CCH, which provides software for business professionals, adapted its sales tax–calculation application to run on the Windows Azure™ platform. CCH expects its use of Windows Azure to result in greater choice for customers, the ability to scale on demand, and lower costs. The company found the learning curve for the migration experience to be smooth and easy for developers because of the familiar tool set and operating environment of the Windows Azure platform.

At the annual American Film Market (AFM), buyers from more than 70 countries attend nearly a thousand screenings. Exhibitors need to follow up on opportunities as quickly as possible, so AFM organizers needed a way to report who attends the numerous screenings. Working with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner 2B Solutions, AFM now has a fully functional mobile attendance tracking solution based on Windows Mobile® that allows AFM staff members to scan attendee badges and capture attendance data. As a result, exhibitors can respond faster to interested distributors.

Caltrol, a leading representative company for industrial process management and automation solutions, had a disconnected server environment and physical servers that were aging, unreliable, and inefficient. Caltrol implemented Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V™ and virtual servers to reduce hardware and build a business continuity environment. As a result, it has reduced costs, optimized system performance, and improved its backup and recovery process.

The many types of field elevator inspections required by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) created the need for multiple forms and spreadsheets to be managed by hand. The processes were manually intensive, error prone, required additional labor to re-key information into various systems, and were not centrally managed for consistent data analysis and on-going reporting. To help automate the process, CTA implemented the mNOW!® Mobile Framework 2008 designed for Windows Mobile® by Blue Dot™ Solutions. Configured to support dynamic inspections, the solution enables field inspectors to see only questions relevant to the type of asset being inspected. The information is collected using Windows Mobile-based handhelds and is then synchronized and integrated with an enterprise asset management (EAM) system to enable near real-time visibility of inspection data.

Managing and improving data center technology for business growth can be a daunting challenge. Accenture and Avanade, two technology service providers, use a Microsoft® Core Infrastructure Optimization approach and Microsoft products to provide flexible, long-term solutions that can help companies get the most out of their data centers, so they can foster business growth while controlling costs.

Internet service provider LINKdotNET upgraded databases that support its mission-critical corporate services and hosted environments to Microsoft® SQL Server® 2005 and Windows Server® 2003. With the solution, LINKdotNET has sped database queries by 800 percent, improved data security, automated customer orders, and scaled to support rapid growth. The company also expects to reduce the number of hosted database server computers by 20 percent with Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

To continue to improve quality of care, El Camino Hospital recognized the need to implement technologies that capitalize on existing investments and provide a flexible foundation for current and future innovation. As part of this effort , El Camino Hospital embarked on an aggressive three-year initiative designed to achieve a top-five-percent ranking among U.S. hospitals across all of its service lines. As part of this initiative, the hospital needed a single, comprehensive view of disparate data systems. El Camino Hospital implemented the Microsoft® Amalga™ Unified Intelligence System (UIS) to build a scorecard for evaluating hospital units and individual clinicians in 12 areas of patient care. It will use Amalga UIS to aggregate real-time data on patients moving through the hospital to improve the quality and efficiency of operations.

The Supreme Group—which provides food, fuel, logistics, and other services to military and commercial groups operating in areas of conflict—had an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application that was intended for a small organization. After exponential growth, Supreme sought a more integrated, extensible ERP solution. It deployed Microsoft Dynamics® AX and is expanding its implementation to include greater functionality in more countries. Supreme has improved process management with its new solution, leading to better visibility into its warehouse status. As a result, the organization has reduced food waste by 15 to 20 percent because it can efficiently manage stock according to expiration dates. Supreme also increased its information accuracy, resulting in more consistent service to customers, less time spent correcting information, and reduced risk of food or fuel shortages.

In 2003, Südzucker Group merged 18 independent sugar manufacturers into one company to create Südzucker Polska. After consolidation, it needed to find a way to merge vital information from all the separate entities while still allowing each factory the autonomy to satisfy legal requirements and conduct business with local farmers and customers. But first it needed to bring the business systems of each entity up-to-date. The company worked with Response—a Microsoft Dynamics® AX Partner—to implement business management software Microsoft Dynamics AX and automate processes. Now, data from all manufacturing plants is easily accessible from one central location, streamlining planning and implementation.

VIANEX is the leading pharmaceutical company in Greece. To consistently improve quality and productivity, and reduce waste, the company wanted to provide managers with a comprehensive view of sales and marketing data from its eight offices, and to more efficiently maintain critical documents required for ISO compliance. It also wanted to centralize software license acquisition and management. By enrolling in the Company-wide option of the Microsoft® Volume Licensing Open Value program, VIANEX reduced license acquisition costs by about 30 percent and license management time by 70 percent. Those savings helped facilitate deployment of a business intelligence solution based on Microsoft SQL Server® 2005, and upgrades to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007. As a result, VIANEX is seeing improved sales and marketing intelligence and enhanced communications.