Newell Rubbermaid wanted a common and cost-effective way to manage its more than 30 brand Web sites, while giving each of those sites the distinctive look and function that the brand required. Newell Rubbermaid turned to digital agency LBi Atlanta to replace open source and other technology with Microsoft®-based technology. The company expects to save U.S.$1.5 million in fees, capital depreciation, and other costs for content updates and platform maintenance over two years.

As newspapers seek a way to thrive in the world of digital media, The Associated Press is assisting by identifying new outlets and revenue streams for member news providers. Its first response is AP Mobile, which delivers international, national, and local news from more than 1,000 content providers to Windows® phones. The application takes advantage of gesturing, a touch-friendly interface, and polling that delivers breaking news alerts.

With recent growth, Molina Healthcare wanted to use its existing technology assets and apply them to key business processes in order to drive down administrative costs and simplify customer interactions. Molina chose a cost-effective licensing program, the Microsoft® Enrollment for Application Platform (EAP) for Enterprise Agreements. Molina is controlling costs while preparing to meet new HIPAA 5010 standards, increasing collaboration, and continuing to provide access to affordable healthcare.

To boost service, Loomis Armored US had to improve the flow of cash information among Loomis, its customers, and their banks. The company chose devices running the Windows Mobile® 6.1 operating system for messengers to send data to the data center where customers and their banks can access it. In addition, Loomis used a Windows Mobile device on customers’ safes to enable daily provisional crediting of deposits—before the cash leaves a customer’s premises.

Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), the state-owned oil and gas company based in Mexico City, has 150,000 employees and generated U.S.$98.2 billion in 2008. Some years ago PEMEX Exploration and Production, the company’s largest business unit, created its own document processing and workflow management application using early versions of Microsoft® SQL Server® database software and Microsoft BizTalk® Server. As success of the internally developed application spread, response times declined. To gain scalability, PEMEX Exploration and Production upgraded the solution to SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (64-bit) and BizTalk Server 2006 R2. CPU utilization has dropped and the company has gained the scalability it needs to roll out the solution to the rest of PEMEX. The company also plans to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 Transparent Data Encryption to enhance document protection.

Like virtually all retailers and all businesses, American Apparel wanted to do more with less at its retail locations—specifically, it wanted to boost store sales while reducing the cost of generating those sales. It met that goal with a solution provided by Xterprise, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, and based on Microsoft BizTalk® Server RFID. Radio frequency ID (RFID) tags and readers help employees to get needed merchandise on the retail floor faster than before. As a result, store sales are up 14 percent, margins are up to 65.9 percent, and the labor time and costs spent on handling inventory are down by 35 percent, resulting in better-organized backroom management. American Apparel sees the technology as the first step in an integrated solution that slashes shrinkage and increases customer service, and it is already using the solution to make better decisions in real time.

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in the United Kingdom wanted to reduce costs and improve public service delivery by offering more services electronically and by streamlining business processes. As a national leader in local government information and communications technology (ICT), the council entered a joint venture partnership with BT—called RBT—to drive forward its modernisation agenda. As part of the programme to improve the collection of revenues and administration of benefits, the council decided to deploy an enterprise service bus (ESB) offering. It also used the Microsoft® Application Platform with Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2006 as the orchestration layer. As a result, the council is handling citizens’ requests for service—such as changes in payment methods for council tax—in seconds rather than days.

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.

Fred IT Group is Australia's largest IT solution provider to the pharmacy industry. General Practitioners (GPs), otherwise known as Family Physicians, and specialists in Australia predominantly use a prescribing system which generates paper-based prescriptions. Due to issues associated with the paper-based system, Fred IT Group sought a solution that could send prescriptions electronically to reduce errors and improve patient care. Fred IT Group engaged Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, Simpl, to develop eRx Script Exchange, an electronic prescription solution built on the Microsoft Health Connection Engine, including Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 R2. With eRx, GPs can send prescriptions electronically through a secure gateway for retrieval by a patient’s pharmacy of choice anywhere in Australia.

With the assistance of Microsoft Gold Partner, SQL Services Ltd, Powerco assessed its existing database management systems and identified SQL Server as a more cost-effective and manageable solution.