Microsoft Services Helps Mission-Critical Customers Achieve Business Continuity

REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Services today announced enhanced mission-critical capabilities for customers with business-critical solutions. As part of today's announcement, Microsoft Services also announced the availability of an expanded Premier Mission Critical add-on aimed at helping customers tackle the support requirements of their most demanding solutions. An add-on to Premier Support, Premier Mission Critical provides a service and support program, with services spanning from solution validation and architectural reviews to proactive services and problem resolution resources.

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An integral part of Microsoft Services' mission-critical strategy, Premier Mission Critical helps enable customers to do the following:

• Manage risk and optimize support through solution validation and architectural reviews
• Attain and maintain continuity by working closely with a Microsoft Solution Engineer who facilitates and orchestrates proactive services, remediation, problem resolution and knowledge transfer
• Utilize the fastest response times available from Microsoft to get their business back up and running as quickly as possible if an incident occurs

Premier Mission Critical is designed to ensure that companies have an optimal architecture up front and to provide expedited recovery of critical applications if an issue does arise. A designated team of engineers is assigned to validate each customer's system design and become familiar with the unique configuration and deployment environment. Onsite engineering support also will work closely with the customer's IT department.

"It goes without saying that mission-critical solutions require higher levels of attention, given their potential to stop business in its tracks if an outage or other incident occurs," said Norm Judah, chief technical officer, Microsoft Services. "Through a comprehensive set of services and support offerings, Microsoft Services is helping our customers identify and implement the right mission-critical technologies for their businesses, with the assurance that a staff of experts is on hand to support the customers' most important applications."

After the initial consultation, customers receive a dedicated line for support, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with priority access to the most knowledgeable experts. If an incident occurs, Premier Mission Critical provides customers with the fastest problem resolution services available from Microsoft Corp., including a 30-minute response time and an engagement process that begins at an advanced support level.

"Customers are looking for comprehensive support services that can minimize downtime for mission critical systems and processes," said Elaina Stergiades, senior analyst at IDC. "Support providers that include architectural reviews with ongoing maintenance for multiple product suites can offer a more complete solution for customers that need to maximize performance across their IT landscape."

Premier Mission Critical now provides support for the Microsoft .NET Framework, Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows Server. Support is currently available worldwide in English.

Pricing for Premier Mission Critical will be dependent on the level of engagement with Microsoft and the specific requirements of each customer. Customers wanting more information should contact their Microsoft account representatives.

In addition to Premier Mission Critical, Microsoft Services also works with customers' mission-critical applications through its Enterprise Strategy program and Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS). The Enterprise Strategy program provides customers with enterprise architects who have strong business and technical backgrounds to assist in ensuring that IT strategies map to business objectives and solving tough business problems with technology solutions. MCS provides a portfolio of proven tools, processes and best practices to help customers adopt and deploy the latest technologies efficiently and help reduce cost and minimize risk for customers looking to deploy a mission-critical application on the Microsoft platform.

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

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.