Microsoft IT used a business value framework developed by Forrester Research to more precisely measure the overall business impact and the return on investment of unified communications at Microsoft. The analysis showed that the UC solution was generating an ROI of 250 percent by enabling employees to save more than $218 million annually.  Based on the outcome of this analysis, Microsoft will continue to use this methodology to justify investments in UC technology.

• Success story video (with Tony Scott, CIO at Microsoft Corp and others)
• Download the document (dated November 2010 at the moment of posting)

As part of its migration to SharePoint 2010, Microsoft IT recently deployed FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 and the enterprise search service for its hosted environments. The goal was to provide an experience that is more efficient and effective for its end users. This video will cover some aspects about the implementation and support of the enterprise search farm, as well as the wins and benefits that FAST Search for SharePoint has provided not only to end-users, but also to MSIT.

Check out the video case study.

If you are looking for information on the different Management Packs that are currently available for the different products in the System Center suite, check out the list of System Center Management Packs on Microsoft Pinpoint.

Michael Kleef announced the RTM of Service Pack 1 for Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7: “SP1 will be made generally available for download on February 22.“