Scale up, scale out: New Office 365 customers grow with help from the cloud

 

This week, we welcome Cervus Equipment Corporation and M.J. Maillis Group to the Office 365 family. These new customers chose Office 365 because the cloud will help them keep up with a growing business, both in terms of employees and geography. Let’s take a closer look:

Office 365 Customer Stories Cervus

With 1,100 employees across 35 locations in Canada, Cervus acquires and operates authorized agricultural, industrial, and construction equipment dealerships. The company was using on premise e-mail that couldn’t keep up with Cervus’ rapid growth, which became apparent when the company faced the task of adding 200 employees to its infrastructure due to an acquisition. After evaluating the competition, it chose Office 365 for company-wide email and collaboration in the cloud. The result? Bigger mailboxes, less spam, improved collaboration, a 50% time savings on support and more productive employees. According to Cervus’ IT Coordinator, James Paisley, “We can’t have things go down – we have to make sure our infrastructure is intact for everyday happenstance. With Office 365, we let Microsoft run our email so we can focus on other areas.”

Office 365 Customer Stories M.J. Maillis Group

 

 

Based in Athena, Greece, M.J. Maillis Group manufactures and distributes of end-of-line industrial solutions like strapping, wrapping, packaging material and carton-sealing machines. Its 1,450 employees serve customers in more than 52 countries through a network of 27 owned affiliate companies and more than 350 independent distributors. Instead of dealing with a patchwork of productivity software, M.J. Maillis Group chose Office 365 as its single IT solution for email and collaboration worldwide. The company’s global workforce appreciates the familiarity of Microsoft products and its IT department praised their transition to the cloud, calling it “smooth, fast and well-documented.” Now, with the power of Office 365, M.J. Maillis group is better prepared to grow and thrive. 

We’re honored to help businesses like these reach new scale and success. Learn more about Office 365 here.

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See how customers are using Office 365 here.

Interested in trying or buying? Research plans or start a free trial now.

Just want to know more? Visit Office365.com.

New customers add more than 350,000 people to the cloud as Office 365 turns one

Now available in 88 markets and 32 languages, Office 365 is being adopted by global brands across industries to improve communication,  boost collaboration and save money. On the heels of yesterday’s anniversary news, here’s  a bit more about the latest brands choosing Office 365 to transform the way they do business. These new customers encompass over 350,000 seats of Office 365.

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Always connected, always ready: Welcome to the cloud, Danish Red Cross! (Video)

Office 365 Customer Danish Red Cross

When it comes to disaster response, concepts like “collaboration” and “efficiency” are more than corporate buzzwords-they can be matters of life and death.  Fast and reliable communications mean more help for those who need it most in the wake of hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fire or other calamities.  That’s why we’re thrilled the Danish Red Cross has deployed Office 365 as centerpiece of its initiative to prepare for and respond to disasters even faster.

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From professional services to aviation to healthcare: The Office 365 family is growing again.

Today, we’re happy to welcome a mix of companies of all shapes and sizes to the Office 365 family: ALECITA, Eurowings, Multidata-Bluegarden Sygnity and WellPoint. While these new customers are diverse in many ways, their choice of Office 365 reveals a common commitment to saving time, money and brain power thanks to the cloud.  Read on for bit more about each of these trailblazers:

ALECTIA, a Danish consultancy firm, chose Office 365 to more quickly connect its people, saving both time and money. Peter Busck-Nielson, IT manager for the firm says: “We found the whole solution in Office 365…We can collaborate together, share files and hold online meetings without the need for extra travel.” ALECTIA will save 6 million Danish kroner in train and plane travel over three years, and reclaim 10,000 hours in productivity.

Eurowings, one of Germany’s largest regional airlines, chose Office 365 for secure and reliable communication as it flies 9,000 passengers a day safely to their destinations. “Office 365 connects with our regular Microsoft applications, like email and calendars,” says Thomas Muth, the company’s vice president of IT, “and we trust Microsoft to carefully handle our data.” 

With Office 365, Scandinavian payroll-solution provider Multidata-Bluegarden will save 60 percent compared to the cost of a server-based solution over the next three years.

“One of the most valuable parts of Office 365 for us has been SharePoint Online, because people can share documents and know they are looking at the most up-to-date version,” says Torben Kofoed-Hansen, enterprise architect for Multidata-Bluegarden. “No other service has the same version-control and security features, and our team sites help us work on project documents more efficiently than ever before.”

Sygnity, a Poland-based IT consulting firm, has up to a third of its employees travelling at any time across 16 European locations. Wojciech Zakorski, CIO for Sygnity, found Office 365 could save the company 60 percent in server and maintenance costs. Instant messaging and voice and video calls in Office 365 have also drastically cut employees travel expenses, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. “Office 365 also meets strict European Union data-privacy laws, which is an essential for us,” says Zakorski.

WellPoint, one of the world’s largest health benefit companies, just migrated 65,000 email boxes to Office 365.  Now, its 37,000 associates can spend their time replying to emails rather than cleaning out their mailboxes for more file space.  According to Senior Vice President and CIO Andrew J. Lang, “Anytime we can improve our internal communications processes, our customers’ experience will be enhanced…When our associates can communicate in a collaborative, efficient manner, our customers receive prompt, efficient service.”

We look forward to watching how these businesses use Office 365 and thrive in the cloud.  Want to find out how you can follow in their footsteps?  Visit the Office 365 trial page. 

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–Stephen Bury

See how customers are using Office 365 here.

Interested in trying or buying? Review plans or start a free trial now.

Just want to know more? Visit Office365.com.

What does Office 365 mean to you? (Video)

Flexible subscription model. Anywhere access. Up-to-date shared calendars. Secure document storage and sharing. Worry-free IT. Less travel. Increased productivity.

What do all of these statements have in common? They are how Office 365 customers describe what the service means to them and their business. From a branding and signage company in Australia to a 2014 U.S. Olympic hopeful, companies and people across industries and from all corners of the world are realizing the benefits of Office 365 and cloud-based productivity tools.  

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Add signatures and disclaimers to your email with Office 365

Powered by Exchange Online, Outlook Web App provides email and calendaring for Office 365 subscribers. Like Outlook 2010, Outlook Web App features a simple way to customize email messages with personal information, or meet regulatory compliance rules with legal disclaimers.

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The Office 365 family just got a little more fashionable. Welcome to the cloud, Otto Japan!

We’re happy to welcome Otto Japan, a top fashion retailer, to the Office 365 family.  After deciding their existing Lotus Notes email system wasn’t cutting it, they evaluated both Office 365 and Google Apps.  In the end, Otto Japan chose Office 365.  Their move to the cloud will help them decrease IT cost, improve customer service and be better prepared for the unexpected.  In the words of Nobuhiko Kita from Otto Japan’s information systems department: “Speed and ease of use were essential.  Second, we decided cloud software would be an effective measure in our business continuity plan.”

A local partner, Kyoritsu Computer & Communication Co. Ltd, helped Otto Japan quickly migrate to Office 365 and they’re already seeing a 30% decrease in IT administrative man hours as a result.  People at Otto Japan are enjoying larger email inboxes and expanded mobile device support no matter where their business takes them. 

Read the full press release here.

 

 

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–Stephen Bury

See how customers are using Office 365 here.

Interested in trying or buying? Review plans or start a free trial now.

Just want to know more? Visit Office365.com.

Announcing Office 365 for Government: A US Government Community Cloud

Today, I’m pleased to announce some great news for government customers in the United States.

First, we’re introducing Office 365 for Government.  Office 365 for Government is a new multi-tenant service that stores US government data in a segregated community cloud. Like other Office 365 offerings, it includes productivity and collaboration services including Exchange Online, Lync Online, SharePoint Online, and Office Professional Plus.  Customers can contact their Microsoft representative for details and to explore the service.

We also know that security and privacy play a big role in any decision to move to the cloud.  Today, Office 365 supports the most rigorous global and regional standards such as ISO 27001, SAS70 Type II, EU Safe Harbor, EU Model Clauses, the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and the US Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA).  To meet evolving needs, we also plan to support IPv6 in Office 365 for Government by September of this year, and we’re taking steps to soon support Criminal Justice Information Security (CJIS) policies. 

We look forward to working with our government customers on these initiatives in the coming months.

Kirk Koenigsbauer 

Corporate Vice President

Microsoft Office Division

Office 365

Customer Roundtable: Businesses around the world are reducing IT costs and saving money with Office 365 (Slideshow)

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity service for businesses of all sizes. It integrates cloud-based and on-premises workloads, and because it is an online service, Microsoft handles all backups, upgrades, moves, hardware installations and other routine maintenance. As a result, Office 365 customers worldwide are saving money with reduced IT costs.

View the slideshow to learn more about how Office 365 customers from around the world are saving money and enjoying the benefits of our cloud-based service.

How has your business saved money with Office 365? Share your story below.

Additional Resources:

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–Stephen Bury

See how customers are using Office 365 here.

Interested in trying or buying? Review plans or start a free trial now.

Just want to know more? Visit Office365.com.

 

What a week of Office 365 wins!

The Catholic International Education Office (OIEC) has entered into an education alliance with Microsoft, to provide Office 365 for its community of Catholic schools across the world. Office 365 will form the foundation of the OIEC’s new Social Network for Catholic Education, which will begin with the provision of software for 4.5 million students as part of a three-year alliance plan.

Office 365 is now also the cloud solution of choice for iLUKA, an events and hospitality firm based in the UK. The firm develops and delivers coordinated activities for its banking, oil, and pharmaceutical clients at global sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup.

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