http://bit.ly/BusinessProductivity When WinWire Technologies started out in 2007, it wanted to keep operating costs low, so it went with the leading Internet-based messaging service available at the time: Google Gmail. Over time, employees in the company’s California headquarters and India development centers added a mix of Microsoft and open source communications programs, which complicated communications and created difficulties for the IT staff. In 2010, WinWire replaced all these programs with Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, part of Microsoft Online Services. WinWire gained richer communications functionality, enhanced productivity, reduced IT management work, and added the ability to easily scale messaging to accommodate business growth. Furthermore, with Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, WinWire has developed its own line of services that represents new revenue opportunities.

1. Microsoft Online Services
Customer Solution Case Study
IT Services Firm Switches from Google Apps
to Microsoft to Improve Collaboration
Overview “Having a common, powerful collaboration platform for
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Professional services—IT our distributed workforce is critical to our business.
services
Microsoft has enabled a common collaboration suite
Customer Profile and made it extremely cost-competitive.”
WinWire Technologies is a Microsoft
Ashu Goel, Chief Executive Officer, WinWire Technologies
Gold Certified Managed Partner with
expertise in collaboration and analytics.
WinWire is headquartered in Santa Clara,
California, with two offices in India and
When WinWire Technologies started out in 2007, it wanted to
150 employees. keep operating costs low, so it went with the leading Internet-
Business Situation
based messaging service available at the time: Google Gmail.
WinWire struggled to manage a diverse Over time, employees in the company’s California headquarters
global communications infrastructure
that included Google Gmail, Windows
and India development centers added a mix of Microsoft and
Live Messenger, Skype, and Microsoft open source communications programs, which complicated
Office SharePoint Server 2007. Employee
productivity also suffered.
communications and created difficulties for the IT staff. In 2010,
WinWire replaced all these programs with Microsoft Business
Solution
WinWire switched to Microsoft Business
Productivity Online Standard Suite, part of Microsoft Online
Productivity Online Standard Suite to Services. WinWire gained richer communications functionality,
provide email, collaboration, web
conferencing, instant messaging, and
enhanced productivity, reduced IT management work, and
presence from a single trusted vendor. added the ability to easily scale messaging to accommodate
Benefits
business growth. Furthermore, with Business Productivity Online
 Cost-effective productivity Standard Suite, WinWire has developed its own line of services
 Simplified IT management
 New revenue opportunities
that represents new revenue opportunities.

2. “We wanted to find a Situation When WinWire consultants went to
WinWire Technologies, launched in 2007, is customer sites, it was so much work for
way to accommodate a Microsoft Gold Certified Managed Partner them to navigate customer network
with expertise in Collaboration and protocols to access their email that they
our growth without Analytics. It uses Microsoft technologies usually waited to check email in the
constantly increasing our like Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, evening. Scheduling meetings between
Microsoft business intelligence software, employees in the U.S. and India took
on-premises and the Microsoft .NET Framework to several email exchanges, and there was
deliver solutions to its clients across the frequent confusion in figuring out time-
collaboration United States in many vertical industries. zone differences. There was no way to look
environment and email WinWire is headquartered in Santa Clara, at shared calendars from Office Outlook;
California; has development centers in there was difficulty accessing email from
storage resources.” Hyderabad and Bengaluru (Bangalore), mobile phones; and there were formatting
India; and currently has approximately 150 problems when moving documents
Vineet Arora, Chief Technology Officer,
WinWire Technologies employees. between Microsoft Office applications and
Office SharePoint Server to Gmail.
As a startup company, WinWire wanted to
avoid the time and expense of setting up The small IT staff spent an inordinate
an in-house infrastructure for basic services, amount of time keeping the myriad of
so it decided to use the Google Gmail applications running. Provisioning users
service to quickly outfit global employees took a long time, which was a problem with
with email. Employees also used the the company growing so rapidly.
Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 messaging
and collaboration client on their desktops, As a consulting company, WinWire
since the Microsoft Office system was generates a tremendous number of
integral to their daily work. documents—proof-of-concepts, schedules,
planning documents, quotes—all of which
However, Gmail and Office Outlook never began to increase the demands on its on-
worked well together, especially when premises Office SharePoint Server
sending messages outside the company. hardware. “We wanted to find a way to
Meanwhile, WinWire was growing quickly, accommodate our growth without
doubling in size each year. The small IT constantly increasing our on-premises
staff could not stay on top of all the collaboration environment and email
communications and collaboration storage resources,” says Vineet Arora, Chief
technologies that employees began Technology Officer of WinWire. “We
bringing into the company. wanted our IT staff developing revenue-
generating customer solutions, not
“We had established Microsoft Office worrying about internal applications.”
SharePoint Server 2007 as our official
collaboration program and created some Solution
customer-facing applications on top of it, In spring 2009, WinWire was overjoyed to
but our internal communications tools were learn of the Microsoft Business Productivity
all over the map,” says Ashu Goel, Chief Online Standard Suite, a Microsoft Online
Executive Officer for WinWire Technologies. Services offering that includes Microsoft
“It really impaired communications Exchange Online email services, Microsoft
internally and with customers.” SharePoint Online collaboration services,
Microsoft Office Live Meeting for web

3. “We didn’t feel that conferencing, and Microsoft Office Goel says. “Instead of sending 10 emails to
Communications Online for presence and nail down everyone’s availability, or getting
[Google] was geared to instant messaging. WinWire was able to on a conference call just to settle on a
license the suite for a per-user monthly meeting time, it now takes two minutes to
growing businesses or subscription. set up a meeting. Office Outlook
enterprises. We wanted automatically calculates the time-zone
More Features, Enterprise-Level Support differences.”
to expand, improve, and WinWire immediately jumped on the new
offering and created a small pilot program Employees also enjoy sharing a corporate
customize our online to evaluate it. “In addition to resolving our address book and enhanced mobile phone
services and didn’t feel own communications challenges, our support with Exchange Online. Email
customers were facing many of the same attachments come through with formatting
that Google would be issues,” Goel says. “We were eager to make intact, and WinWire consultants can easily
the switch to Microsoft Online Services to check email from customer sites—or from
the right fit for us.” show our customers the way.” anywhere they can get on the Internet.
Raj Badarinath, Vice President of
Marketing, WinWire Technologies As WinWire delved into Microsoft Online Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for
Services, it began to see what it considered Exchange, included with Exchange Online,
significant advantages over Google: a gives WinWire enhanced email protection
single sign on across all applications and with multiple filters and virus-scanning
collaboration sites, smooth integration with engines that help defend against spam,
Microsoft Office applications and Office viruses, and phishing scams.
SharePoint Server sites, and easy calendar
sharing, among others. Collaboration Services
For now, WinWire is maintaining its on-
WinWire also felt that Microsoft was better premises Office SharePoint Server
able than Google to support business environment, because it houses several
customers. “We felt that Google was customer-facing applications such as
geared to consumers and small businesses WinPMP, a project management
that had minimal support requirements,” application that WinWire sells to customers.
says Raj Badarinath, Vice President of Eventually, it will move those applications
Marketing for WinWire. “We didn’t feel that to SharePoint Online for easier access and
it was geared to growing businesses or lower costs.
enterprises. We wanted to expand,
improve, and customize our online services The real power of SharePoint Online is
and didn’t feel that Google would be the enabling different departments to more
right fit for us.” WinWire migrated all 150 easily create SharePoint sites without the IT
employees to Microsoft Online Services in staff’s participation or worrying about
one weekend. server capacity planning, maintenance, and
licensing considerations. “It really
Shared Calendars, Easy Email Access empowers departments such as human
By using Microsoft Exchange Online, resources, marketing, and development to
WinWire employees in California and India create collaboration sites on an as-needed
can see one another’s calendars and basis,” Goel says.
quickly schedule meetings. “With our
globally dispersed offices, we rely heavily By using Office Communications Online,
on the integrated calendar functionality,” WinWire has gained a single instant

4. “We’ve experienced 100 messaging service that is behind the collaboration needs, WinWire has been
corporate firewall and, therefore, more able to give employees a richer set of
percent growth year secure. The IT organization has more services, enhance productivity, and reduce
control over issuing employee credentials IT work. It has also been able to open up
after year, and that will and archiving message threads. Also, Office new revenue opportunities with cloud-
continue. Having the Communications Online gives WinWire based services.
presence capabilities across its most-used
ability to scale our applications. For example, if an employee is Cost-Effective Productivity Software
on a SharePoint Online site reviewing a The richer functionality provided by
communications and document and sees that the document Microsoft Online Services helps
collaboration services author is currently online, he or she can international teams be more productive
initiate a quick chat and ask a question and effective. “Having a common, powerful
and add users without without the extra steps of sending an email collaboration platform for our distributed
message or scheduling a meeting. workforce is critical to our business,” Goel
increasing infrastructure says. “Microsoft has enabled a common
and IT staff is a big deal.” With Microsoft Online Services, all collaboration suite and made it extremely
employees have access to Office Live cost-competitive. A company of our size
Sanjeev Banerjee, Vice President of Meeting, which provides PC-based web would not have been able to take
Global Delivery, WinWire Technologies conferencing and is another useful advantage of these services using an on-
communications enhancer among premises model, because we could not
international teams and the corporate have afforded the infrastructure. But with
office. Microsoft Online Services, we get all the
same benefits at a very reasonable price.”
New Cloud-Based Applications
Just as exciting as having far superior Simplified IT Management
internal communications and collaboration Once it migrates its on-premises
services is the ability to build applications applications and SharePoint sites to
on top of Microsoft Online Services, so that SharePoint Online, the WinWire IT staff will
WinWire can better serve and support its no longer have to worry about keeping
customers and grow as a business. WinWire servers running, updating servers, or
is gradually rearchitecting its existing upgrading software. Also, the IT staff no
Microsoft-based on-premises solutions, longer spends half their day working with
such as WinPMP, to run as cloud services. consultants at customer sites trying to get
“By offering these applications from the their email to work. “With Exchange Online,
cloud, we can help our customers deploy if you can browse the Internet, you can get
them much faster,” says Raj Badarinath, your email,” Goel says. “We have more
Vice President of Marketing for WinWire. hours each day to focus on customer
“They will be able to deploy extranets, sales activities and applications.”
portals, online service request management
systems, and other solutions without big There’s no need for the IT staff to scramble
on-premises infrastructure investments.” to keep up with rapid growth, either.
WinWire calls its new line of cloud-based Microsoft Online Services scales easily and
packaged applications ZureApps™. provides management with predictable
per-user costs. “We’ve experienced 100
Benefits percent growth year after year, and that will
By standardizing on Microsoft Online continue,” says Sanjeev Banerjee, Vice
Services for all its communications and President of Global Delivery for WinWire

5. For More Information Technologies. “Having the ability to scale Microsoft Online Services
For more information about Microsoft our communications and collaboration Microsoft Online Services are business-class
products and services, call the Microsoft services and add users without increasing communication and collaboration solutions
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- infrastructure and IT staff is a big deal.” delivered as a subscription service and
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft hosted by Microsoft. With these offerings,
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- New Revenue Opportunities customers can cost-effectively access the
2495. Customers in the United States and Finally, WinWire is excited about the new most up-to-date technologies and
Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing revenue opportunities that cloud-based immediately benefit from streamlined
can reach Microsoft text telephone computing opens up. “Cloud computing is communications, simplified management,
(TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. the next big shift in IT, and we want to be and business-class reliability and security
Outside the 50 United States and part of it,” Goel says. “We could not help features. For IT staffers, Microsoft Online
Canada, please contact your local customers make the move to the cloud Services are backed by strong service level
Microsoft subsidiary. To access without taking the jump ourselves, nor agreements and help reduce the burden of
information using the World Wide Web, could we have launched our own cloud- performing routine IT management, freeing
go to: based offerings as quickly. Our successful up time to focus on core business
www.microsoft.com migration to Microsoft Online Services not initiatives.
only provides an increased level of
For more information about WinWire confidence for customers who are For more information, visit:
Technologies products and services, call considering a move to the cloud, but it www.microsoft.com/online
(888) 849-7339 or visit the website at: inspires them to proceed. Plus, it is a huge
www.winwire.com competitive advantage for us.” WinWire
anticipates that by 2011, 10 percent of its
new revenues should come from its line of
ZureApps and Microsoft Online Services.
Software and Services − Microsoft Office Communications
 Microsoft Online Services Online
− Microsoft Business Productivity − Microsoft Office Live Meeting
Online Standard Suite − Microsoft SharePoint Online
− Microsoft Exchange Online
− Microsoft Forefront Online Protection  Solutions
for Exchange − Software-plus-services
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2010