E-learning specialist Aula Salud wanted a highly available, robust, and cost-effective solution to deliver education programs with video streaming for healthcare professionals in Spain. Aula Salud chose Atnova, which offered this kind of solution based entirely on Microsoft® technologies, rather than open-source development tools. With these solutions, Aula Salud achieved increased student numbers and a return on investment in the first year.

The solution leverages Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and eLearning Portal as a base for Global online learning environment, which provides scalable platform for e-learning, supporting tens of thousands users. The environment supports automatic tests, integrated storage of training materials, and access to e-shop with online courses as well as to online dean’s office.

Arc Worldwide is a major direct marketing agency. As part of the Leo Burnett advertising agency, the company operates in 37 countries globally and employs 1,300 people. The Malaysian operation of Arc Worldwide had enjoyed a substantial rise in the number of clients seeking rich Internet applications for e-commerce since 2006; however this was also bringing concerns about security and protecting intellectual property. The company sought a secure technology to build its Internet applications which would reduce the risk of decompiling. After some consideration, Arc Worldwide chose to adopt Microsoft® Silverlight™ for developing client solutions and found that as well as increasing security, Silverlight offered a more cost-effective means of building applications.

Octave wanted to deliver its retail accounting and sales solution as an online service. It partnered with YouSAAS—a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner specialising in technical and marketing consultancy for independent software vendors (ISVs)—to fully automate provisioning and deployment. Following the transition, the delivery cycle decreased from up to five months to just five minutes, increasing sales and lowering overheads.

Global insurance and banking company Skandia collaborated with Microsoft on a project to upgrade its online banking services with Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2. Thanks to the collaboration, which included attendance at a three-week Performance and Stability Lab, Skandia has found the right environment to improve Web performance significantly. The Internet bank also predicts it can serve more than 1 million clients a day with the solution.

Genes Reunited is the leading family history Web site in the United Kingdom (U.K.). Its 9.7 million members use the service to build family trees and trace the histories of their ancestors. Because location is a crucial factor in many searches on the Web site, the company’s management team decided to implement a mapping feature using Bing™ Maps for Enterprise. Released in January 2009, the tool helped to boost the number of unique visitors by 55 per cent.

Polaris Industries Inc. is the number one off-road vehicle manufacturer in the world and a recognized leader in the snowmobile industry. The company relied on a group of unconnected systems to provide support to customers and a network of 1,500 dealers. Because these systems did not share information, Polaris support teams could not effectively track individual dealer issues, and it was difficult to assess the performance of the teams holistically. Polaris evaluated several solutions, but chose Microsoft Dynamics® CRM as an application platform layer because of its superior technical flexibility and cost effectiveness. After deploying several applications to its various support operations, Polaris continues to extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a platform for other projects, including a dealer extranet and e-commerce Web site.

To stay on the leading edge of the rapidly evolving online entertainment industry, Blockbuster needed to provide its customers with a compelling, PC-based, video-on-demand experience. Blockbuster used a set of integrated Web tools and technologies from Microsoft, including Microsoft® .NET Framework 3.5, Windows® Presentation Foundation, the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008 development system, and Microsoft Expression Blend™ design software, to build a feature-rich, downloadable application that helps to bring the Blockbuster brand into the digital spotlight. The Blockbuster OnDemand application provides customers with top-quality video downloading, playback, and synchronization to portable devices. And, with its integrated development tool set, Blockbuster can quickly and easily update the application with new features and functionality.

The Muz.ru portal, which integrates features of an e-shop and entertainment site, was created using innovative Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Commerce Server and Microsoft Silverlight. The site's musician portal catalog has been integrated with Windows Media Player 11, allowing users to retrieve music from the catalog without actually visiting the site.

Celluphone, a leading wireless phone distributor based in Los Angeles, California, was experiencing growing pains with its financial and warehouse systems. These systems were not integrated and lacked the functionality to adequately support the company’s multicompany business model. Recognizing that its systems could not scale to meet growth goals, the company opted to implement Microsoft Dynamics® AX. Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Ignify helped Celluphone integrate the solution with its current inventory management infrastructure. With a fully integrated, highly flexible business management system and built-in multicompany support, Celluphone has increased efficiency in its warehouse operations by 50 percent, achieved total operational growth of nearly 40 percent, and improved customer and dealer service.