• Office 365 and The Family Tree - Leadership

    Posted over 4 years ago
    by akisslo}

    Today we are excited to announce, Office 365, a new brand of cloud services that I believe will lead customers to increase their adoption of cloud services. For the official news of the day, I recommend you visit our event  site. Go sign up for the BETA!

    Over the last couple of weeks we’ve announced several new customers including DuPont, Godiva, The State of Minnesota and State of California have all decided to join existing BPOS customers such as GlaxoSmithKline, McDonalds, Starbucks, and American Express.

     

    In fact, the number of businesses using our existing BPOS solution has more than tripled since the beginning of this year and we have companies as small as 5 users up to hundreds of thousands of user organizations relying on Microsoft as their trusted partner in the cloud.

     

    Complete Offering

    Today’s announcement means customers will have access to our software in a way which completes our vision to ‘light up’ the best end user tools with the best set of server products on the market.

    In fact the value of Union brings the capability which other vendors treat as distinct software markets into one complete offering for your business.

     

    Considering that the on-premises versions of these products consistently rank as a leader (upper right quadrant) in related Gartner Magic Quadrants, you can understand why customers of all sizes will be excited about the opportunity to gain access to such powerful set of tools. 

     

    Upper Right More of the Time

    Gartner Inc., one of the world’s largest and most influential industry analyst firms, is a trusted source for IT decision makers in all industries. One of Gartner’s best known research methodologies is the “Magic Quadrant” which assesses a market and its participants (vendors) to help customer identify a short list of vendors for consideration. 

     

    According to Gartner, “Assessing a market and its participants is a daunting task. Vendor differentiation caused by differing sizes, levels of complexity and strategies can inhibit comparisons of vendor offerings, and the market's overall direction is often murky. Gartner's Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes solve these problems by offering snapshots of markets and their participants, enabling you to map vendor strengths against your current and future needs.” You can read more here.

     

    Products such as Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and BPOS, participates in 16 relevant Magic Quadrants, ranging from Business Intelligence to Unified Communications to Social Software and more.

    This year, Gartner placed Microsoft’s products in the Leader’s quadrant – the highest possible ranking within these reports, in 11 of these categories, highlighting the confidence Gartner analysts have in Microsoft products and solutions. The 16 categories and 11 ‘Leader’s Quadrant’ designations include (bold means available with Office365):

     If you want to get more information about Gartner Magic Quadrants, go to www. gartner.com or call 1.203.964.0096.<-->

  • Center Parcs Goes with Microsoft Online - Interview with Christian Kuttler, Dir. of Information and Communication Technology

    Posted over 4 years ago
    by akisslo}

    As part of the Real World Microsoft Online Services series, we spoke to Christian Kuttler, Director of Information and Communication Technology at Center Parcs, about replacing Google Apps with the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Here's what he had to say:

     

    Q: Tell us about the Center Parcs business model.

    Kuttler: Center Parcs popularized the concept of a "short break" vacation experience. Each of our resorts provides an all-in-one getaway, combining luxury lodging with unique indoor and outdoor activities—set in the midst of beautiful forest acreage. From their rustic private cottages nestled in the woods, guests can explore nearby hiking trails and lakes, or stroll to first-class spas, restaurants, and shopping venues.

     Q: What were the biggest challenges Center Parcs faced with Google Apps?

    Kuttler: We welcome 36,000 guests each week to our resorts, so we need to provide employees with effective communication and collaboration tools. We initiated a proof-of-concept deployment of Google Apps to 250 of our employees. We found that a significant number of employees spent considerable time learning the Google Apps interface or compensating for deficiencies in the tools, which meant they had less time to create documents and manage projects.

     Google Apps worked well for small teams creating documents that required simple formatting. But when our finance group needed to collaborate on a complex budget document, for example, Google Spreadsheets lacked the sophistication we needed, including all of the formatting shortcuts and analytics capabilities that we were accustomed to in Microsoft Office Excel. With Google Spreadsheets, the more complex the document, the more unstable it became.

     Q: Why did you switch from Google Apps to Microsoft Online Services?

    Kuttler: Given our direct experience in experimenting with it for more than a year, it was clear that Google Apps is simply not yet ready to be used as an enterprise solution. It lived up to the promise of discounted costs in the beginning, but it didn't deliver on long-term value; in fact, the cost in terms of lost productivity consumed any up-front savings we achieved by moving to Google Apps. After taking a closer look at the hosted solution from Microsoft, we recognized that it offered true value and gave us a stable, reliable platform for growth.

    Q: What kinds of benefits have you seen since Center Parcs started using Microsoft Online Services?

    Kuttler: When we used Google Apps, I had employees standing in my office saying that they'd given up, that they could not use the applications to complete certain tasks. Now that we've moved to Microsoft Online Services, I don't have that problem anymore. Through our use of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, we've increased employee productivity by a minimum of 20 percent; we've achieved this by giving employees access to high-performance, on-demand tools so that they can work together to meet the needs of our guests.

     You can read the full story online and we invite you to join our upcoming TechRepublic Webinar  on October 14th to hear from other customer's like Center Parcs who found Microsoft a better fit for their business than Google Apps.

    For more success stories like Christian Kuttler's at Center Parcs, read other real-world testimonials on our whymicrosoft website.

  • Have you Heard about the Minnesota Deal and the Other Cool Stuff going on with Microsoft’s Cloud?

    Posted over 4 years ago
    by JRG_MSFT}

    If you're reading this post, you're probably interested in the cloud and hopefully in Microsoft Online Services and BPOS in particular. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to highlight some of the great things happening with Microsoft's cloud offerings and also provide you with pointers to some Cloud information resources that I find useful.

    First, I want to make sure that you saw the big news this week about the State of Minnesota selecting Microsoft's BPOS cloud offering for their communications and collaboration solution. In a related blog post, Gopal Khanna, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Minnesota talks in his own words about his thoughts on some of the criteria that Minnesota focused on when making their decision, including security, scalability, and cost.

    It's exciting for me to see that Microsoft is delivering on the requirements that customers are looking for as they consider taking advantage of the benefits that cloud offerings deliver.  You can also find information on other customers that have adopted our offerings on Microsoft's Customer Evidence site.

    Keep your eyes on the following resources to make sure you're aware of all the cool stuff happening in this space.

    Here are the resources I follow and some examples of what they have to offer.

    Microsoft Online Services Team Blog

    • BPOS just released the Microsoft Online Service Health Dashboard. If you're an administrator with a company that already has a BPOS subscription, you can see the status of the service in your datacenter for the current day and week. For more about this, see Morgan Cole's blog post.
    • An excellent source of summary information about the cloud in general, and BPOS in particular are Josh Topal's weekly This Week in BPOS News posts.

    Why Microsoft Blog

    Microsoft News Center

    We live (and work) in exciting times!

  • Aisle7 Talks About Why They Switched to Microsoft’s Cloud Applications

    Posted over 4 years ago
    by akisslo}

    We recently talked to Jake Harris, Director of IT at Aisle7, about replacing Google Apps with the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which includes Microsoft Exchange Online. Here's what he had to say.

    Q: Tell us about the Aisle7 business model.

    Harris: We are a health and wellness marketing solution for grocery stores, health food outlets, drug stores, and mass-market retailers. Customers including Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and The Vitamin Shoppe feature our content on their websites through in-store kiosks and mobile applications and use it to educate shoppers about the wellness products they carry.

     Q: What was the biggest challenge Aisle7 faced with Google Apps?

    Harris: When we decided to implement Google Apps Premier Edition, some people warned that Google might be good for personal use but not for business. I think those people were wise—I've come to believe the same thing after trying it. The Google Apps Sync tool never worked as advertised. For example, if you're using calendar features, that's where the Google sync tool really fails. I had to update distribution lists manually, save them onto a network share, and then send everyone a ten-step procedure for remediating their distribution lists. Also, Google provided almost no support at all.

    Q: Describe the solution you built with Microsoft Online Services?

    Harris: Microsoft went to great lengths to make sure that the solution was the best fit for my company. (By contrast, the salesperson at Google kept repeating that the best way to try Google Apps is to buy it.) We replaced Google Apps with the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which is available on a per-user, per-month basis—and we pay only for the services that we subscribe to. Everything is hosted at Microsoft data centers.

    Q: What benefits have you seen since Aisle7 started using Microsoft Online Services?

    Harris: I was tired of the headaches with Google Apps. I'm quite excited to be using tried-and-true Microsoft products. The Exchange Online pricing is competitive and the overall value is higher. There are all sorts of advanced functionalities you get from the full, rich feature set of the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. And it actually works. What a concept.

    For more success stories like Jake Harris at Aisle7, read other real world testimonials on our whymicrosoft.com website.

     

  • Three Big Wins for Microsoft Cloud Services

    Posted over 4 years ago
    by akisslo}

    Today at our annual Financial Analyst's Meeting (FAM) we announced that The Dow Chemical Co., Hyatt Hotels Corporation and the University of Georgia have each selected Microsoft cloud solutions. If you'd like to watch any of Executive keynotes, please visit the digital site dedicated to this event.

    Three Different Customers, One Common Strategy

    These three customers are certainly a diverse set of businesses but they do share a common strategic direction to leverage Microsoft's cloud for the next generation of their computing needs. Ina Fried from CNET has a great summary of the customer stories in her post from today's announcement.

    Momentum

    These customers join over 40 million paid users' who leverage Microsoft Online services today including 500 government entities, 13 of top 20 global telecom firms, 15 of the Top 20 global banks, and 16 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. As I previously posted, Windows Azure also has recently announced the addition of over 10,000 customers in nine months since full scale production.

    Hyatt Hotels & Resorts – Check's In to BPOS

    This win is another great example of a customer leaving an on premises competitive solution for Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite. Just like Codelco, Hyatt will take advantage of the full suite for "information workers" while offering a more cost effective option for 40,000 associates who do not have a need for fully dedicated suite. This is a great way to unify the entire workforce with one platform and enable a common user experience for everyone.

    University of Georgia – UGA is All In

    For those not familiar, the University's mascot is 'the bulldogs'. In fact, there is a real bulldog affectionately named "UGA" pictured below. His Bio is here. With teeth like that, you better believe we are excited to have him on our side!

      (courtesy: georgiabulldogs.com)

    Over 85,000 students, faculty and staff will take advantage of Live@Edu. The university joins other great educational institutions such as the University of Arizona, Kentucky Department of Education and New York City public school district who have recently selected Microsoft as their vendor for cloud based solutions.

    Dow Chemicals – The Right Formula is Microsoft Online

    Dow Chemical is moving their enterprise workforce to BPOS. Global companies such as Dow have expansive business units and a need to remain reliable and highly secure while taking advantage of the flexibility the cloud can enable. We are very excited about welcoming them to the BPOS family.

    For more information on any of Microsoft's cloud solutions, please this website.