REDMOND, Wash. Oct. 1, 2003 Microsoft Corp. today announced that the newest version of its popular team collaboration and next-generation file management technology, Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint™ Services, is helping companies such as Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center of Seattle and TALX Corp. in St. Louis see dramatic increases in their information worker productivity, customer retention and sales all while enabling IT managers to gain better control over the complexities and costs involved with managing intranet sites. Delivered as part of the Windows Server™
2003 set of technologies and available today to customers of Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services provides collaborative workspaces for intranet and extranet communities, enabling teams of workers to more easily access and share information than with traditional file servers.
Collaboration Tools, Increased Productivity Gains
Windows SharePoint Services, along with Windows Server 2003, delivers immediate end-user and team collaboration benefits by providing an integrated set of collaboration tools including document check-in and check-out, versioning, discussions, lists, surveys, tasks and event calendars. By having these capabilities along with the ability to view team-member status and availability, information workers can become highly productive.
TALX provides data-centric services that automate traditional paper-based human resource and payroll functions for more than 65 percent of the Fortune 500. The company recognized that the right collaboration solution would be critical in helping to fully capitalize on and transfer knowledge throughout the entire organization. Following recent acquisitions, TALX deployed Windows SharePoint Services beta 2 to every employee and saw a significant productivity increase as much as 20 percent on some teams. Windows SharePoint Services has been integral in enabling TALX to expand its suite of services, number of employees and client base while increasing customer service.
“Thanks to Windows SharePoint Services, we can easily create customized sites where all the information thats needed for better decision-making is aggregated and available in real time to teams in multiple locations,”
said Mike Smith, vice president of Market Development at TALX.
“As a result, weve experienced an extremely smooth integration of the new employees as well as key business processes. Improved knowledge transfer has produced tangible results such as increased cross-selling success and shorter project schedules across new and existing business units.”
“Windows SharePoint Services gives customers integrated platform services, making it easy for small businesses as well as entire enterprises to immediately deliver improved collaboration capabilities and IT benefits using their existing investments,”
said Kurt DelBene, corporate vice president of Authoring and Collaboration Services at Microsoft.
“Windows SharePoint Services directly addresses the growing demand for Web-enabled collaboration by end users, while giving IT a powerful, integrated solution that manages the growing complexity of intranets, reduces administrative costs and improves overall customer satisfaction.”
Improved Platform Services, Reduced Complexity and Cost
IT professionals are increasingly confronting the trend toward Web-enabled collaboration, resulting in an unmanaged proliferation of intranet Web sites and a growing burden on cost and complexity. Windows SharePoint Services satisfies the increasing demand by IT professionals for integrated platform services that reduce cost and complexity by creating the optimal balance between a fluid, self-service experience for end users and a scalable, extensible and powerful administration environment with features such as quotas, content blocking, automatic site aging (life-cycle management) and more.
Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center, a nationally respected pediatric facility affiliated with the University of Washington, recognized the need for a more collaborative work environment. The hospital sought to keep vital data current by streamlining the flow of information among its knowledge workers and healthcare providers, who include 200 hospital-based and 1,200 community physicians. The hospital also sought to minimize manual processes, repetitive work and duplicate record-keeping, with the dual goal of enhancing patient care and reducing administrative costs. For a solution, Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center turned to Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies.
“By deploying Windows SharePoint Services along with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, we have gained better access to integrated information and research,”
said Thomas McGee, infrastructure program manager at Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center.
“At the same time, this solution provides improved processes that help us capitalize on shared knowledge and best practices across our medical community. We expect this integrated solution to result in improved, more informed patient care and response because vital data is now easier to target, access, share and record, and because our medical personnel are empowered to collaborate with ease.”
Windows SharePoint Services is now available for download at no additional charge for customers using Windows Server 2003 from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/sharepoint/default.mspx .
About Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies
Windows SharePoint Services is a Web-based team collaboration environment built on the Microsoft .NET Framework, a highly reliable and manageable platform. Windows SharePoint Services allows anyone with a Web browser to create and access virtual workspaces for managing documents, discussions, lists, surveys and other important contextual information such as team member status and presence.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 extends the capabilities of Windows SharePoint Services by providing organization, indexing and management tools for SharePoint-based sites and enabling information captured in sites to be published to the entire organization. Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 also delivers personally relevant information through audience targeting as well as personalization and customization tools. Flexible and robust application integration is possible via Web Parts and rich views of Extensible Markup Language (XML), and Web services are provided via an extensible user interface. The upcoming release of Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is part of the Microsoft Office System, designed to significantly broaden the customer and partner value proposition with a rich client-server, XML-enabled solution that connects people, teams and enterprises.
About Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office System is an easy way to help more people use information to positively impact their business. Through a system of familiar and easy-to-use programs, servers and services, users can connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other helping ensure that they derive the most value out of information. The Microsoft Office System consists of the 2003 editions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project and Project Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, Microsoft Office FrontPage® 2003, Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote™ 2003, Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 and Microsoft Office Visio® 2003. Enabling technologies, such as Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Windows Server 2003, enhance the features and functionality of products in the Microsoft Office System.
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, Windows, SharePoint, Windows Server, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote and Visio are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
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