Microsoft Economy Guide for Education

Contain IT and operations costs while expanding services


	Solutions
	Virtualization Desktop Optimization Server Infrastructure Optimization Business Intelligence for Higher Education Business Intelligence for K-12
	Related links
	Try out a business intelligence virtual lab Sustainable Computing: Conserving Energy with Group Policy Optimizing Infrastructure: The Relationship Between IT Labor Costs and Best Practices for Managing the Windows Desktop
	Webcasts
	Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 — Insight at Your Fingertips Performance / Dashboards in Higher Education
	Tools
	Core Infrastructure Optimization Self-Assessment Microsoft Assessment Configuration Pack for Energy Star Power Management for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Assess your business intelligence capabilities

On this page
Save with virtualization solutions
Expand IT services with software you may already have
Spend less time managing and deploying

Academic institution IT departments are under considerable pressure to contain their own costs as well and to find ways to help other departments function well in spite of shrinking budgets.

One of the easiest ways to cut costs, maintain operations, and expand services is to deploy all of the benefits and features of the software you already have.

If you are a Microsoft volume-license customer, you may already own all the software and hardware you need to meet the increasing demands being put on your IT department.

Save with virtualization solutions

With virtualization solutions, you can consolidate your academic institution’s under-employed servers onto a smaller number of fully utilized machines. Owning fewer physical devices and reducing your datacenter footprint gives you a direct way to help:

Reduce your hardware, energy, and management overhead
Scale to growing demand and adapt to change
Enhance security and reduce risk

Virtualization is an integral component of the Microsoft platform. This means that you will not pay extra for it and it doesn’t require custom development to use it.

Expand IT services with software you may already have

When you look at your list of requirements, don’t assume that you need to buy (and integrate and deploy) a new solution for each. Consider these alternatives to buying additional software:

Use built-in enterprise search features in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and core Client Access Licenses (CAL).
Establish records and document management systems using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
Use SQL Server and the 2007 Microsoft Office system to build out a Business Intelligence for K-12 or Business Intelligence for Higher ED solution.

Spend less time managing and deploying

Unfortunately, a workforce reduction is often an outcome of budget cuts, but rarely does the work disappear. When you eliminate the proliferation of disparate systems—and the tools used on those systems—you spend less time and money training your staff to support them and paying employees to troubleshoot. For example:

Servers. You can reduce costs associated with configuration management, end-to-end monitoring, server compliance and data protection, and recovery technologies with Microsoft System Center.

Desktops. Reduce application and management costs by managing software assets across the education institution with Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack.

Microsoft and our partners can help you review what you already own, align it with your new and existing requirements, and then guide you through every step of deployment.

Help reduce costs of communications, distance learning, and travel


	Solutions
	Unified Communications Live@edu
	Related links
	Learn more about how Live@edu can integrate with your existing investments Microsoft UC Datasheet 2007_EDU (.doc, 75 KB)
	Webcasts
	The Services Transformation in Education—Microsoft's Roadmap Microsoft Collaborative Campus: Live@edu Overview and Demo Collaboration in the Classroom Live@edu Overview Microsoft Unified Communications Overview Live@edu—Live Collaboration Tools Live Service Solutions for K-12 Unified Communication in Education - Tearing Down Barriers
	Tools
	Try Unified Communications for 30-days: Free

Delivering top-notch services on an academic budget has always been an IT challenge. But you can accomplish that goals and offer benefits to help save time and money for your faculty, staff, and students.

Simplify communications systems

Travel, communications, and distance-learning costs can be reduced by streamlining conflicting e-mail, telephone, fax, instant messaging, (IM), and audio, video, and Web conferencing systems with a single communications platform built with Microsoft unified communications technologies.

The potential savings to your IT department might be obvious: It takes less time to support a single platform with one directory, common monitoring tools, and universal notifications—especially when they’re all managed with the familiar Microsoft object-oriented management structure. The savings to the rest of your academic community will come about by:

Helping to reduce the costs (including gas, vehicle, parking, and time) of travel to and from classes, in-person meetings, and other campuses, by offering reliable ways to communicate via audio or video conferencing.
Increasing the number of students served by expanding distance-learning offerings.

Offer free e-mail and storage solutions

Simplify cost models and help reduce significant up-front costs by offering services on a subscription basis or take advantage of free services, such as Microsoft Live@edu, offered to academic institutions. You can help eliminate hardware and datacenter costs and reduce planning, deployment, and support costs by leveraging these services.

Microsoft Live@edu provides free e-mail for students, staff, faculty, and alumni, along with other collaboration tools such as SkyDrive and Office Live Workspace, which give your students the applications they want.

Maximize your IT purchasing power


	Related links
	SmartPay promotion Case study video (300 Kbps) Frequently asked questions about Microsoft Financing

The worsening economy and tightening credit market and are hitting academic institutions very hard. With that in mind, we’ve tailored a finance plan that allows qualified education providers of all sizes to get the software, services, and partner products you need today.

Our solution partners work with you to review and refine your objectives, requirements, and technology-related business needs. Then, together, you set up a payment structure that works with your budget and helps you maintain important cash flow. A down-payment is not required and terms range from two to five years.

Choose a financing program:

Consolidate vendor and vendor-agreements

Sometimes IT departments can save money by avoiding the cost of unintentionally licensing software or paying for other services that overlap. Sometimes, when negotiating multiple agreements with multiple vendors, academic institutions unintentionally pay for the same thing twice. Help ensure that you don’t have overlapping software and software agreements by taking advantage of Microsoft Core and eCal (Customer Access Licenses) programs. You can consolidate your relationship with Microsoft within a single license that covers the rights to use many Microsoft technologies that help with communications, security, and management.

See how they saved

University maintains accreditation while saving money

"Before the implementation of our Microsoft BI solution, it took our School of Education about 1.5 full-time employees to manually track our students’ progress. That is about 3,000 work hours a year that we replaced with a push of a button.”
—Dr. Sadie Gregory, Interim President and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Coppin State University, Maryland

Read case study

IT department looks forward to saving at least $250,000 with Live@edu

"Now, thanks to Microsoft Live@edu, we have a means of staying in constant touch with graduates. We have solved the difficulty of keeping up with alumni on the move. Prior to signing up, estimates gathered regarding the expense of an e-mail system to serve our 160,000 alumni had ranged from $250,000 to $700,000 per year, depending on the level of service"
—O'Neal Smitherman, Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Ball State University, Indiana

See the video case study

Better network visibility and security tools save university $75,000

“These solutions help us empower end users, reduce the amount of hand-holding that they need to be productive, and make security measures as transparent and painless as possible."

—Alex Chalmers, Lead Enterprise Systems and Security Architect, Ball State University, Indiana

Read the case study

University adds services to save $70,000 over three years

Fewer than 20 percent of Eastern students used the university’s existing hosted e-mail service. They wanted a more familiar user interface, increased functionality, and the ability to choose their user names.
In the first two years, more than 6,500 accounts have been activated, totaling 65 percent of the campus population. By retiring the previous service, the university estimates it will save $70,000 over three years.

See the video case study

Community college expands services using Web-based communications

“With Live@edu, we can deliver the social networking capabilities that students want. Our faculty is excited about engaging students in collaborative learning. And IT staff can take pride in delivering a hosted solution that translates into superior services at low cost.”
—Russell Wood, Director of Technology, Hinds Community College, Raymond, Mississippi

Read the case study

School cuts phone costs and increases student safety

In the past, Scotch College IT professionals supported separate systems for voice, e-mail, and IM, dividing time and resources among them. Now using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, they support only one system that offers more value by way of increased productivity and flexibility.

“Using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, we will be able to cut out support costs considerably because we now have just a single system to support.”
—Carlos Sinay, Network Engineer, Scotch College, Melbourne, Australia

Read case study

University boosts application uptime 50 percent increasing productivity

“Microsoft technologies give us a far more efficient approach to server management and maintenance than what we have in our non-Microsoft environment.”
—Mike Blasingame, Manager, Information Services and Technology Division, University of California, Berkeley

Read case study

School district consolidates 38 domains to 2, saves maintenance costs

“With one mouse-click, we will have access to information that used to take 15 to 30 minutes to gather using a number of applications and manual processes.”
—Mark Finstrom, Director of Technology Services, Highline Public Schools, Washington state

Read case study

College cuts costs, expands online and distance-learning programs

By using Office Communications Server 2007 and Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007 ... we will be able to reduce the number of trips from weekly to monthly, with a savings of about $40,000 annually.

—Michael Alloy, Director of Information Technology, Cambrian College, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

Read case study