REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 18, 1997 — Strengthening its commitment to the computing needs of large organizations, Microsoft Corp. today announced enhancements to its Service Advantage suite of enterprise services. Enhancements being announced today include the availability of expanded on-site services, including Enterprise Program Management service and Premier Support on site, as well as enhanced Technical Consulting Blueprints and Custom Consulting from Microsoft Consulting Services and enhanced online services. In addition, industry-leading enterprise service providers also announced a broad range of enterprise services focused on Microsoft® products, including Microsoft Exchange Server migration services from Digital Equipment Corp., implementation and integration services from NCR Corp. for Microsoft SQL Server
™and the Windows NT® operating system, and total cost of ownership (TCO) services from Software Spectrum Inc.
Enterprise companies worldwide, including NASDAQ, Taco Bell Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Corp., are standardizing on the Microsoft BackOffice
™
family and Internet technologies as the cornerstone of their mission-critical computing solutions. As customers adopt Microsoft solutions in ever-increasing numbers, these large organizations have asked Microsoft and its industry partners to expand their service offerings accordingly.
“Microsoft is an important industry partner in our enterprise technology, and we’ve found Premier Support services and the consultant from Microsoft Consulting Services to be invaluable in the building of our NextGen system, an entirely new system for our financial consultants,” said Hillary Gal, senior vice president, retail branch systems at Smith Barney Inc. “These services have enabled us to establish a strategic relationship with Microsoft.”
“Microsoft is committed to our customers’ success, and we are pleased to respond to their needs for a strategic, ongoing service relationship,” said Deborah Willingham, vice president in the enterprise customer unit at Microsoft. “It is Microsoft’s goal to build a comprehensive relationship with each of its enterprise customers through Premier Support and Enterprise Program Management services.”
“The Microsoft-Digital Alliance for Enterprise Computing was founded on our belief that Windows® -based solutions would represent the next wave of enterprise computing. The rapid adoption of Windows NT and Microsoft BackOffice is validating this belief,” said John Rando, vice president and general manager of Digital worldwide services. “Today we are complementing Microsoft’s Service Advantage announcement with new service offerings and plan to double the number of Microsoft Certified Professionals on our staff, growing from our industry-leading base of 1,300 to 2,500 by the end of the year.”
Enhanced Enterprise Services Underscore Microsoft’s Commitment
The highly successful Microsoft Enterprise Program Manager (EPM) consulting service began as a pilot program last year in response to customers’ demand for on-site, long-term Microsoft consulting services in planning their strategic adoption of Microsoft technology and aligning this technology with their business goals.
Now called Enterprise Program Management service, the service has been enhanced to address total cost of ownership, enterprise architecture planning, IT services assessment, as well as other issues according to customer need. Already in more than 100 of the largest enterprise organizations around the world, this service is now available worldwide through Microsoft Consulting Services.
With more than 1,500 worldwide customers, Microsoft Premier Support continues to provide customers with a unique combination of supportability consulting and rapid problem resolution services. With today’s announcement Microsoft has added an on-site Technical Account Manager option, as well as a more flexible Global Premier Support option. The role of the Technical Account Manager is to work with customer management and technical staff to gain an acute understanding of their business application of Microsoft products and ensure support issues are addressed by Microsoft engineers in the most time efficient way. This includes the delivery of Supportability Reviews and Support consulting aimed at helping customers plan major project implementations to reduce the operational support burden. Global Premier Support now provides large multinational customers the ability to customize a global support program according to their needs.
In addition to Enterprise Program Management services and Premier Support on-site, Microsoft Service Advantage has also been enhanced by options designed to help large organizations deploy Microsoft-based solutions more quickly and effectively. These options include the following:
-
Technology Consulting Blueprints. These predefined consulting engagements help customers at the earliest stages of a project by providing a customized deployment or development plan, identifying key risks and estimating the resources required. New Blueprints for 1997 include a Total Cost of Ownership Assessment, Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange Migration, Electronic Commerce With Microsoft Merchant Server, Planning for Transaction-Based Distributed Systems With Microsoft Transaction Server, and an Application Development Review service.
-
Microsoft best practices. To help customers deliver effective distributed computing solutions, Microsoft collects best practices from its developers, consultants and service partners around the world. These are analyzed, turned into reusable models in Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), and then shared worldwide as facilitated training from Microsoft consultants and certified Microsoft Solution Providers. Starting in April, anyone who has attended MSF training will have access to an interactive online site, featuring tools to help customers use MSF in their own projects. This site will be updated regularly with the latest MSF practices, including a new model for TCO assessment, and frequently requested new content on enterprise architecture planning, Office 97 and groupware development, and infrastructure deployment. Later this year, the site will expand to deliver interactive planning guides, based on Microsoft best practices and customer experiences, to further streamline planning and development for customers building solutions with Microsoft technology.
Proactive Internet Services
Microsoft also today announced new online resources to give customers and partners superior information and service. The Premier ServiceDesk provides Premier customers with proactive Critical Alerts, automated e-mail notifying the customer of specific product issues. The Premier ServiceDesk also allows customers to submit and track support incidents, access bug patches and Service Packs, and receive regular Premier News Flashes focusing on product areas of particular customer interest.
Microsoft has also added the availability of the TechNet Reference Library, an online subset of the popular TechNet CD-ROM subscription product. The TechNet Reference Library is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/ TechNet is a comprehensive technical resource to evaluate, implement and support Microsoft business products, enabling users to minimize system downtime, build technical expertise and deploy Microsoft products. Over 100,000 subscribers benefit from TechNet today, and the TechNet Reference Library is being made available for users who prefer Internet access and reduced subscription costs.
Enterprise Solutions Combine Microsoft and Third-Party Services
Broad adoption of Windows NT and Microsoft BackOffice by enterprise customers has created tremendous demand for professional services including system integration, multivendor support, application development, business re-engineering, deployment and operations. Microsoft’s direct services are complemented by third-party service offerings, and the combination is being proved by widespread customer acceptance. Today, a broad range of enterprise services are being announced by leading enterprise service providers, all Microsoft Solution Providers including Digital Equipment Corp., Entex Information Services, GE Capital Information Technology Solutions, IBM Global Services, NCR Corp., Software Spectrum Inc., Tandem Computers Inc., Vanstar Corp. and Wang Laboratories Inc. For more detailed information on these vendors’ offerings and contact information, please refer to the appendix.
For More Information
Microsoft Service Advantage, introduced in early 1996, includes a full line of services from Microsoft and key industry partners and is aimed at meeting the information technology needs of large organizations. For more information on Microsoft Service Advantage, refer to http://www.microsoft.com/servad/ . For information on TechNet, call (800) 344-2121.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Windows NT, BackOffice and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
Microsoft Service Advantage
Appendix
