Tommy Hilfiger Japan Corporation wanted to improve efficiency and data security. The company decided to replace stand-alone computers across 170 locations with mobile thin clients running Windows Embedded. The thin clients are connected locally to peripheral devices as well as remotely to the corporate infrastructure. By using an intelligent system to share information more efficiently, Tommy Hilfiger is enhancing customer service and brand identity, strengthening security, improving manageability and cutting costs.

Great River Health Systems, a regional provider of healthcare, sought a better solution for medication management. To improve efficiency and patient care, its hospital replaced manual processes and upgraded its distribution platform with an intelligent system from Microsoft and Omnicell based on Windows Embedded. As a result, Great River has reduced delivery time of patient medication from 1.5 hours to 30 minutes, cut $400,000 in inventory costs, and expects rapid ROI and ongoing annual savings of $300,000.

Aviva, a leading provider of financial services worldwide, wanted to help customers save money by basing auto insurance quotes on the behavior of individual drivers instead of statistics. To better understand potential customers, Aviva needed to collect telematics data from moving vehicles, but deploying on-premises infrastructure was too costly and complex. That changed when it implemented a hybrid-cloud solution based on Windows Azure. The solution uses smartphones to collect telematics data that it stores in the cloud on Windows Azure SQL Database. It also integrates with an on-premises quote system and social media such as Facebook and Twitter. With this highly scalable, extensible and secure cloud platform, Aviva can bring innovative solutions to the marketplace with a rapid lifecycle, help customers save up to 20 percent, and reach customers through the devices they use every day.

Emotive, a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, realized that people were using mobile devices more often than conventional desktops to interact with business applications. To help companies develop and deploy mobile apps more easily, Emotive created an SaaS platform that runs in the cloud on Windows Azure. By taking advantage of Emotive and Windows Azure, businesses can create cloud-based apps that integrate with on-premises data centers and run on multiple mobile devices. As a result, employees can access business applications and data from virtually any location worldwide, which helps them save time and stay productive. Emotive benefits as well—the company can focus on designing and enhancing its own solutions instead of managing IT infrastructure.

Aisle7 is a wellness marketing company that helps some of the biggest food and vitamin retailers market health and wellness products more effectively. To lower its operating costs and speed new product development, Aisle7 replaced its VMware virtualization infrastructure with one based on Windows Server 2012 Datacenter and Hyper-V technology. The company gained access to a wealth of features that would have cost thousands of dollars extra from VMware and will allow it to delay a US$30,000 storage expense—a massive cash-flow benefit for the firm. Aisle7 used Microsoft System Center 2012 to create a self-service portal that developers use to provision their own server resources, which speeds new-product development. By using clustering and other Windows Server 2012 features, Aisle7 can more easily perform server maintenance and keep workloads running without interruption.

Autolib’ is an electric-car-sharing program established by the city of Paris and 48 surrounding municipalities to relieve traffic congestion, reduce noise and air pollution, and provide people with more-flexible transit options. Implemented by logistics company IER, the intelligent system based on Windows Embedded provides connectivity between the in-car system, registration and rental kiosks, charging stations, and a central management system. By 2023, the solution is expected to replace more than 25,000 privately owned cars, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 75 million metric tons. With Autolib’, former car owners have also cut their transportation costs by 90 percent annually. Autolib’ subscribers enjoy an enhanced driving experience with GPS navigation, free parking, and personalized settings. The flexible solution also simplifies implementation and minimizes deployment risk.

Ballance Agri-Nutrients is the leading fertilizer manufacturer in New Zealand. The company wanted to improve the performance of its critical SAP applications to better serve customers. To do that, Ballance migrated its database to Microsoft SQL Server 2012, greatly improving application performance. Employees are more productive, and the company has cut storage costs by 60 percent. Also, Ballance can better handle business growth.

Singapore firm SATS, a leading provider of gateway services and food solutions, wanted to move its mission-critical SAP ERP environment to a more cost-effective and easily scalable environment. The company implemented a solution based on a Microsoft platform that includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. As a result, the company cut operating costs by approximately 20 percent while increasing scalability about 30 percent. SATS can now expand its enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities more easily and affordably, provide remote real-time access to line-of-business software and cloud-based office programs, and streamline its IT environment and business processes.

The Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) business area of Lockheed Martin creates specialized products that range from missile defense systems and precision engagement weapons to heat rejection panels that protect those living aboard the International Space Station. MFC has long used SAP software for its enterprise resource planning processes. Since migrating its SAP infrastructure from a UNIX/Oracle solution to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, the company reports enhanced performance and reliability as well as lower total cost of ownership, including a significant savings in software and maintenance costs. The company’s internal testing has found that the new data compression features reduce database size by total 74 percent while enhancing performance of some runs by more than 80 percent.

SEPCOIII wanted to give its employees a single solution that they could use to communicate and collaborate with other employees, partners, and customers around the world. Employees had been using Gmail for external communication, but found it unreliable and cumbersome. By implementing Microsoft Office 365, SEPCOIII now has a dependable and robust cloud-based solution that significantly reduces costs and boosts employee productivity.