Microsoft Delivers The Future Of Productivity

Media Release
13 May 2010

Microsoft Delivers The Future Of Productivity With Office 2010 And Sharepoint 2010

Leading productivity suite and cloud services now available for businesses

Today, Microsoft announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, as well as Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010 for business customers worldwide. More than 90 million businesses can now deploy the 2010 suite of products, and can expect to see significant productivity gains and greater return on their software investments.

“Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 define the future of productivity,” says Anne Taylor, Information Worker Business Group Manager, Microsoft New Zealand. “With 2010, organisations will save, innovate and grow as their people benefit from working across the PC, phone and browser.”

“We’ve preserved the look and feel of Office across the desktop, phone and Web browser, for anywhere, anytime access. We’ve also developed tools to help people bring their ideas to life.”

A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “The Total Economic Impact™ of Implementing Microsoft’s Integrated Office Productivity Platform,” May 2010, evaluated the 2010 releases of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The Forrester TEI model employs four fundamental elements including costs, benefits to the entire organisation, flexibility and risk. Based on the customer interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for a composite organisation and found the ROI to be 301 percent with a payback period of 7.4 months after deployment. The study also found that the composite organisation would see more than $13 million in savings over a three-year period and on average, a savings of more than 2 work weeks per year.

Kordia, a boutique telco and media business, has experienced a number of benefits with its upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010. “Our team has embraced the changes to Microsoft Outlook 2010, with conversational threading and improved mailbox layout making it quicker and easier to manage communication. The Sparklines data analysis feature in Excel 2010 has also been particularly useful, making it simple to produce a quick report highlighting important data trends,” says Stephen Beckwith, IS Manager, Kordia.

Chapman Tripp, New Zealand’s pre-eminent law firm and trusted adviser to businesses and governments, has chosen Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 to improve document and content management throughout the information lifecycle. “Once fully implemented we expect SharePoint 2010 and FAST Search Server 2010 to deliver significant gains in productivity. Benefits will include reduced search times, increased relevancy in search results and the proactive exposure of relevant content and information. It will also enable us to eliminate a number of third party tools,” says Craig Humphrey, IT Development Manager for Chapman Tripp.

Microsoft’s Office 2010 beta programme was its largest ever, with three times the number of participants as prior Office beta programmes. As a result, 8.6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products in 14 different languages. In addition, more than 1,000 partners are already building solutions for the 2010 set of products.

Flexible Cloud Solutions
Microsoft’s signature productivity technologies are available in the cloud, offering unprecedented choice and flexibility for IT departments when purchasing and deploying solutions. Office Web Applications will now be available to all Office volume licensing customers. In addition, customers will soon be able to purchase a subscription to Office Web Apps as part of Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft’s cloud-based applications.

With over 40 million paying customers on Microsoft Online Services worldwide, businesses are embracing Microsoft’s vision for the cloud. New customers continue to come on board, including the New Zealand Rugby Union, Unique Solutions and Advice Ltd and Au Pair Link, and are choosing Microsoft Online Services for its enterprise grade capabilities, security and flexibility.

Naomi Ballantyne, Managing Director of Unique Solutions and Advice Ltd says the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite was the only real option for their business, and has eliminated the need to have an IT team on site. “We need to ensure there is a seamless flow between document storage, management and file sharing. Microsoft SharePoint Online provides this, allowing us to inform relevant departments on progress, as well as providing secure storage for our client legal contracts.”

Microsoft’s global launch website http://www.the2010event.com for the 2010 suite of products was built on Microsoft SharePoint 2010, reaching more than 60 countries and 26 languages worldwide. The site includes a rich set of content that will help customers choose and benefit from the 2010 products, which are available for business purchase now.

The general consumer release for Office 2010 will take place in June. However, since 5 March 2010 consumers who purchase and activate Office 2007 can benefit from a tech guarantee programme that allows customers to download Office 2010 at no additional cost when it becomes available.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential.
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