REDMOND, Wash. — June 20, 2012 — The Danish Red Cross announced it will adopt Microsoft Office 365 to improve its communications needs and to reduce costs without compromising on capabilities. To help 250 employees connect more efficiently — and to help both prepare for disaster and provide disaster relief to those in need even faster — the nonprofit set a strategic mandate to strengthen its communications and service impact, starting with the Office 365 deployment.

The Danish Red Cross decided to trial Office 365, a set of collaboration tools that provides “anywhere access” to email, contacts and documents at a fraction of the cost typically associated with physical infrastructure.

“For us, response time is everything. If we can’t communicate, we can’t respond,” said Claus Olsen, chief information officer, Danish Red Cross. “With Office 365, we can share and act on information in just seconds — at half the cost of our previous solution.”

As part of the world’s largest humanitarian organization, the Danish Red Cross offers relief and support to those in need, especially in times of crisis. Because response time is critical in preparing for and responding to a disaster, fast and reliable communication is the lifeblood of the agency.

“We help build or rebuild communications infrastructure in places hit by hurricanes, floods or earthquakes,” Olsen said. “Time is critical in that effort, and so is coordinating across borders. We need to be sure we are using the best possible ways to communicate with each other in order to help those who need it most.”

For messaging and collaboration support, the Danish Red Cross previously used on-premises email servers. Although this technology provided a reliable way to exchange information, it was costly to manage and maintain. The organization also wanted to find ways to reduce travel expenses related to staff meetings, such as employing reliable videoconferencing that would enable colleagues to easily share documents or other information in near real time.

With a set of easy-to-use, cloud-based management tools, Office 365 makes it simple to transition to the cloud and stay connected to colleagues regardless of location. Plus, a fixed monthly per-user cost provides predictability — a great relief for a nonprofit organization that must routinely tackle the unexpected yet still provide real impact to those in need.

“With Office 365, our employees and volunteers can still get the critical information they need but at a cost significantly lower than we paid for our previous solution,” Olsen said. “And what we don’t spend on technology, we can allocate to aid.”

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available in the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

More information on Microsoft Office 365 is available in the Microsoft Office newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 19, 2012 — Global automaker Aston Martin has a reputation built on its precise design and production of hand-built, high-performance sports cars. With that diligence in mind, the company implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX with the assistance of Microsoft partner eBECS to address its pressing need to source a new accounting system.

Microsoft Dynamics AX was widely accepted due to its flexibility across all ledgers, including general, purchase, fixed assets and sales. The single integrated system made Aston Martin’s operations and information flow more easily and efficiently than before.

“It is no accident that we have chosen Microsoft Dynamics AX to sit at the very center of our business — it works well with all our systems, providing us with an accounting platform that allows us to manage all the business challenges and opportunities,” said Bradley Yorke-Biggs, strategy and IT director, Aston Martin. “We have been able to get financial data generated quickly, our cash-flow management processes and aged debtors reports are rapidly processed, and it gives us much greater efficiency in reporting.”

Aston Martin also recognized the essential need to understand the profile of its customers and clearly distinguish them from people making more generalized inquiries. The company has since decided to extend its use of the financials module and incorporate Microsoft Dynamics AX to replace a series of spreadsheets and unconnected databases, resulting in a comprehensive and fully integrated database of contacts that can be segmented into categories of interest and ownership to ensure that the nature of the relationship can be tailored precisely to the customer.

Aston Martin is currently looking at options for moving some of its systems to the cloud and is evaluating Microsoft Office 365 and the process of undertaking a more complete implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX in 2013.

“With the full implementation of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, we will have a far more accurate and resilient product structure and engineering change management environment,” said Yorke-Biggs. “Currently this is a manual process, but this solution will bring with it an electronic change management capability, which is a big leap for us. It will improve the integrity of the system we use and affect changes to manufacturing faster but still respect our unique engineering and manufacturing concept.”

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available in the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 19, 2012 — The Ogden Police Department increased its officer safety and effectiveness by choosing Fusion Core Solution, an easy-to-use Web portal designed to help law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies improve information sharing and management. The solution combines the capabilities of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Ersi)’s ArcGIS to help deliver the right information to the right place at the right time — and at the right price.

“Our challenge was to incorporate myriad existing resources that were not being used to their full potential into a solution that provided the officers and investigators with actionable information at minimal cost,” said Mike Ashment, chief of police, Ogden Police Department. “We already had ArcGIS and SharePoint but were unaware of the capability that existed.”

The Ogden Police Department serves a population of 82,000 over an area of 28 square miles, making it a much smaller agency than its big-city counterparts. Even so, Ogden wanted to mimic the high-tech command centers often found in larger cities that enable officers to better focus their resources. In addition to staying within its existing budget, Ogden needed to find a solution that integrated many disparate systems and exposed information through a user-friendly interface, making it easy for officers to access, analyze and apply the data.

Fusion Core Solution helps Ogden monitor priority calls, increase situational awareness, handle more calls, and improve planning and incident command. The solution also includes a geospatial mapping component that has helped officers examine trends and develop proactive policing strategies, giving them greater insight on how to best deploy departmental resources. Information is visualized on a map that includes data about crime and locations of police and fire stations, city cameras, schools, hospitals, and traffic lights. Ogden can more efficiently protect and serve its city by using real-time information about registered sex offenders, probationers and parolees within a given radius.

“Municipal governments across the entire nation are demanding their agencies find a way to do more with less,” Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell said. “This relationship is a great success story of Ogden finding a way to do just that. This type of proactive policing and the ability to identify problems and potential threats allow us to create a much safer community and to provide added safety for our brave men and women without adding huge burdens to already-breaking budgets.”

“After all is said and done, our job is to make Ogden a safer community. This technology is helping us make better use of our limited resources by focusing our efforts where they are most beneficial,” Ashment said. “Random patrol and luck simply doesn’t accomplish our goal of measured crime reduction and crime prevention. Our success is attributed to accurate and timely information that focuses our attention on the right people and the right places at the right times.”

More information about Ogden’s choice is available in the Microsoft case study, Esri ArcGIS video case study and blog post. More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.