Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Hybrid Decisions, an ISV, VAR, and SI based in Houston, Texas, saw an opportunity to realign one of its core Microsoft Office solutions with Office 365 and enhance its revenue stream. Extending its cloud data delivery solution to embrace Office 365 as it adds value , flexibility, security, and most importantly is easy for the end users. With the support of Microsoft’s early adopter program for developers, the company is looking forward to an enhanced revenue stream in the coming years as it expands around the world and enters new markets.
Situation
Hybrid Decisions, headquartered in Houston, Texas, truly embodies the ‘hybrid’ concept in its name. The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner is one of the few companies in its region that functions on three service levels— as a software vendor, a reseller, and a systems integrator. It is also an organization founded with a deep background of experience: Many employees at the company have been in the business for decades.
For a good part of its existence, Hybrid has catered to clients in the of Oil and Gas industries. Currently, Hybrid is also reaching out to potential customers in the Finance and Academic industries.
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We foresee Office 365 constituting more than 5% of revenue as the adoption spreads, especially since it adds value to our products and solution offerings. Office 365 is really a very viable solution. |
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Anthony Moreign
Founder & Chief Architect,
Hybrid Decisions |
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As Anthony Moreign, Hybrid’s Founder and Chief Architect, describes it, the company focuses on horizontals as opposed to verticals, due in large part to a long-time alignment with Microsoft and its offerings. “We work with anyone who lives in Excel. Just as Excel inhabits multiple verticals, so do we,” he says.
Moreign goes on to describe the boutique company. “We cater to very specific requirements, and we’re very specific in our target markets. We only implement that which is practical,” he adds.
The company is looking to expand and open several offices around the world. During this time of growth, Hybrid Decisions has turned once again to its longstanding partnership with Microsoft and its solutions.
Solution
Leveraging Microsoft Technologies
Currently driving sales with a family of three suites based in Microsoft technologies, Hybrid Decisions has decided to extend one key offering, HDC.ePubPoint, with Office 365.
The three interrelated suites—HDC.ePubPoint, HDC.GlobalOffice, and HDC.SyncExcel— work both on-premise and in the cloud to deliver a dynamic, hybrid solution to modern businesses.
Hybrid Decision’s solution suites help businesses analyze – capture, crunch and collaborate numbers. Moreign says, “It could be stock information, it could be biotech investment data, it might be petrochemical geo data.”
Everyone Knows Office
Its first offering is GlobalOffice, which users can use to create, manage, and analyze their data. The solution is designed for customers using Microsoft Office. In this way, the Hybrid Decisions suite leverages end user familiarity and comfort in the Microsoft Office environment to create a more productive work environment. Moreign says: “What we do is keep the users in that frame of mind— encourage them to continue living in Office, therefore staying comfortable and focusing on their business domain, because they all know how to use Excel, they all know the Office family as a whole.”
The next step in the chain is SyncExcel. “When people work in Excel and they work across the world, they tend to interlink data elements, basically data relationships between workbooks, or between spreadsheets, to be specific. SyncExcel’s job is to make sure that all the data that is created, analyzed and linked together in Excel via GlobalOffice, , is then kept in-sync by leveraging Parallel and High Performance Computing,” he says.
As a result, customers are able to keep up with a constantly evolving business world, says Moreign. ”It’s a constantly evolving world. We go to sleep, China/India wakes up and vice versa. Thus the relationship between these spreadsheets evolves dynamically as businesses determine the relationships on the fly.”
Benefits
Offering Flexibility with Office 365
The third suite, ePubPoint, involves the delivery of the analyzed data. This is the suite that Hybrid Decisions recently extended to embrace Office 365.
Moreign says: “What Office 365 brings to the table is this: It helps us to not only deliver the data, but it helps the client—whose got a complete on-premise solution in GlobalOffice— migrate some of that directly into Microsoft Office. And it adds all the other goodies that Office 365 brings with it, especially Lync and the list of cloud related benefits.”
It’s a solution that reflects the multi-faceted approach of the company. “Many people think things are on-premise or in the cloud. The main thing we want people to see is that there is no ‘one size fits all.’ It’s a hybrid situation— life is all about hybrids. It’s a mix and match.”
Hybrid Decisions’ ePubPoint Office 365 edition allows the company to offer their clients enhanced productivity and flexibility, as well as increased options.
“What happens when that customer decides to open a small office with about four people somewhere in a new country?” asks Moreign. “Office 365 is a perfect solution – minimal CapEx.”
Hybrid’s ePubPoint via Office 365 delivers an ease of communication that a growing, modern business needs. “The guys that they bring on at a remote office only need a good internet connection and a laptop and they can get started.”
Data Security with Office 365
Office 365 also brings with it the kind of data security that a company needs to operate with complete confidence. “The client can upload his GlobalOffice file directly to Office 365 without worrying about that file carrying with it the intelligence that normally goes with an Excel file. The results are there, but none of the proprietary intelligence,” Moreign explains.
Office Pro Plus Advantage
In addition, Office 365 brings with it two key features that really reflects well on HDC.ePubPoint — Office Professional Plus on premise and Lync. Pro Plus in Office 365 is “an amazing integrated communications platform, when coupled with Lync and the (Cloud) Office 365,” he says. “It makes our product look all the more appealing and simplifies adoption.”
Organizational Support
Critical to the success of Hybrid’s suites was the company’s participation in Microsoft's early adopter program for developers. The program was nothing short of essential to the success of the company and its endeavours, says Moreign. “I don’t have words to describe how important the program has been to us and continues to be and it is a great way to give back to the teams in Microsoft,” Moreign asserts. “We had ideas, and this program gave us the opportunity to find out how much of that we could make a reality.”
This commitment to idea development is something that Moreign feels makes Microsoft a cut above the rest. “[Microsoft] has done a fabulous job in encouraging an ecosystem around them. No other company that I know has focused on providing feasible programs (like Empower, BizSpark, Metro EAP) that help make an idea into reality.”
Attempting their endeavor with another company would have left Hybrid Decisions in financial straits. “You usually have to pay through the nose to get off the ground,”
Moreign states, “Microsoft, on the other hand, makes it possible for us who have an idea and are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to get started for about $500 a year, depending on the program of your choice.”
The support doesn’t stop there, he insists. “Once we create something out of it, Microsoft has programs to help us continue growing.”
Great Potential with Office 365
Aligning its suite with Office 365 has given Hybrid Decisions the ability to continue evolving with Microsoft. “The keyword is potential,” says Moreign.
Moreign and his team are ramping up for the release of the Office 365 edition. He predicts the Office 365 edition will result in significant returns for the company. “We foresee, Office 365 constituting more than 5% of revenue as the adoption spreads, especially since it adds value to our products and solution offerings,” says Moreign.
Microsoft Office 2010
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For more information about Hybrid Decisions, visit the company website at:
www.hybriddecisions.com
