Headquartered in Beijing, China, Sohu.com provides Internet services such as search, advertising, and online gaming. Employees use email for business-critical communication, so the company’s messaging solution must be highly available and secure. Recently, Sohu decided to evaluate upgrading to Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 to help improve messaging compliance, ensure high availability, and reduce hardware costs and administration.

With 82 sites across Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, Komatsu Australia has employees who work in many locations. Because its employees rely heavily on its messaging solution to communicate with each other and with customers, Komatsu must ensure that it has a highly available, efficient system in place to support them. Employees at Komatsu save their email messages for future reference and mailbox sizes were growing rapidly. Komatsu was using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 for email and voice mail and wanted to implement an archiving solution to help employees better manage their email. Komatsu upgraded to Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 to take advantage of the built-in archiving capabilities and enhanced high-availability configurations to reduce administration requirements while improving availability and providing new capabilities to employees.

Axept Webcall is a division of Swisscom, the largest telecommunications company in Switzerland. It provides engineering and operation services and specializes in Microsoft unified communications and collaboration solutions. Axept Webcall recently deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 on-premises to provide updated messaging capabilities to its employees. As a result, it improved its high availability configuration and enhanced communications.

KU Leuven is migrating its administrative and academic staff to Microsoft Lync. This means a central user interface for chatting, e-mail, telephony and videoconferencing via IP network. The software supports their current way of working because users are already very mobile and meet frequently. They can now do so far more efficiently, in the multi-building KUL campus but also from home or abroad. Switching from chat to telephony, sharing documents and starting a video conference is now very rapidly done as and when required. Nextel provides guidance and support to KUL for this extensive migration which is carried out faculty by faculty. All users are expected to be able to communicate via Lync by the end of 2014. Nextel provides advice, technical adaptation and support for the migration.

First Technology is one of South Africa’s leading single-source providers of IT products and solutions. Because email is a business critical tool internally and for its customers, First Technology deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 in its own production environment to understand and experience the latest architecture and capabilities. The deployment will instil confidence in its customers that First Technology can replicate and manage this latest technology.

With employees located across Australia and New Zealand, Bridgestone Australia wanted to improve its communications capabilities to speed business processes and develop stronger relationships among employees. The company depended on email and phone conversations for the vast majority of its communications and wanted to provide employees with better options for real-time communications. It also had problems with its private-branch exchange systems and needed a new voice solution. Bridgestone chose to deploy Microsoft Lync Server 2013 for voice, conferencing, and instant messaging and presence. The solution has delivered more agile business processes, reduced costs for telephony and travel, and improved sales.

When Volvo IT wanted to implement its Unified Communications Next Generation project, it deployed Microsoft Lync Server 2010 to provide instant messaging, presence, and conferencing capabilities to its employees. With the Lync solution, Volvo IT found it could reduce costs on audio conferencing and mobile roaming. It has also reduced management requirements. To build on the success of the current solution and improve availability, it tested Microsoft Lync Server 2013 as part of the project to prepare for a future deployment.

Türk Telekom Group is a full-service communications and convergence technologies provider in Turkey. The company’s 2,000 retail salespeople used Openwave Messaging to communicate with the corporate office, but the solution was difficult to manage. When Türk Telekom learned about Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, it deployed the solution to help reduce administration, provide high availability, and offer improved messaging capabilities to employees.

An iconic car manufacturer, Fiat Group wanted to build on its long history of continuous innovation by offering the most current communication and entertainment technologies in 15 car models, including Fiat and Chrysler. To meet that goal, the company turned to Continental to design an affordable infotainment system within 18 months. Powered by Windows Embedded Automotive, the solution offers multimedia entertainment, integration with the Fiat eco:Drive application, and support for mobile phones, media players, and TomTom satellite navigation. The company projects an increase of up to 40 percent in market penetration by adapting the affordable, high-quality system to multiple brands and models. Fiat has also cut its own deployment time and risk while enhancing driving experience, safety, and fuel efficiency.

When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, the 400 employees who work at the global headquarters for News Corporation were unable to get to their offices. Thankfully, it had deployed a Microsoft unified communications solution, so employees could work effectively from any location with an Internet connection. Recently, News Corporation upgraded its communications solution to Microsoft Lync Server 2013, which enhances the conferencing capabilities that employees use daily and provides a more intuitive user interface. With Lync Server 2013, the company expects to increase adoption of videoconferencing and to provide a more reliable solution to help reduce downtime for business-critical tools.