Employees at ClubLink, a Canadian operator of golf courses, collaborated with each other only by phone or e-mail. These communications methods slowed IT support and contact-center responses and made mobile workers hard to reach. In addition, frequent employee travel to meetings and training sessions cost money and reduced productive hours. With help from LegendCorp, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, ClubLink deployed a unified communications solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Now, presence awareness and instant messaging help ClubLink employees contact co-workers and collaborate in real time, and conferencing reduces the need for travel. By using the new solution, ClubLink has cut decision-making time from days to minutes in some cases and reduced telephone use by 10 percent.

Toronto-based JLA Ventures, a venture capital firm, wanted to create an online travel site that would provide users with a unique, rich visual experience. To find the right technology for this endeavor, the company turned to the Microsoft® Intellectual Property (IP) Licensing Group. The IP Licensing Group introduced JLA Ventures to the Microsoft World Wide Media eXchange (WWMX) technology, which associates digital photographs with the GPS coordinates at which they were shot. WWMX makes it possible to index tens of thousands of geotagged photographs and provides the tools to access them using a geographic browser. JLA Ventures licensed the technology in May 2006 and was able to architect a unique online travel-planning site with dynamic functionality that put it ahead of the market. The site launched in July 2008, garnering a fast-growing user base and critical acclaim.

Over the past five years, Ski Bromont, a four-season activity resort in Quebec, Canada, has enjoyed tremendous growth. But while employees easily managed the upswing in sales, its sales kiosks and online sales channel couldn’t cope with the volume of transactions. System crashes during the holiday season took a toll on sales and customer confidence. Ski Bromont turned to Microsoft® Certified Gold Partner Conamex to upgrade its IT environment. Before moving ahead, Conamex implemented a Software Asset Management (SAM) plan to evaluate the IT environment. Through SAM, Ski Bromont gained a clearer picture of its IT environment, helping it make decisions about future software investments. Ski Bromont was also able to establish clear guidelines around IT use for employees, ensure all of its software was compliant, virtually eliminate downtime and reduce IT service hours by 50 per cent.