How to Reduce IT Project Spends By Up To 50%

The attached slides show how an IT department can reduce the cost of an IT Project by up to 50% without impacting the overall quality of the project.

Reducing IT Project Spend by up to 50%

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If you would like to see how you can reduce the costs associated with your IT projects by up to 50%, then please feel free to contact Avanade in Calgary at 403-476-1473 or click here to send an email.

Top 6 Reasons to use Total Solution Financing From Microsoft to Pay for an AX Implementation

If you are looking at implementing the Microsoft AX software package, you should really look at utilizing Total Solution Financing from Microsoft Finance. Below is a list of 6 reasons why you would want to consider financing.


Top 5 reasons to finance your AX implementation:

1. You can finance the AX Software
2. Your company can finance the Service to implement the AX software
3. Also include financing the Hardware to implement AX
4. Finance any 3rd party software required to implement AX
5. You can also finance any Microsoft related software that will be used in the implementation
6. Finally - Terms from 24 months to 60 months

3 other reasons to finance your AX implementation:

Gain a competitive edge. Many companies are reconsidering their technology investments because of uncertainty in the business world. But now is precisely the time to be proactive and invest in your company's future—because stalling technology investments in the short term can cripple the long-term growth of your company.

Improve your cash flow. Total Solution Financing from Microsoft Financing transforms large "cash up-front" technology investments into affordable monthly payments. You get the benefits now but pay over three to five years. That means you can keep cash reserves and invest in other critical assets or preserve capital for emergencies.

Make things easier on yourself. Total Solution Financing from Microsoft Financing makes the process of financing your technology investment easy. For example, you'll talk financing with people who understand your business. Avanade understands the details of your implementation project and the concept of software and services as intangible assets.

If you are considering an AX implementation and would like to find out more on how to finance the implementation, please contact Avanade in Calgary at 403-476-1473 or email us.

Microsoft Online: How Hosted Exchange Reduces Costs by 30% and Greater

In case you have been under a rock for the last few months, you probably have heard that Microsoft has jumped into the cloud computing world through a service called Business Productivity Online Suite or BPOS.

According to Microsoft, BPOS is:

“a set of Microsoft hosted messaging and collaboration solutions including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Communications Online. These online services are designed to give your business streamlined communication with high availability, comprehensive security, and simplified IT management. When your company subscribes to one or more of the services, it connects to the rich interactivity of on-premises client and server applications with the flexibility and scalability of Web-based services. Because Microsoft hosts the services, it reduces your company’s need to maintain IT services on site. Many organizations today are moving to this "software-plus-services" model, because it decreases the need to manage hardware and software.”

Basically, it a hosted model, or “Software as a Service” (SaaS), of several Microsoft stacks that take the headache out of managing them internally at your organization.

Some Statistics on SaaS:

• By 2012, 20% of enterprise market e-mail seats will be delivered via SaaS and similar models versus 1% of enterprise seats in 2007 (Gartner)
• Solution providers say that software giant Microsoft—and not Google—will be their biggest competitor for managed and hosted software and services over the next 24 months (Gartner)
• The worldwide enterprise e-mail and calendaring market is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.6% from 2007 through 2012, with regional differences being evident (Gartner)

• Hosted business e-mail market segment will grow at an average annual growth rate of 26% between 2007 and 2011 (Radicati)

Cost Estimator on Seat Basis:

Microsoft has a great tool for helping people discover the costs associated with their BPOS offering. The links are:

Canadian Costs: http://www.microsoft.com/online/estimator/default.aspx?lang=en-ca
US Costs: http://www.microsoft.com/online/estimator/default.aspx?lang=en-us

Cost Analysis for 500 Seats of Email only:

Over a 6 year period, a company may see a $580,000 reduction in costs.

In this scenario, specific to hosted email or hosted exchange, the total cost of ownership for a 6 year on-premise solution is $1.2M or an average of $200K/year. With Microsoft's hosted email solution, the cost is $620K over 6 years, which is $103K/year or a savings of just under $97K per year. This is a 49% cost savings.

BPOS/Microsoft Online Benefits:
There are numerous benefits to going with a hosted model as opposed to on premise. Some benefits include:

1. Total cost of ownership reduction – often 30% and greater
2. Elimination of future implementation costs
3. Reduced capital costs
4. Reduced patching, security and upgrade costs
5. Reduced software license costs
6. Decreased upfront investment
7. Improved security and data privacy
8. Improved compliance

The bottom line is, BPOS or Microsoft online can had a significant impact on helping reduce costs on a service that is non-core to most companies. It is an option that really should be explored.

If you would like to have a free Cost Analysis for your organization, please contact Avanade at 403-476-1473 in Calgary or email us here .

Creating a Definitive Software Library and Saving $330+/desktop

Does your company have a definitive software library? Do you know how much you are spending on software? Do you know how much you are potentially overspending on software?

Avanade Inc. has created IP or Avanade Connected Architecture (ACA) to assist companies with creating definitive software library called ACA Accelerate.

ACA Accelerate helps Avanade rapidly discover and rationalize an end-user computing landscape.

- ACA Accelerate can reduce per-seat TCO by up to 33%.
- ACA Accelerate is fast and is a prescriptive approach. Value is seen in a matter of days.
- ACA Accelerate gives you a consistent approach to collecting hardware and software inventory.
- After collection they can manually analyze the data in spreadsheets to compare Current State with Future State and drive cost savings.

Based on market information, the typical desktop costs an organization $5000/year to maintain. On average, 20% of that cost is software. By running ACA Accelerate, a company can potentially reduce their software costs by up to 33% or by $330.

On a firm that has 1000 desktops, this is a savings of $330,000 per year for redundant, unused and multiple software version of the same software. Running ACA Accelerate has a ROI that allows for a payback with in days or weeks.

WHen this service is utilized with a desktop transformation process, for example moving from Windows XP to Vista, an organization can typically cover a portion or potentially all of the costs of the migration. In addition, if a compnay were to look at Application Virtualization and Desktop Virtualization, these savings could be further enhanced.

ACA Accelerate can be demonstrated to your company.

For information on ACA Accelerate or other services that Avanade Inc. can provide your organization in Western Canada, please contact Chris Hamilton at 403-476-1473 or via email at chris.hamilton@avanade.com.

Avanade Inc.’s Calgary website can be viewed at www.avanadecalgary.com.