Super Group is a supply chain management business that handles all activities involved in sourcing, procurement, and logistics management. Based in South Africa, Super Group has 10,000 employees and owns companies in numerous African countries, Australia, and New Zealand. The company is always looking to reduce costs while providing the latest communication and collaboration capabilities to employees. To enhance its unified communications platform, Super Group chose to deploy Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 as a part of the Microsoft Rapid Deployment Program. Benefits of the upgrade include expanding e-mail service to employees without computers, reducing IT administration, and cutting storage costs. The move to Exchange Server 2010 will also make it easier for Super Group to transition some or all user e-mail accounts to Microsoft Online Services in the future.

Internap deployed Internet Information Services 7.5 in the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system to implement new capabilities in its content delivery network. As a result, the company can replace Apache Squid on its edge servers, cut costs, and improve scalability, reporting, and the users’ Web experience.

After struggling with disparate IT technologies based on Red Hat Linux, EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services decided to transform its infrastructure using Microsoft® software and HP hardware. With its new environment based on Windows Server® 2008 R2, EmpireCLS has cut support calls by 75 percent and increased IT administrators’ productivity by 35 percent. It also expects to lower power costs by 33 percent.

Customers Enjoy Interoperability with Enterprise IT Infrastructure Celestix Networks chose Microsoft products and technologies to attain higher profit margins and access to enterprise markets. The company’s remote authentication device, Celestix RADIUS (RDS) appliance, runs on Windows® Server 2003 R2 for Embedded Systems. Compared to Linux, Celestix determined that Windows Embedded delivers lower costs, faster development, IT infrastructure interoperability, and a stable platform with long-term product and support commitments. Celestix executives are confident Windows Embedded Server is the best OS choice for reaching its business objectives.

Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS) offers classroom and online education to over 100,000 students. KCTCS is using Microsoft® System Center data center solutions in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Beta to improve e-mail availability and performance and to simplify e-mail management. KCTCS has reduced problem resolution times by 66 percent and can expand its messaging servers by 50 percent without increasing IT staff.

Dell, a global provider of PC hardware and enterprise solutions, began working with customers early in the development of Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. By the time the software was launched, Dell had already implemented a communications platform for Super Group, a South African supply chain and logistics company. With Dell expertise and Exchange Server 2010, Super Group benefits from cost-effective and efficient communications technology.

1-800-GOT-JUNK? is a Vancouver-based, full-service junk removal company. With strategic plans to grow its number of franchises across North America, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? needed to ensure that its IT and server infrastructure could scale to handle growth. Upon review of several IT options, the company determined that Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V was the most cost-effective way to improve its IT environment. The company is using the Windows-based solution to consolidate its hardware servers and operate within a virtualized technology environment. The new infrastructure is helping to reduce costs, improve server management and maintain greater IT uptime – helping ensure that the company can scale to meet current and future business needs. Through virtualization, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? estimates it is saving $35,000 in server hardware costs alone.

PEAB is a leading Swedish construction and civil engineering firm serving the Nordic region. To keep up with rapid business growth, PEAB needed to accelerate server deployment and keep critical applications running at all times. The firm deployed the Windows Server® 2008 Datacenter operating system with the Hyper-V™ technology to take advantage of server virtualization. PEAB uses Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to create and manage virtual machines. By augmenting physical servers with virtual machines, PEAB has reduced server deployment time by 87 percent and can respond more nimbly to business needs. Because failover clustering is easy and cost-effective with Hyper-V, PEAB can ensure high availability for more applications. Using the Microsoft software, PEAB expects to trim hardware purchases by 40 servers annually and staff management time by 280 hours annually.

StatoilHydro, an international energy company based in Stavanger, Norway, wanted to make sure that workers in its increasingly global operations could fully collaborate with their colleagues. Operating in a fiercely competitive market, StatoilHydro recognizes that delivering the information that employees need to do their jobs helps give the company an edge. To address remote access issues that could hinder employee productivity and collaboration, the oil company is implementing the Windows® 7 operating system and the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system, which together offer features such as BranchCache™ to improve data access at branch offices and DirectAccess to simplify remote connectivity. As a result of the upgrade, StatoilHydro will deliver seamless access to the corporate network for traveling employees, improve information access at branch offices, and enhance IT security.

The IT team at Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service wanted to ensure continued compliance with the United Kingdom (U.K.) government’s Civil Contingencies Act and roll out a new disaster recovery data centre. By deploying the Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating system and Hyper-V™ virtualisation technology, the team has not only achieved this goal, but it also expects to reduce hardware support costs by 80 per cent, cut server electricity costs by 77 per cent, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 36 tonnes. In addition, the team no longer needs to acquire specialist virtualisation software because all of the core functionality that it needs is supplied by Hyper-V. What’s more, the licensing arrangements for Windows Server 2008 R2 help ensure that one licence covers multiple virtual machines running on a single physical server.