ANAHEIM, Calif., July 16, 2001 — Today at Microsoft® Fusion 2001, Microsoft Corp. announced the winner of the Office XP National Solutions Challenge, a contest that invited companies to develop innovative business solutions using Office XP technologies. Of the 150 companies that participated, St. Louis-based Quilogy Inc. was declared the winner and awarded the $20,000 prize. Quilogy developed a business solution that will dramatically improve collaboration among employees and improve access to information, enabling healthcare providers to make more informed decisions and achieve substantial productivity gains.
“The companies that participated in the challenge used Office XP to develop solutions that deliver tremendous business value to their customers by enabling them to save time and money through state-of-the art solutions,”
said Peter Cray, director of U.S. Office Marketing at Microsoft.
“The breadth of the solutions created for different industries demonstrates the new opportunities Office XP delivers to partners through innovative technologies such as XML, extensible smart tags and SharePoint™ Team Services. Quilogy’s winning solution in particular demonstrates the versatility of Office XP to solve the communication needs of healthcare professionals.”
Quilogy Solution Dramatically Improves Communication and Collaboration
Quilogy, a provider of business solutions through digital consulting, advanced hosting and technical education, created a solution for Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Omaha, Neb., to provide document management, policy and procedure access, and collaboration functionality for each department.
“We used Office XP innovations as the cornerstone for Saint Joseph’s Hospital solution, which will enable the hospital staff to easily manage documents and share information through SharePoint technologies, quickly find and access medical information through custom Office XP smart tags, and automate manual processes through integrating these technologies with Pocket PCs and BizTalk™ Server,”
said John Talbott, general manager of the Quilogy office in Omaha.
“Office XP and technologies that integrate with Office XP provide new opportunities for our business to create solutions that deliver tremendous value to our customers. We look forward to helping other customers become more productive through Office XP solutions.”
Quilogy’s solution will enable Saint Joseph’s Hospital to share their schedules and documents and hold discussions on departmental SharePoint Team Services Web sites; easily access definitions of specific drugs and learn about drug interactions with other medications and other important medical information through smart tags; and access patient records and medical references using a Pocket PC, which can also be used to write and submit prescriptions in real time through connecting with a BizTalk Server.
“Quilogy’s solution will enable our hospital to communicate and collaborate more effectively, stay updated with the latest information, and become more efficient through automating processes that can take up valuable time from our staff,”
said Sharon Welna, chief information officer at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Omaha.
“We look forward to working with Quilogy to deploy this solution and enable our staff to experience the benefits of this solution immediately.”
Competing Solutions Demonstrate the Vast Opportunities Office XP Enables
Quilogy competed with companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp., Navigator Systems Inc. and Plural Inc., which were recognized as finalists. The contest participants created a wide range of custom Office XP solutions — ranging from sales force automation and customer relationship management to knowledge management — for a variety of industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, financial and legal. The solutions deliver exceptional value and enable companies to rapidly access information and create content, as well as easily capture and share business knowledge.
For example, the Lockheed Martin Secure Enterprise Solutions team, which provides advanced-technology products, services and system integration solutions for defense, civil and commercial customers worldwide, was acknowledged for developing a solution that simplifies the process of accessing integrated data from disparate locations and procuring product goods and services. Custom smart tags were created to link people with product and service information on the Web while working in Excel 2002 or Word 2002. This solution simplifies basic tasks, improves information-sharing abilities by drawing relevant information from disparate applications, and simplifies multiple processes.
In addition, Navigator Systems Inc., an Internet professional services firm that delivers business intelligence and knowledge management solutions, developed eFund Analyzer, an employee self-service portal and 401K analyzer built on Office XP that helps employees quickly access, review and update their human resources program information easily and securely. The solution uses custom smart tags to access information about different 401K funds and Excel 2002 Web Queries to enable employees to update their fund information in Excel 2002 and automatically refresh their fund information stored on a company’s intranet. Navigator’s solution highlights how a Web-based application can save organizations time and money by empowering individuals to manage their own 401K account information online, including administering their account, allocating investments and analyzing investment alternatives.
Finally, Plural Inc., an e-business consulting and development firm, developed a CRM and customer care solution that enables customer service representatives to receive a request from a customer, research it and process it, all within Office XP. The solution gives people easier and quicker access to database information from within Word 2002 or Excel 2002 through new smart tags and XML worksheets, enabling them to work within a familiar interface while simultaneously interfacing with enterprisewide order fulfillment systems. The solution also uses other familiar Microsoft technologies, including SharePoint Portal Server 2001, SQL Server™
2000, Exchange 2000 and BizTalk Server 2000 to reduce development and integration costs. Plural’s solution saves time and improves customer service by linking people directly to the information they need and avoiding the need to keep multiple applications running at the same time.
More information about other participants’ solutions is available at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/officexp/solutions_challenge.asp .
About Office XP
Office XP provides a much smarter work experience for individuals, teams and organizations. Office XP makes productivity simple for individuals by helping them get the most out of Office and giving them tools they can rely on. Office XP enables collaboration for everyone by revolutionizing the way people work with others on documents and by introducing SharePoint Team Services so people can manage projects and activities via the Web. Office XP also provides a flexible way to solve business needs by delivering rich business solutions and the improved security and reliability tools businesses need to deploy and manage Office.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, SharePoint and BizTalk are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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