InfoSpace must deliver highly engaging, interactive Web browser toolbars to attract and retain users for Nation.com, its new metasearch property. In addition, to drive user adoption, the company must scale customer acquisition across a large number of content verticals for those toolbars. The company is achieving both goals by using the Microsoft® Silverlight™ browser plug-in to implement a toolbar “shell” together with a large number of button “packages” from which users can choose. Strong results to date have validated both the company’s business model and the value of Silverlight as a technology capable of delivering compelling user experiences, scalability across content verticals, and affinity features that will make the toolbars and Nation.com “stickier”—as required for InfoSpace to increase customer acquisition and reduce its cost per acquisition.

Ranked among the 2009 Global Services 100 “Top 10 Best Performers,” EPAM Systems provides IT and software development services based on Microsoft® technologies to customers around the world. To reduce costs while maximizing flexibility and simplifying license management, EPAM signed a Microsoft Volume Licensing Enterprise Subscription Agreement. Under this agreement, the firm leases Professional Desktop Platform licenses for three years and reports and pays for those licenses annually. It also takes advantage of Software Assurance benefits such as Training Vouchers, the Home Use Program, 24x7 Problem Resolution Support, and New Version Rights. As a result, EPAM is optimizing its infrastructure, saving up to 40 percent on software licenses, and streamlining management and compliance. It also has immediate access to the software necessary to better serve its customers’ changing needs.

Online insurer Esurance recently moved to Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server for more comprehensive application life-cycle management. Consequently, the company has reduced development costs by approximately 20 percent. It also has improved the quality of its applications, because developers now have visibility into project business requirements and status, and they can avoid rework.

NBC Sports faced what one executive called a “singular challenge” in the run-up to its Web broadcast of the 2008 Summer Olympics: to provide an extraordinary experience for viewers, reach a desired demographic of online viewers, maintain the production values that advertisers demand, and in so doing prove that the TV broadcast model could be extended to the Web. To do all that, NBC Sports joined forces with Microsoft, MSN®, and a team of other partners whose developers used Microsoft® Silverlight™ and other Microsoft Web tools, technologies, and services to build and deploy NBCOlympics.com on MSN. The result was a strategic win for all involved. The high-production-value site broke all NBC Sports records for online traffic and audience reach, drove a new stream of advertising revenue, and proved that the NBC TV model for sports broadcasting could be extended successfully to the Web.

Trimble Mobile Resource Management (MRM) provides solutions that help businesses manage mobile workers and assets. Two years ago, the development group within Trimble MRM did not have an integrated tool set for application life-cycle management. Instead, developers used a mixed set of tools and ad-hoc processes, which limited developer productivity, made it hard to accurately gauge progress, and hampered collaboration with the company’s quality assurance (QA) group. By adopting Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System 2008, the Trimble MRM development group improved all aspects of application life-cycle management—from project estimation and progress tracking to software quality and collaboration with the QA group. Developers are 30 percent more productive, code reuse is strong, and improved visibility into project status and progress are benefiting all stakeholders.

Determined to offer more innovative solutions to customers, Germany-based energy supplier Yello Strom used the Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008 development system to build online services that help customers track and control energy consumption in their own homes.

Quilogy, a leading provider of custom software solutions, wanted what every development organization wants: to boost its project success rates and productivity. Quilogy is achieving those goals through its adoption of Microsoft® Application Lifecycle Management tools and best practices. The company’s projects are now completed 40 percent faster than before, quality is enhanced, and client satisfaction is improved. Quilogy is also handling twice as many projects as it was before, with project sizes ranging up to U.S.$3 million, without increasing staff.

LSI is a leading provider of property valuation, title and closing services to the mortgage lending industry. With help from Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Neudesic, LSI replaced disparate software development project-tracking and management tools with Microsoft Visual Studio® Team System 2008, an integrated application lifecycle management solution. The development system supports the entire development process so that it’s easier for LSI to provide audit reports and scales to maintain numerous branches of software code for more reliable builds. Now, the development teams at LSI can create higher-quality builds more efficiently, collaborate more effectively, and document the process to comply with strict guidelines. The solution also supports a customized Scrum process methodology to better align development efforts with business goals.

This Solution Brief outlines the benefits and advantages of Silverlight to a Global ISV.

As part of its quest for continuous product improvement, Manhattan Associates tested its ILS 2008 integrated logistics solution running on Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008. The testing, which its engineers performed at the Microsoft SQL Server test labs in Redmond, Washington, found that the combination of ILS 2008 and SQL Server 2008 enabled the company to set new internal benchmark records compared to its previously released ILS 2007, running with the same database software. The company found that ILS 2008 running on SQL Server 2008 provided the performance and scalability needed to stay ahead of the requirements of even its largest global customers. Manhattan Associates has found that the ease of use of its solution running on the Microsoft Application Platform enables its customers to get up and running swiftly, providing what it terms faster “speed to value.”