REDMOND, Wash., March 29, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Wells Fargo Bank has joined a growing list of organizations that are moving to the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Server operating system as their enterprisewide operating system of choice.
To benefit from increased flexibility, greater manageability and faster performance, Wells Fargo has chosen to standardize on Windows 2000 Server and Active Directory TM service for the company’s directory and file and print infrastructure as well as its platform for applications and Web services. Wells Fargo initially plans to migrate 120 NetWare servers to Windows 2000 at the company’s Wholesale Banking Group.
“We are excited that Wells Fargo chose Windows 2000 Server as the foundation to help the company move to the next millennium,”
said Keith White, director of Windows Marketing at Microsoft.
“Windows 2000 provides a comprehensive platform solution, and choosing Active Directory and Windows 2000 will allow Wells Fargo to drive more efficient business practices.”
The switch from Novell Directory Services to Active Directory will enable Wells Fargo to design its network directory according to its business needs, instead of mapping its business to a predefined directory architecture. This provides the company with great flexibility and more efficiency in its directory architecture.
“With Active Directory, we are able to design a directory around our business architecture,”
said Patrick Collins, vice president and engineering manager of Wholesale Systems at Wells Fargo.
“At the same time, our business processes demand an operating system that allows us to consolidate our applications and the majority of our networking infrastructure onto a single platform to drive down management costs. With Windows 2000 Server, we have found our solution.”
Wells Fargo also found that Windows 2000 Server provided improved performance with faster authentication, delivering a greater response time for connecting users at the company’s many branch offices.
“Our evaluation studies showed that because Active Directory is integrated with our messaging system, our users have fewer passwords to remember, which leads to a reduction of support costs,”
Collins said.
“They also showed that Active Directory and Windows 2000 provide a performance benefit over our existing systems.”
In addition, Wells Fargo found that the switch to Windows 2000 provided the company with greater manageability. Specifically, the company noted that group policies are better integrated, easier to deploy, and more efficient at managing clients and procedures. The company also noted that IntelliMirror® management technologies is a superior feature for distributing and managing applications because of its integration with Windows 2000 Professional-based clients.
Wells Fargo’s deployment of Windows 2000 is another way the company is looking at staying on top of the fiercely competitive financial industry. Today, companies need to make technology work for their benefit, and, in this case, Windows 2000 is a key building block for future success.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
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