesis decided to implement Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging.

The result? Better use of resources:

·         Genesis will save an estimated U.S. $50,000 each year with reduced travel-related and communications-related expenses.

·         With more streamlined communications, employees have an easier time collaborating and communicating with colleagues.

·         Genesis’ IT department is able to more quickly respond to help-desk requests.

You can read more about Genesis’ experience with Microsoft’s unified communications solutions in their case study: Energy Company Cuts Costs, Boosts Productivity with Unified Communications

To see how other energy companies are saving resources with Microsoft UC, check out these case studies:

Schlumberger video case study: Oil and Gas Industry Leader Enhances Software with Unified Communications Solution

Royal Dutch Shell: Royal Dutch Shell Envisions Improved Working Environment with Unified Communications  

·         You can also find additional details about Royal Dutch Shell’s implementation of Microsoft unified communications solutions in this IDC white paper: Unified Communications in Manufacturing: Accelerating Decisions While Lowering Costs

All Microsoft case studies can be found here: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

Each month, we look at different organizations across various industries to see how unified communications is transforming their businesses. This month we highlight academic institutions, from school districts to colleges and universities, and how these educational establishments are using Microsoft’s UC software to change the ways they communicate and collaborate.

The University of Kentucky

With over 44,000 faculty and students, the University of Kentucky (UK) is the state’s primary public institute of higher education. UK offers over 200 degree programs to students at its main campus in Lexington, and through distance learning programs.

Like any bustling business with thousands of employees in hundreds of departments working from dozens of locations, the University needed a solution to facilitate easier, real-time communication for its staff and students.

The UK implemented Office Communications Server 2007 to meet the challenge. With presence, instant messaging, and audio, video, and Web conferencing integrated into its core administrative, IT and educational applications, the university streamlined communications across the learning community. Just a few of the results include:

·         Improved productivity and an estimated 15 minutes saved per day per user

·         Reduced travel costs associated with meetings throughout the university system

For additional details on the University of Kentucky’s use of Office Communications Server 2007, see this Microsoft case study: University Adopts Unified Communications to Improve Education, Streamline Operations.

Gartner Research also recently completed a case study that reveals how the University of Kentucky benefits from Microsoft’s unified communications solutions. Read more here:  Case Study: University of Kentucky Uses Unified Communications to Enhance Communication and Cut Costs. (Gartner Inc., Jay Lassman, March, 2009)

Other educational organizations across the globe are choosing Microsoft Unified Communications too. Check out these Microsoft Case Studies for more details: 

A collection of case studies can be found at the Microsoft Case Study website: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

The beta for Exchange Server 2010, the cornerstone of our UC technology, is here and available for download today at www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010 .  This release is, without question, the best Exchange yet.  And, it all centers around our customers.  With Exchange 2010, we demonstrate our relentless pursuit of addressing customers’ needs – both IT professionals and end users.  If I could sum up Exchange 2010 in one phrase it would be: Accomplish More.  At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – getting more done while lowering costs.  Exchange 2010 delivers on this promise in so many ways – let’s dig into just a few.

With Exchange 2010, customers can:

·         Get the rich inbox experience across the PC, phone and browser.  Exchange, with Outlook, Outlook Mobile and Outlook Web Access, offers consistent and full featured universal inbox (that means email, voicemail with text previews, SMS, IM all in one place) experience regardless of where you’re accessing your email.  Based on the new inbox productivity tools and anywhere access, my team is literally getting 30-60 minutes back a day in productivity time saved.

·         Never send that mistaken email again.  With MailTips, you are warned before you hit send about sending to a very large distribution group, sending to recipients outside of the company and the annoyance of sending email to someone out of the office only to get their OOF message and having to send it again to someone else.  It’s like having x-ray vision into your email system. 

·         End the .PST forever.   IT admins will soon be able to say “what’s a .PST?” because the new archive feature provides the option to eliminate .PST files (personal, locally stored e-mail repositories) while not disrupting the end user experience or having to learn new IT management tools.  The Exchange 2010 integrated archive lowers e-discovery costs and brings this business critical functionality within reach for all customers.

·         Lower support costs through reduced help desk calls. Non-deliverable e-mails and message delivery tracking are top drivers of email support costs. With Exchange 2010’s new end user self-service capabilities and inbox features, these calls are dramatically reduced.

·         Replace legacy voice mail systems. That’s right. Customers can eliminate costly maintenance fees, get more from IT resources, and boost productivity with Exchange 2010 voice mail with unified messaging  - especially with the enhancements we’ve made to this version, such as the new voice mail text preview, so you can quickly triage voice mails without ever listening to the message).

·         Dramatically lower storage costs and deliver larger mailbox quotas.  The incredible advances around Exchange 2010 storage management and IOPs reduction enable organizations to choose low-cost storage options while still ensuring high availability.  This means offering end users larger mailboxes while not increasing costs is possible -- this is truly where you can deliver more for less. 

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. For more on the benefits Exchange 2010 can bring to you and your organization, check out the video Q&A with Rajesh Jha, corporate vice president of Exchange, and visit the Office 2010 and related products virtual press room for more.

With that, go download the beta, take it for a spin and let us know what you think!

The Register recently published an article on the messaging landscape entitled “The Messaging is the Medium:  Survey results are in”.   In an online research study looking at what messaging platform companies were running and how committed they were to them, The Register gathered over 1100 responses across different organization sizes: corporate (over 5,000 employees); mid-market (250-5,000 employees) and SMB (up to 249 employees).  In the end, the findings weren’t surprising to most, finding the Exchange has over 80% of the market in the corporate segment and 57% of the SMB segment.  These numbers are pretty in line with other analysts findings as well, such as Ferris who found Exchange had about 65% share across all organizational sizes.  Studies like these keep coming out showing the continued growth Exchange is having in the messaging marketplace.   With 11+ million Lotus Notes switchers over the past 3 years, an Exchange Online offering that’s off to a tremendous start, a Live@EDU offering taking the academic market by storm, and continued investment in Exchange both as on premises server and as a service as a part of Microsoft’s Software + Services vision, the future looks very bright competing against IBM and others to win many more amazing customers.  In fact, I couldn’t have said it better than The Register does, so I’ll leave you with a couple of great quotes from the article:

     Among corporates, the story is pretty clear; Microsoft is the platform of choice for over eighty percent of respondents while a large proportion of Lotus Notes/Domino customers regard their own choice as a legacy system.

And….

     Despite attempts to refresh the Lotus brand with a combination of new Notes and Domino releases as well as a plethora of related products such as Sametime, Quickr, Connections and Symphony, it looks as if the ‘legacy’ tag is still hanging round IBM’s neck like a millstone

Brandon Hoff

Sr. Technical Product Manager

Exchange Product Marketing

We just wrapped up VoiceCon Orlando 2009. It was another exciting year at the event – we participated in numerous customer panels and sessions, several partner announcements, and Gurdeep Singh Pall delivered a keynote that highlighted customers and partner successes with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.

As part of the keynote, Gurdeep talked about a big customer win for our Unified Communications Group. Recently, Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF) looked for a UC solution to replace its aging PBX system. With a whopping 40% of its current workforce entering retirement over the next few years, BNSF needed a modern communications platform that could help attract and retain a younger workforce.  BNSF tested solutions from Microsoft competitors, including Cisco and IBM, but chose Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 for its software-powered platform. You can find out more about the BNSF solution in an article posted by Ina Fried/CNET, Microsoft's telephony software gains railroad ties.

Sprint and Swisscom also joined Gurdeep on stage.  Sprint is dramatically reducing costs and greenhouse gas emissions by replacing their network of PBX systems with a centralized Office Communications Server deployment, and Swisscom responds to sales opportunities twenty percent more quickly because of the employee efficiency promoted by Microsoft UC.

These customer examples were the highlight of Gurdeep’s keynote for me, and in fact, the highlight of Voicecon.  Architectures and features are fine, but business results really talk.

Want more information about Microsoft VoiceCon activities? See a replay of Gurdeep’s keynote at www.voicecon.com/orlando, and check out our partner announcements with Polycom and Aspect.

BJ Haberkorn
UC Senior Product Manager

The Microsoft Unified Communications Group has a busy week ahead at VoiceCon Orlando. On the heels of our Office Communications Server 2007 R2 launch, momentum keeps building as our partners continue to benefit from Microsoft’s open partner ecosystem. 

From sunny Florida, here’s some of what you’ll hear from Microsoft partners at the event:

·         On March 30, Microsoft and Polycom will announce Polycom as the worldwide reseller of Microsoft RoundTable, renamed the Polycom CX5000 Unified Conferencing Station.

·         Also on March 30, Microsoft and Aspect will provide a progress update to coincide with the one year anniversary of the Microsoft and Aspect global strategic alliance and equity investment.

Microsoft’s VP  Gurdeep Singh Pall will be giving a VoiceCon keynote address on Wednesday April 1^st at 9 a.m. EST, “Smart Decisions for Tough Times.” He’ll talk about the strong emergence of unified communications solutions to help companies weather the economic storm, while increasing productivity, collaboration and efficiency. View a replay of Gurdeep’s keynote at: www.voicecon.com/orlando; or find additional information about the Microsoft VoiceCon announcements in the Unified Communications Group Virtual Press Room at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/uc/default.mspx.

Microsoft spokespeople will also be hosting numerous customer panels and sessions throughout the event.  Find complete schedule and event details at www.voicecon.com/orlando.

BJ Haberkorn, 
UC Senior Product Manager

In the last few months, we have highlighted case studies showing how different industries, including telecom and manufacturing, benefit from Microsoft unified communications solutions. This month, we take a look at the government sector.

The Swiss Council for Accident Prevention was looking for a way to build on its existing infrastructure for improved operational efficiency and collaboration amongst its employees. The company deployed Office Communications Server 2007 to provide its staff with an integrated e-mail, conferencing, instant messaging and voice solution.

The result? The Swiss Council for Accident Prevention is experiencing increased productivity, improved mobility options and reduced costs for travel and IT administration. Find out more about their solution here:  Swiss Safety Council Expects 220 Percent Return on Communications Investment

Check out these other case studies to see how local, national and international government organizations are saving time and money with Microsoft Office Communications Server.

·         Tayside Fire and Rescue: Rescue Workers Expand Communications Options to Improve Operations and Reduce Costs

·         Alaska Legislative Affairs Agency: Alaska Legislative Affairs Agency Supports Far Flung Operations With Unified Communication and Collaboration Solutions from Microsoft

·         Salford City Council: Council Increases Productivity by 35 Per Cent with Unified Communications Solution

·         Municipality of Heumen: Dutch Municipality Modernizes IT Environment with New Desktop Software

A complete list of Microsoft case studies can be found at www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

You can also find additional information on what government organizations are doing with unified communications here: http://www.microsoft.com/uc/industrysolutions/government.mspx

Today, we are launching Microsoft Online Services in 19 countries worldwide. People in these countries can now try Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Communications Online, and next month, these services will be available for purchase.

As part of this news, we’re also announcing that GlaxoSmithKline has chosen Microsoft Online Services as their messaging and collaboration platform.  GSK is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and back in 2001, when GlaxoWelcome merged with SmithKline Beecham, the company standardized on Lotus Notes and Sametime.  Now, they will be moving more than 100,000 employees to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting, and in their recent quarterly call, they estimated that this move help them reduce costs by 30%.

You can read more about the decision process GlaxoSmithKline used in this guest blog by their VP of IT, Ingo Elfering.  Ingo offers some great perspective on what businesses should consider when evaluating vendors and thinking about a move to the cloud.

If you are looking to move to Microsoft Online Services, visit www.microsoft.com/online to learn how.

Clint Patterson
Director
Analyst Relations / Public Relations