Autolib’ is an electric-car-sharing program established by the city of Paris and 48 surrounding municipalities to relieve traffic congestion, reduce noise and air pollution, and provide people with more-flexible transit options. Implemented by logistics company IER, the intelligent system based on Windows Embedded provides connectivity between the in-car system, registration and rental kiosks, charging stations, and a central management system. By 2023, the solution is expected to replace more than 25,000 privately owned cars, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 75 million metric tons. With Autolib’, former car owners have also cut their transportation costs by 90 percent annually. Autolib’ subscribers enjoy an enhanced driving experience with GPS navigation, free parking, and personalized settings. The flexible solution also simplifies implementation and minimizes deployment risk.

Ballance Agri-Nutrients is the leading fertilizer manufacturer in New Zealand. The company wanted to improve the performance of its critical SAP applications to better serve customers. To do that, Ballance migrated its database to Microsoft SQL Server 2012, greatly improving application performance. Employees are more productive, and the company has cut storage costs by 60 percent. Also, Ballance can better handle business growth.

Singapore firm SATS, a leading provider of gateway services and food solutions, wanted to move its mission-critical SAP ERP environment to a more cost-effective and easily scalable environment. The company implemented a solution based on a Microsoft platform that includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. As a result, the company cut operating costs by approximately 20 percent while increasing scalability about 30 percent. SATS can now expand its enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities more easily and affordably, provide remote real-time access to line-of-business software and cloud-based office programs, and streamline its IT environment and business processes.

Direct Edge, one of the largest equities exchanges in the world, wanted a better, faster business intelligence (BI) solution for its financial analysts to use to create reports. Direct Edge implemented a data warehouse and BI solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, which has given the company more visibility into its data. The firm can also provide analytical reports in seconds rather than hours and can better drive business growth.

Using the standard connector between Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft AX, Dunlop Protective Footwear is able exchange data between the two systems to improve their business practices. The scalability and flexibility of Dynamics CRM Online helps Dunlop move quickly into new markets around the globe and provides a consistent user experience. Now they can also promote innovation throughout their company by being able to listen and capture feedback from their customers.

To give citizens information about state and local government employee salaries, the California State Controller’s Office engaged SymSoft Solutions to help deploy a business intelligence (BI) solution based on the Microsoft platform. With it, the public can create custom BI using 15 gigabytes of data and 5 million records. The solution also facilitates activism, speeds efficiency, and delivers a scalable foundation to support future BI projects.

WISEITECH, one of the representative enterprises in the domestic enterprise solution industry, is now concentrating on the cloud-based solutions, moving away from the business strategy focused on the package solutions. WISEITECH launched its BI solutions in time with the release of Windows Azure in 2011. WISEITECH's WISE Cloud BI features a data mart architecture based on relational databases (RDB) with Hadoop applied for the big data analysis and an in-memory data storage for quick analysis in real time. That is, WISEITECH designed a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment consisting of Windows Azure, SQL Azure, and Hadoop on Windows Azure, and then built a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) on this platform with functions for social analysis, On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), Executive Information System (EIS), and visualization. B

To deliver competitive services that balance risks and returns, Union Bank of Israel needed greater operational insight. To achieve this, the bank replaced a third-party reporting solution with one based on the Microsoft platform. With it, the bank speeds efficiency by over 50 percent, increases insight and accuracy, minimizes risk, improves collaboration, and facilitates agility.

Ascribe, a leading provider of IT solutions for the healthcare industry, wanted to help clinicians identify trends and improve services by supplying faster access to information. However, exploding volumes of structured and unstructured data hindered insight. To solve the problem, Ascribe designed a hybrid-cloud solution with built-in business intelligence (BI) tools based on Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Windows Azure. The solution also includes apps that run on Windows 8 tablets. By simplifying implementation with end-to-end Microsoft products, the company developed a proof of concept within six weeks. Now, clinicians can respond faster with self-service BI tools and gain actionable insight from a wide variety of data that includes clinical records, emergency room notes, and social media feeds.

IT plays a key role for United Way Worldwide, helping it maintain a streamlined operation so that it can better advance the common good. However, its legacy account system led to a number of inefficiencies. Most notably, the complexity of reporting hindered productivity, responsiveness to donors, and insight into grant spending. To remedy this, United Way implemented Microsoft Dynamics GP and has since seen considerable improvements in employee productivity, budgeting, grants management, and financial management and control.