When skeleton racer Corinne DiPietro threw her hat—or her helmet—into the 2014 Olympics ring, her volunteer support team expanded from her parents to nine people across the country. DiPietro fretted about managing and coordinating so many people while focusing on training. A member of DiPietro’s support team is a Microsoft employee who introduced her to Microsoft Office 365, a collection of cloud-based email, calendaring, collaboration, conferencing, and productivity services. With the cost-effective Office 365 solution, DiPietro was able to expand and manage a larger team that has the expertise needed to help her succeed and take advantage of more opportunities. DiPietro also has 25 percent more time to focus on training—her top priority.

CSIR – Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CSIR-CIMAP) is a multi-disciplinary, multi-location Research and Development institute dedicated to the cause of medicinal and aromatic plant research, cultivation, and business. The organization needed to replace its aging messaging infrastructure as it was limited in functionality and had minimal vendor support. In addition, IT administrators struggled to manage the solution. To address these challenges, CSIR-CIMAP deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Since deploying the solution, the organization has increased system availability, simplified management, and improved the user experience for employees. As a result, it expects to boost IT administrators’ productivity by up to 40 percent.

AFAS Software develops and supplies software that helps companies automate business processes. Recently, it upgraded its Microsoft communications solution with Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide presence, instant messaging, conferencing, sharing, and ad-hoc conferencing and collaboration tools. It integrated the solution with its Customer Interaction Center to help improve the effectiveness of its call centers and grow the business.

Ushers in Affordability and Accessibility in Family Care with Accurate, Quality Medical Care Razi Clinics transforms the primary healthcare space by merging quality with affordability. To increase the efficiency of its clinics and optimize services, it partnered with Seed Healthcare Solutions to deploy PALASH™ Clinical Information Management System. Built on the Microsoft platform, PALASH gives doctors access to all medical records and guidelines for clinical protocols. Razi Clinics has benefited from optimized service quality, reduced patient wait time, and ensured diagnosis that is more accurate. At the same time, clinical protocols guarantee standard clinical practices and contribute towards increased accountability of physicians. The system also allows the management to track their doctors’ performance. It also recommends pathological tests and investigations only when required.

As one of the foremost software product engineering houses in India, Aditi Technologies is an early adopter when it comes to embracing emerging technologies. The company needed a superior technology infrastructure that would reduce costs and increase functionality. Aditi chose to build its solution using Microsoft virtualization and cloud technologies and gracefully transitioned to a Hyper-V private cloud solution. The move ensures a 40 percent reduction in costs while consolidating physical servers by 60 percent. Additionally, the implementation of Microsoft Lync Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Exchange Server 2010, and SQL Server 2008 R2 meant better collaboration and communication between Aditi employees.

Continuing to foray into new innovative business opportunities while simultaneously strengthening its traditional base, SIVA Group wanted to modernize its infrastructure and reduce costs by replacing its disparate systems. The group decided to set up a private cloud solution built on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, and Microsoft System Center family of products. The move ensures a strong competitive outlook for the group’s evolving business and IT needs. As a result, it has reduced costs by 75 percent, promoted cross-unit collaboration, and improved business efficiencies. Additionally, the new platform is easier to manage, and allows for better collaboration and communication between employees.

Advancing knowledge around cardiovascular health is the driving mission of SKARF, a medical research and treatment center in Denmark. This work requires aggregating information and expertise from resources located around the globe, which is why the organization strives to find the most effective ways for its researchers to collaborate.

More than 1.8 million people die of HIV-related causes each year—approximately 5,000 deaths per day. HIV is a particularly significant threat in the sub-Saharan region of Africa. In some areas, the occurrence of HIV is eight times higher for women than men; an estimated one in three women seeking care during pregnancy is HIV positive. By age 35, the infection rate for men rivals that of women in the region. Researchers in South Africa and Boston are working with Microsoft Research to fight HIV.

PPD, a global contract research organization serving clients in the biopharmaceutical industry, wanted to improve the quality of employee training while reducing travel costs and enhancing collaboration across the company. PPD implemented PPD® 3D, a custom-tailored version of ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 from Microsoft partner ProtonMedia. ProtoSphere builds on Microsoft Lync Server 2010 with a virtual space in which users collaborate through the use of three-dimensional avatars. PPD has used ProtoSphere to boost knowledge retention for trainees, thus making them more effective employees. Reduced travel costs have helped the company recoup its software investment in less than six months. Building on the foundation of ProtoSphere and Microsoft Lync Server 2010, PPD and ProtonMedia are currently expanding the groundbreaking collaborative experiences into other business processes.

Located in Perth, the Fujitsu Microsoft Solutions Centre is a centre of software excellence, helping Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand create and deploy world-class enterprise solutions based on Microsoft technologies. To provide an optimal service, the centre’s 70 consultants need to continually access and assimilate data from a variety of databases, spread sheets and intranets. In September 2011, IT staff deployed the self-service data application development tool, Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011. The tool enables non-technical staff to rapidly create line-of-business applications that integrate data from a variety of data sources into professional-looking formats. As a result, the centre has helped staff improve their own productivity, and staff can readily share their data applications with customers and colleagues by hosting them with Windows Azure.