Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc. is a U.S.$1 billion global provider of manufacturing equipment and services. The company’s employees rely on up-to-date messaging technology to conduct business with partners and customers around the world. Barry-Wehmiller wanted to upgrade to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 e-mail messaging and collaboration software. However, in light of tough global economic conditions and a corporate culture that promotes a “Lean” organization, the IT department re-evaluated the cost of deploying an on-premises solution. Instead, Barry-Wehmiller chose Microsoft Online Services to deliver all the scalability, security, and functionality the company needs for desktop and mobile e-mail. The hosted communications and collaboration solution saved Barry-Wehmiller $200,000 in hardware and infrastructure costs, as well as another $100,000 on an archiving solution.

Two Degrees, LLC, a professional services firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington, planned to upgrade its key messaging and collaboration solutions and boost its disaster recovery and data privacy practices. Instead of paying for on-premises migrations, new hardware, and a more secure data center, Two Degrees, LLC became an early adopter of Microsoft® Online Services. Its autonomous technology solutions division, Slalom Consulting, deployed the hosted solution to deliver the security, communication, and collaboration functionality that Two Degrees, LLC consultants need to focus on customers and work productively onsite or at the office—at a 44 percent lower cost per person than it originally budgeted for. After successfully deploying Microsoft Online Services for its parent company, Slalom Consulting can now offer Microsoft Online Services to customers ahead of its competitors.

For many years, Munich-based infoWAN Datenkommunikation GmbH has wanted to provide a true enterprise-class online messaging and collaboration option to clients. It first explored such an offering 10 years ago, but the costs were too high. Today, though, the cost of an online solution can be lower than the cost of an on-premises solution, and this change has renewed interest in online messaging and collaboration services. Because of its considerable experience with Microsoft® Exchange Server, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server, infoWAN has chosen to offer its clients an online messaging and collaboration option based on the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft Online Services. As a result, infoWAN anticipates a significant expansion of business over the next several years.

French IT service provider Exakis wanted to bolster its service offerings with an enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solution that it could offer to clients who did not want to build out new infrastructure or who needed to deploy a solution rapidly. In the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft® Online Services, Exakis found a solution that could meet client needs and open doors for the delivery of additional value-added services. And clients have been embracing it enthusiastically: For Crédit Immobilier de France—which had looked at Google Apps to meet its branch office messaging needs before deciding that it did not want to risk its business on a service that was not enterprise-ready—Exakis is deploying the Business Productivity Online Suite to more than 3500 users in 300 offices around France.

Computacenter is one of Europe’s leading independent providers of IT infrastructure services. The company had long delivered a range of managed services to large clients, but had become aware that the on-premises services that it could offer clients were not the right fit for many smaller companies that did not want to build or maintain an infrastructure on their own. Computacenter executives in Germany sought a flexible, enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solution that it could offer to smaller clients and soon found the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft® Online Services. With the Business Productivity Online Suite, Computacenter has been able to expand its service offerings in new ways, opening new doors and creating new opportunities for growth.

Executives at The CRM Business saw real revenue opportunities in integrating traditional customer relationship management (CRM) solutions with enterprise-class messaging and collaboration services. They also saw no way to seize those opportunities without making significant investments in servers and software licenses. Neither The CRM Business nor its clients wanted to host a Microsoft® Exchange Server or Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server infrastructure—and without access to such an infrastructure, the CRM Business could not build the integrated solutions that clients wanted. When The CRM Business learned of the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft Online Services, though, it found an enterprise-class option that it could use to deliver the integrated solutions that its clients were seeking—and business has taken off.

Belgian hosting service provider Hostbasket already had a compelling set of hosted applications it could offer large organizations, but it did not have an enterprise-class messaging and collaboration service offering it could deliver to smaller customers or to businesses that did not need the full customizability of the other solutions it could offer. When Hostbasket learned about the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft® Online Services, though, it knew it had found just the solution it needed to round out its service portfolio. With the Business Productivity Online Suite, Hostbasket clients can gain access to a true enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solution without additional infrastructure and at a very low cost. It’s the perfect foundation on which to develop a long-term relationship with evolving businesses throughout Belgium.

Crédit Immobilier de France (CIF) wanted to extend a single consistent messaging solution to 300 branch offices. The branches were not on the corporate network and CIF needed to deploy a unified solution quickly. Attracted to an online services model, CIF officials looked at Google Apps, but determined the solution was not enterprise-ready. Instead, they chose the Business Productivity Online Suite from Microsoft® Online Services.

Evolve Partners provides collaborative solutions for small and midsize companies as well as the public sector—customers that are interested in reducing capital outlays and seeking solutions that scale dynamically with their growth. Evolve has found that deploying Microsoft SharePoint Online, part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite subscription service, can help to accomplish these goals. Customers are able to centralize their documents, create workflows, and improve their business processes. Through use of Microsoft Online Services, Evolve Partners has found new opportunities and Evolve customers have benefited from more efficient operations.

Medway Plastics is a custom injection molding and manufacturing company. As part of their cost control efforts, the company was looking for ways to improve productivity. Medway has found Microsoft Online Services and in particular Microsoft Office Live Meeting, part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, to be an important productivity tool for its organization. Migration to Office Live Meeting was quick and easy, and benefits began flowing immediately. For example, Medway found many cases where machine repair could be resolved quickly by remote staff, saving travel time and often as much as two days of machine downtime in each instance, which added up to a very favorable return on investment. With multiple Microsoft data centers managing its information, Medway has enjoyed a high level of security and reliability.