Shell, Manpower, Tampa General Hospital and Advocate Health Care Pick Microsoft Cloud Apps

REDMOND, Wash., March 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced several new customers that have chosen Microsoft’s suite of cloud applications, Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), to enhance collaboration, improve productivity and reduce costs.

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Advocate Health Care, Manpower Inc., Shell and Tampa General Hospital are among the latest companies to choose Microsoft’s cloud applications. The companies join a growing list of Microsoft cloud customers, including AON Insurance, The Dow Chemical Co., GAP Inc., Hyatt Corp., Kraft Foods Inc., Vanderbilt University, and the states of California and Minnesota, along with thousands of small and midsize businesses.

“It’s great to see businesses, governments and schools of all sizes trust Microsoft to help them move to the cloud,” said Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft. “With our cloud apps, people can work together more easily from virtually anywhere, across a range of devices. And unlike ‘pure cloud’ solutions, our online solutions for productivity work with what organizations already have, so they can transition to the cloud on their own terms.”

BPOS, available in 40 countries and regions, includes Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and Microsoft Office Communications Online. It helps businesses increase productivity, tighten security and stay current with the latest technologies.

Manpower Accelerates Innovation With Exchange Online

Manpower, a world leader in innovative work-force solutions, specializes in creating and delivering services that help its clients succeed in the changing world of work, including temporary and contract recruitment, employee assessment and selection, training, outplacement, and outsourcing. The company’s worldwide network of more than 30,000 employees spans 3,900 offices in 82 countries and territories, allowing Manpower to work with 400,000 clients per year.

“We are entering what Manpower has identified as ‘The Human Age,’ when optimizing human potential will be the single most important determinant of future business success and growth,” said Denis Edwards, chief information officer for Manpower. “This requires business and government leaders to re-examine how they support employee potential in a rapidly shifting world.”

To accelerate employee potential, innovation, communication and collaboration across diverse geographies, Manpower is consolidating its various e-mail servers and platforms and moving to Microsoft Exchange Online.

“We can communicate much more efficiently across the company with Exchange Online,” Edwards said. “This is the first time we’ve used a global messaging application, and it has quickly become the cornerstone of our collaboration efforts.”

Tampa General Hospital Experiences a New World of Productivity

“We serve a population of more than 4 million in the Tampa community,” said Shane Ochotny, technology architect for Tampa General Hospital. “Because we’re in healthcare, our physicians, nurses and other employees are on the go a lot, and they want the ability to work where they are, on virtually any PC, browser or mobile device they use.”

Before choosing Microsoft, the hospital completed an extensive review of Microsoft’s security policies, certifications and data security qualifications. “Through our security audits, it became clear that BPOS offers a security-enhanced environment, which surpassed anything we could build in our own datacenter,” Ochotny said.

The hospital has moved to Microsoft Exchange Online and is rolling out the full suite of Microsoft communications and collaboration services, including Microsoft SharePoint Online. “This will give us a whole new world of collaboration, using Outlook and Office,” Ochotny said. “We’re happy to leave the technical details of e-mail and productivity applications to a hosted service with Microsoft, allowing us to focus on our core healthcare business.”

Advocate Health Care Saves $4 Million, Improves Communication by Moving E-Mail to the Cloud

Advocate Health Care, the largest healthcare provider in Illinois, has employees working across multiple locations. The company wanted to improve its messaging technology to make sure its clinicians could communicate clearly, quickly and accurately. To accomplish this, Advocate unplugged its aging e-mail servers and gave 29,000 employees subscriptions to Microsoft Exchange Online.

Now the company has instant access to the latest e-mail software and a cloud app foundation in place to support additional technologies that contribute to better patient care. Microsoft Exchange Online also reduced Advocate’s IT staff e-mail management time by half, giving the team more time to roll out other projects that impact the organization’s core business.

Shell Goes to the Cloud to Collaborate

Shell recently announced it will begin using Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to enable global, online collaboration among employees. Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 will provide a central platform for various applications, such as document and content management, as well as enable organization and collaboration in project work. Through Microsoft SharePoint, Shell will appreciate considerable cost reductions and flexibility.

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.