4-page Case Study - Posted 12/21/2007

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Dolby Laboratories

Audio Innovator Increases Value of Information Assets with Enterprise Licensing

Since the 1960s, Dolby Laboratories has set the standard for high-quality audio systems. As Dolby grew, so did the volume of information that it collected. The company needed to efficiently enforce its document and e-mail retention policies and make it easier for workers to find the information that they need to do their jobs. Dolby also wanted to reduce the number of different vendor solutions that it had to support. In 2007, Dolby acquired the Microsoft® Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) Suite, which includes capabilities to meet Dolby’s need for an enterprise search solution, electronic forms, policy compliance, rights management, Web conferencing, and other integrated server capabilities under one license. With these capabilities, Dolby expects to increase user productivity, reduce support costs, simplify license management, and gain overall value for its software investment.

Situation

For more than 40 years, Dolby Laboratories’ technology has defined the standard for quality sound in both commercial and home entertainment systems. From the early days of analog recording to the latest digital technologies, Dolby® audio products have led the way in making the entertainment experience more realistic. In 1971, A Clockwork Orange was the first film to use Dolby A-type noise reduction on all masters released. Six years later, 12 films, including Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, were recorded with Dolby Stereo soundtracks.

Today, Dolby Digital technology is integral to a variety of systems that deliver high-quality sound—from televisions and computers to automobile sound systems and video games. The company manufactures a range of professional products, offers professional production services, and licenses its technologies to manufacturers of both professional and consumer electronics devices.

Dolby grew rapidly in the 1990s and into the new century, expanding both product lines and staff. In 2005, the company went public and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. To efficiently channel its growth into new opportunities and to meet the requirements of a publicly traded company, Dolby needed to update its network infrastructure and provide more enterprisewide capabilities for search, collaboration, records management, and electronic forms.

The most pressing need was to provide employees with an efficient way to search content that included more than 4.5 million documents dispersed throughout more than 800 different information silos. These silos included three intranets built on Microsoft® SharePoint® Portal Server, file servers running the Windows Server® and UNIX operating systems, Microsoft Exchange Server public folders and inboxes, and line-of-business Microsoft SQL Server® databases. To add more challenges, the information was in multiple languages and was spread across sites in the United States, Europe, China, and Japan.

“There were really no rules for storing information,” says Ed Kent, Business Systems Manager at Dolby Laboratories. “Employees would create shared files and SharePoint sites, and start storing things. You really needed to know where information was stored in great detail to be able to effectively search for it.”

The Dolby staff used multiple tools to search all the various information silos, including the search capability in SharePoint Portal Server 2001 and Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 to search the intranets, and the search capability in the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client to search inboxes and public folders.

Dolby wanted an integrated search tool that would enable workers to search all content sources—with structured and unstructured data—from a single interface, so they could find what they were looking for regardless of where it resided.

In addition to enterprise search, Dolby identified several other business needs. It wanted electronic forms capabilities for a variety of business operations and human resources (HR) forms, as well as for time tracking and finance. The Information Resources Management department needed to meet Dolby’s evolving document and e mail retention policies, including retrieving business documents and transaction records from individual employees’ local computer drives when those employees left, retired, or transferred to another department. And finally, Dolby wanted to consolidate the number of different vendors and vendor products that it had to manage and support.

Solution

At the same time that Dolby began to look for solutions to these challenges, the company’s Microsoft Select License agreement was about to expire. To meet its changing business needs, the company was considering renewing its Select License agreement with the Microsoft Core Client Access License (CAL) Suite of four foundational server products and adding a step-up to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition. However, in talking with Dolby executives about their expanding requirements for enterprisewide technology solutions, the Microsoft account manager suggested that the company might get more value from a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

An Enterprise Agreement offers significant savings on desktop licensing costs and provides Software Assurance benefits such as upgrade rights, training, and more. It also entitles customers to acquire the Microsoft Enterprise CAL Suite, which includes 11 Microsoft software products under a single license.

To help Dolby choose the best volume licensing agreement, the Microsoft representative worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Insight Enterprises to analyze various licensing options including:

• Renewing the Select License agreement as is or with a few additional products.
• Signing an Enterprise Agreement that covered the additional products.
• Signing an Enterprise Agreement that included the Enterprise CAL Suite.
• Acquiring licenses to all the products in the Enterprise CAL Suite but under a Select License.

Analyzing the Full Value of the Enterprise CAL Suite

“Initially we were just deciding whether it made sense for a company of our size to move to an Enterprise Agreement,” says Kent. “But then we took a step back to look at our overall business needs and how they would be addressed by the products in the Enterprise CAL Suite.”

When we compared the prices of various licensing options … a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with the Enterprise CAL Suite was a good value that fit extremely well with our technology road map. Ed Kent Business Systems Manager, Dolby Laboratories

For example, Dolby could use the Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 technology in the SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL for forms used for travel approval, new personnel requisition, and time tracking. It could use the Business Data Catalog capability to create and present dashboards and key performance indicators (KPIs) of dynamic business and customer information in real time within a SharePoint-based portal. And it could use Excel® Services in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 to control and manage Office Excel 2007 Web-based spreadsheets for financial reporting, forecasting, and budget planning.

Because the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise CAL is part of the Enterprise CAL Suite, Dolby began to assess the potential of other components of the suite for additional projects that the company was planning to implement. For example, Dolby saw the potential of using the policy-compliance functionality in the Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise CAL to help its Information Resources Management department enforce e-mail retention policies. In addition, Dolby is looking at how to implement the Windows® Rights Management Services component of the Enterprise CAL Suite to safeguard confidential and sensitive information. “With Windows Rights Management, we can set up policies for legal, HR, financial, and intellectual property documents that control who can read a document, for how long, and whether they can forward or edit it,” Kent says.

“When we compared the prices of various licensing options, stepping up from a Microsoft Select License to a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with the Enterprise CAL Suite was a good value that fit extremely well with our technology road map,” says Kent.

Based on both the added functionality and the favorable cost, Dolby decided to sign a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement with the Enterprise CAL Suite.

Deploying Enterprise Search

In late April 2007, Dolby deployed a pilot test of the enterprisewide search solution based on the Enterprise Search capability in Office SharePoint Server 2007 to approximately 30 people from multiple departments. The solution is set up to search both structured and unstructured content on any of the intranets, file servers, document management systems, Exchange Server public folders and inboxes, and SharePoint sites. The initial results of the pilot project showed that users received results in seconds—and more relevant results than what they had before.

Dolby is deploying a search solution, based on the Enterprise Search capability in Office SharePoint Server 2007, that will search structured and unstructured content throughout the enterprise.

In spring 2008, Dolby plans to deploy the full capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise for collaboration, document management, and workflow processes, as well as to set up a site with enhanced security for the Dolby Board of Directors to use. In 2008, the company plans to deploy Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 so that users can take full advantage of the electronics forms and information rights management capabilities in SharePoint Server 2007. Dolby expects to deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition in spring 2008.

Benefits

By signing a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement and acquiring the Enterprise CAL Suite, Dolby gained a more productive search solution, as well as many other server software capabilities. And because Dolby gains access to all of this software under one license, the company expects to reduce support costs, simplify licensing, and get more software value per dollar invested.

More Productive Search Capabilities

The early results of Dolby’s enterprisewide search pilot project show that users are able to search across multiple data sources and pull up relevant results in seconds. “In testing SharePoint Server Enterprise Search, we found that the performance was really good—and very surprising considering the volume of documents that we have,” Kent says. “We’re talking seconds to return a search with relevant results, compared with minutes with the previous solution.”

Reduced Support Costs and Easy Integration

The Enterprise CAL Suite fits well with Dolby’s corporatewide effort to consolidate the number of different-vendor products that it has to manage and support. “There is a big cost to using multiple vendors, both in terms of maintenance and hardware infrastructure,” says Kent. “Having so many capabilities within the Enterprise CAL Suite is definitely a plus because, as business needs come up, we don’t necessarily have to buy another product and put it on another server. We’re already licensed for the products in the suite, and everything works well together.”

The Enterprise CAL Suite server products also integrate easily with Office Professional Plus 2007 programs on the desktop. “Integration between Microsoft Office desktop programs and the server applications was a key part of our reasoning, because users will be able to access Enterprise Search and other capabilities of SharePoint Server, as well as of other Enterprise CAL Suite components, from within their familiar Office programs,” says Kent.

Simplified Licensing

Another benefit of this new licensing model is that with the Enterprise Agreement, Dolby provides a count of its users only once a year, compared with conducting software audits four times per year as it did under its prior Select License. Before signing the Enterprise Agreement, the company had a third-party vendor audit all software on all desktop computers to establish a baseline. “Now that we have a baseline, all we have to do is count how many employees we have at the end of the year and add or delete licenses if the number has changed,” says Kent. “The Enterprise CAL Suite makes the annual license count even easier because it covers client access to all the Microsoft server software that we use, under a single license.”

More Software Value per Dollar

Acquiring the Enterprise CAL Suite saved Dolby nearly 50 percent off the cost of acquiring the included products separately through a Select Agreement. And Dolby continues to find value in new capabilities within the Enterprise CAL Suite that meet its evolving business needs. The company plans to implement the business intelligence tools in Office SharePoint Server 2007, such as using the Business Data Catalog feature, to provide decision makers with real-time KPIs and dashboards from within a SharePoint-based portal. Dolby is also considering deploying Office Communications Server 2007 for Web conferencing and instant messaging (IM). “With the IM encryption and tight integration with Exchange Server 2007 provided by Office Communications Server 2007, we may block other IM applications in favor of only using this,” says Kent.

Dolby easily justified the cost of the Enterprise CAL Suite because it was actually less money than acquiring just the Core CAL Suite plus the step-up to Office SharePoint Server 2007 Enterprise under the Select License. “We’re money ahead with the Enterprise CAL Suite, and the value will grow even more,” Kent notes. “This is a three-year agreement, so, as new business needs come up, we’re already licensed for the software to meet them.”

Microsoft Volume Licensing
Microsoft Volume Licensing offers customized programs that are designed to meet the needs of your business. Tailored for companies of different sizes and purchasing preferences, these Volume Licensing programs provide simple, flexible, and affordable solutions that can help you manage your licenses with ease. Whether you have five or thousands of desktop PCs, Microsoft Volume Licensing has the right program for you.

To acquire the latest Microsoft technology at a significant cost savings through Microsoft Volume Licensing, contact your Microsoft Certified Partner or local reseller.

To learn more about Microsoft Volume Licensing, visit:
www.microsoft.com/licensing

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Insight Enterprises products and services, call (800)-INSIGHT—(800) 467-4448—or visit the Web site at:
www.insight.com

For more information about Allin Consultants products and services, call (412) 928-8800 or visit the Web site at:
www.allin.com

For more information about Dolby Laboratories products and services, call (415) 645-5000 or visit the Web site at:
www.dolby.com