14 DAY TRIAL // Shell, Manpower, Tampa General Hospital and Advocate Health are four new customers that embraced the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite, joining a list of both corporation as well as small and midsize businesses that already jumped on the software giant’s BPOS bandwagon. According to the Redmond company, Shell plans to leverage SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2010 to power online collaboration among employees worldwide.
While details for Shell have not been provided, Microsoft was a tad more generous for the remaining three of its new Cloud customers.
Manpower for examples, forecasts a cost reduction by $2.2 million per year after migrating to Microsoft Exchange Online for all its 30,000 employees in no less than 3,900 offices across 82 countries.
“We can communicate much more efficiently across the company with Exchange Online,” said Denis Edwards, chief information officer for Manpower. “This is the first time we’ve used a global messaging application, and it has quickly become the cornerstone of our collaboration efforts.”
Customers in 40 markets worldwide can access BPOS, subscribing to services as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online.
Advocate Health is one other customer embracing Exchange Online. Moving to the Cloud, Advocate Health revealed that it gave up on its on-premise communications infrastructure, estimating some $4 million in savings.
Tampa General Hospital opted for Microsoft’s Cloud Apps, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, in order to ensure that its mobile workforce can have access to the company resources irrespective of their location or the device they might be running on.
“It’s great to see businesses, governments and schools of all sizes trust Microsoft to help them move to the cloud,” added 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.”