For Michael Jones, Project Manager with ESTA, making sure services are constantly improved without interruption is more than just mission critical. His team plays a vital role
in making sure Victorians receive the very best help in sometimes life-and-death situations. From the telephone operators on the front line to the support staff behind the scenes, everyone at ESTA is ultimately focused on the ESTA mission: “Delivering an integrated emergency and public safety communications solution with accuracy, speed and empathy, in partnership with our stakeholders.”

To ensure the best service to staff and public, ESTA had a number of pressing technology considerations, including upgrading to supportable office tools. In October 2010, a business case was made to upgrade from Microsoft Windows XP and Office 2003 to Windows 7 and Office 2010, standardising on a single environment. This meant a project involving more than 300 users, with a variety of skill levels, spread across five locations in Melbourne and Ballarat. While this software is not used in the 000 call process itself, it was essential to avoid unnecessary disruption to the people supporting that service delivery. For this reason, purchasing and installing the software was only a part of the story.

“The user experience and training was a critical part of the business case for the licencing upgrade. I have seen attempts to undertake projects without fully addressing the user impact and in the end you can’t avoid it. It is an essential part of the job and if you ignore that you end up paying more, not just in financial terms but in user productivity,” says Jones.

“Going from Office 03 to Office 2010 is a fairly big jump in terms of the tools. We needed to plug the gaps between the two technologies.” It would, says Jones, be wrong to assume that the more advanced users will find the transition easier.” The higher level users are more demanding in many cases as they use a lot more of the advanced Office functions, so they certainly need support and cannot be overlooked.”

Michael Jones looked at a number of proposals to provide user training for the migration. “The Data^#3 proposition was well thought-out. The main difference was that it was tailored to suit the culture of our organisation and what we are trying to achieve, rather than trying to make us fit to a pre-defined solution.” Solid practical experience of similar projects was another factor that was highly regarded by Jones.

Paul Woods, Data^#3’s Business Productivity Services lead said “The reason Data^#3 invested in the Business Productivity Team was to ensure our customers got as much value as possible from the technology they purchase. Working closely with ESTA we were able to remove the risk of failure through lack of user adoption from the project, allowing the team to focus on a sound technical solution without the pressure of a frustrated and undertrained user base.”

“One objective of the training project was a positive end-user experience. It doesn’t break the bank to do that and there are considerable business benefits as a result,” commented Michael Jones. Data^#3 conducted an extensive training needs analysis and aligned activity to ESTA’s software deployment. The help desk workers were closely involved, helping them to prepare to support users facing a change to the desktop environment. Users attended an intensive hands- on training lab session in the afternoon before the software was deployed overnight. This session concentrated on what the users needed to know to be productive on day one, with ongoing training to build on those initial skills. “If we don’t ensure smooth user transition from one platform to the next, we would certainly see a productivity decrease,” said Jones.

In the ESTA environment, disruption is not an option.  Data^#3 had a ‘floor-walker’ on site to visit every single user on the first morning to ensure there were no roadblocks impacting productivity. A resource was on-site for some five weeks, becoming the face of the project and ensuring users always had immediate help available should they need it. Once this first hurdle was overcome, a more advanced training was provided for users, bringing about additional efficiencies. From the front line managers in Ballarat that can now schedule their rosters better in Excel, to the Technical Writer who now has a better grasp of Word, to the CFO and Financial Accountant who can now prepare their reports faster, people are equipped to extract maximum advantage from the new software.

“We received consistently good feedback from the users about the training. The quality of the people was outstanding, they got on and did the job and they were very professional. Data^#3 even provided collateral that was put on our intranet for users as an extra tool. Data^#3 has been very easy to work with, nothing has been too much trouble,” said Jones.

Aside from the normal measures, such as concluding on time and within budget, Michael Jones had another method of gauging the success of the implementation. Just as for his colleagues handling the 000 calls, a low call volume can only be a good thing. “One of our measures is calls to our help desk and there weren’t a lot of them, the day passed relatively quietly, meaning none of our users were in crisis.”

The case study can be downloaded as a PDF document here.

The Microsoft® Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) lets you connect your staff to world-class business software for a simple monthly fee – whether they log on in the office, off site or at home. BPOS  means that your staff will always have easy access to up-to-date applications and business critical information.

EMPOWER PEOPLE. ENABLE IDEAS AND EFFICIENCIES

BPOS is a fully hosted enterprise communications and collaboration solution that gives your business access to corporate-style networked communication. It includes integrated messaging and time management, as well as valuable collaboration tools and web conferencing facilities.

Microsoft Online Services delivers:

Streamlined communications
Team members can work with the same rich applications they already use, for one integrated experience from virtually any device, in almost any location with internet access.

Simplified management
Provide the tools your organisation needs without having to manage ongoing upgrades or installations. With BPOS from Data#3, our IT experts work to do this for you.

World-class security and reliability
Enjoy the confidence of knowing that your Online Services from Microsoft are run from a network of world-class data centres, with multi-layered security and operational best practices, to ensure maximum uptime.

Plus, you can bring people together as you need to, without the typical costs for software, infrastructure and IT that normally come with such powerful business abilities.

FEATURES AT A GLANCE

Exchange Online
	Employee access to email, shared calendar, shared tasks and contacts from virtually anywhere they have internet access, on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices with internet access. Lower cost ‘deskless worker’ licences available for workers who use email on a limited basis Ability to be rapidly deployed, flexibly expanded and securely administered.
Sharepoint Online
	Provides a central online location to share documents, locate resources, manage workflows and maintain project oversight which can be accessed via almost any compatible broadband enabled device. In-built collaboration capabilities to enable teams to flexibly and efficiently collaborate – microsites, portals, team workspaces, emails, presence awareness and web-based conferencing. Lower cost ‘deskless worker’ licences available for workers who need to access company information but who don’t need to create or edit information.
Office Live Meeting
	Employees can connect and engage with individuals for online meetings or large groups of up to 250 users for large scale events with just a PC and an internet connection. Easy integration with Microsoft Office, including internet access, to enable remote meetings. Interactive application/desktop sharing and whiteboard tools add dimension to online meetings.
Office Communications Online
	Instant messaging with text based chat. Presence awareness , enabling users to check another user’s availability on the network.

Microsoft® Office Live Meeting:
REACH FURTHER, ENGAGE BETTER, ACHIEVE MORE

Microsoft® Office Live Meeting is a hosted web conferencing solution.

It gives you the power to bring groups of people from all over the world together online – simply, successfully and inexpensively. It gives your organisation the power to better connect and engage with employees, suppliers and customers via online meetings, training sessions, seminars and events for two people or as many as 250.

Being able to communicate effectively, interact immediately and share a wide range of integrated audio, video and integrated media, means attendees can build stronger relationships without incurring travel costs. All activities can be performed from any computer using any broadband connection.

THE POWER TO HOLD ONLINE MEETINGS, TRAINING AND EVENTS

Talking together is just the beginning. From small team meetings to large events, Live Meeting helps optimise the value of every gathering.
Improve attendance by using calendar invitations, automatic confirmation emails and reminder emails when arranging meetings.

Facilitate interaction with interactive whiteboard and annotation tools for adding content, recording key points and managing action tasks. Virtual Breakout Rooms allow separate group or one-on-one discussions. Attendees can roam between rooms and hosts can make announcements to specific rooms or the entire conference.

Engage the audience by integrating movie clips, flash animations and audio files into your meetings. Presenters can easily upload and distribute their media clips. Measure communication effectiveness before, during or after meetings by incorporating surveys and questionnaires.

SAVE TIME AND TRAVEL COSTS

By conducting online meetings, training and events, Live Meeting offers an impressive return on investment compared to business travel on any scale.

With attendees participating from their PCs you can deliver presentations, kick off projects, brainstorm ideas, edit files, collaborate on whiteboards and negotiate deals without the cost or hassles of travel.

Microsoft® Office SharePoint Online
VIRTUAL SPACES FOR REAL TEAMWORK

COMMUNICATE, COLLABORATE AND SHARE

Microsoft® SharePoint Online is a hosted communication and collaboration solution that delivers more efficient workflows and a real business edge. Your staff will gain a central online location that they can access via almost any compatible broadband enabled device, and which they can use to share files, store resources, manage workflows and maintain project oversight.

Productivity, consistency, agility, decision making and time to market can all be enhanced, because you can instantly bring together people, documents and information from different offices, cities and even countries.

UNITE YOUR STAKEHOLDERS ONLINE

SharePoint Online enables  staff to:

• Publish, update and maintain standardised document templates online so that the current version is always available and accessible
• Create worksites where stakeholders can collaborate in real-time
• Access documents and information from any computer using any broadband connection
• Provide a central resource for brochures, forms, reference materials, etc.
• Publish information quickly and easily, thanks to standard templates and management features for documents or online content
• Work through microsites, portals, team workspaces, emails, presence awareness and web-based conferencing, using in-built web tools

SHARE MORE FOR LESS WITH THE DESKLESS WORKER OPTION

Microsoft® SharePoint® Online Deskless Worker makes it easy to give more staff access to read-only documents and interactive forms for less. It’s an ideal way to provide access to your SharePoint resources for staff that won’t need to create, manage or load the content.

Can you think of a software deployment in your workplace that has been forced on you?

When you dig a little deeper under the surface, it is quite clear that the issue of user adoption has in the most part been ignored. Theoretically we can look at the Technology Acceptance Model and the Technology Adoption Lifecycle to guide your user adoption journey. However in reality it almost always boils down to just one thing – a training plan. Which is often developed as an afterthought to the project itself.

So I ask in the spirit of this article – “who else has been the victim of a training session associated with a software deployment?”

Based on the original straw poll earlier in this article, and what I assume will be your less than positive response to the question I just asked – I propose that training, or more importantly how we think about training today is just not enough. Not enough to create a positive, productivity improving experience for your end users.

Why is User Adoption important?

When you built your business case for deploying productivity tools like a new version of Windows or Office or SharePoint or Exchange, you would likely have had to illustrate the impact that the deployment would have on the organisation, and call out an expected return on investment. That ROI could be defined as dollars that the organisation will save over time from a reduction in operational support, hardware or licensing.

More than likely, your business case is built on harder to measure “productivity improvement” metrics which when you multiply the 4 minutes and 23 seconds you save every day by the cost of employment of your entire workforce, can look very appealing.

“We expect an ROI of 582%, and will reach a breakeven point in just 8.2 months”

No one would say no to that! Whilst there are a few flaws in that logic, there is one flaw that almost every organisation I have come across assumes. That you will have 100% user adoption of the tools. And more importantly, 100% usage of the features you have based your productivity improvement metrics on.

The reality of the situation in many instances is that 80 per cent of your workforce using the tool just like they did the last one – i.e. ZERO PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT, whilst the other 20% are using some, but not all of the functionality that is relevant to their role.

And when you take a look back at your business case 12, 24, or 36 months post deployment, most organisations will be lucky to break even, let alone reach the lofty goals of their deployment project.

Why is it not working?

There are many reasons why. Beyond specific project issues related to the organisation, ultimately it is because as technologists, we are focused on deploying the technology in the most efficient and effective way. We leave training to the Human Resources team who don’t necessarily have the domain knowledge to bridge the gap between the technology and the people who use it. And we leave communication to a Project Manager who is concerned purely about passing through gates and driving the project to completion.

Let’s take a step back for a second. When is the project complete? Is the project complete once the technology is deployed, and the four hour information overload training session has been completed?

I would argue that it is not. Not until you have enabled your end users – the information workers on the ground – your executives, your sales, marketing and finance teams, your administrators, your engineers, your analysts or your customer service staff to get as much as they can out of the tools you have deployed.

A four hour training course alone does not, and will never achieve that.

What is the solution?

When it comes to increasing the adoption of the productivity tools your IT team delivers to its end users, you need to recognise that it is an ongoing process, not a single training session. And definitely not a case of “build it and they will come”.

Take for instance the “four hour training course” that I mentioned earlier. Imagine you are sitting in that session now.

The instructor has covered 30 different features of the product that is about to be deployed to your desktop. Five of them are relevant to you, but the context of how you would use them isn’t clear. And there are five different features relevant to the person sitting beside you.

The next day you try and recall what those five features are. You can remember three of them.

One week later you try to recall those features again. You can remember just two of them

One month later you try to recall those features yet again. You can vaguely remember one of them, but couldn’t remember how to use it. And you can’t find the course handbook to look it up either!

This experience has happened to me personally dozens of times – and I am sure you have experienced it as well.

It is that experience that has led us to build offerings at Data^#3 that will help our customers overcome their Microsoft productivity tool user adoption challenges.

Introducing Business Productivity Services

Our goal is to help you extract as much value as possible out of your investment in Microsoft productivity tools by enabling your people to do their job better, faster, and from anywhere.

Whether you have already deployed Windows and Office to your desktop, and are looking for incremental gains in productivity, or are preparing for the transition from Windows XP and Office 2003 to Windows 7 and Office 2010, Data^#3′s Business Productivity Services offerings could help you achieve your user adoption and productivity goals.

Learn More

Are you ready to learn more about how Data^#3′s Business Productivity Services could help you drive adoption during and after your Windows 7/Office 2010 deployment?

Enquire online

“Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 would reduce the need for staff to travel every week, without losing the benefits of face-to-face meetings.”
Dallas Stower, Chief Information Officer, QR Limited

Staff in the geographically dispersed coal division of QRNational needed to travel extensively to meet and make critical decisions. As part of the Microsoft Queensland Spotlight 2007 program, QRNational worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Data^#3 to create a prototype online collaboration portal based on Microsoft^® Office SharePoint^® Server 2007. This has the potential to increase productivity, streamline order management, improve timely decision making and enhance strategic planning.

Business Needs

QR Limited provides a range of commuter and freight rail services across Queensland, Australia. QRNational, a division of QR Limited, provides bulk and container freight services at more than 50 terminals across three states. It is the largest provider of rail transportation for the Australian coal mining industry, having delivered close to 157 million tonnes of coal in 2004–05.

In 2007, QRNational substantially restructured its business, which meant teams were spread across vast distances.

“The success of our business is founded on strong communication and collaboration,” explains Chris Fechner, Line of Business IT Advisor for QRNational. “Following the restructure, staff would need to travel constantly to attend weekly meetings with different business units.”

QRNational realised that a dramatic increase in travel for senior staff could decrease productivity and cause problems with communication and information sharing. This might affect timely decision making and diminish the organisation’s capacity for strategic planning.

QRNational was also looking to streamline the process customers used to book rail transport for coal. Orders were accepted by phone, facsimile and email. In addition, poor order tracking and management and the lack of a central repository for order histories occasionally caused asset utilisation conflicts.

“We wanted a technology solution that would solve the issues involved in getting management, sales and supply-chain staff working together,” says Fechner.

The Data^#3 Solution

In early 2007, QRNational’s technology solutions provider Data^#3 , a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, approached the organisation to participate in the Microsoft Queensland Spotlight 2007 program.

In this program, Microsoft partners undertake training in a specific Microsoft product and team up with an organisation that has a business problem to solve. The Partners compete to produce the most innovative, creative and customer-focused solution. The theme of the 2007 program was ‘Integrated Collaboration’ based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Data^#3 developed a prototype online collaboration portal for distributed staff using Office SharePoint Server 2007. The fully searchable portal brings together multiple document-based information sources and integrates with existing enterprise applications.

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 improves and streamlines communications. It draws on presence information to connect team members quickly and provides application sharing and multipoint video conferencing for more efficient and effective decision making.

The portal also integrates with Microsoft^® Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft^® SQL Server 2005 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System.

The portal is divided into three distinct sites for the coal division’s management team, key account managers and supply-chain team. Each site provides meeting workspaces, discussion boards and online whiteboard facilities for brainstorming.

The supply-chain team can track contract key performance indicators (KPIs) using a dashboard interface that provides a clear visual indication of whether assets are being used to their full potential.

The portal also includes a component to streamline the order process. Each customer has its own site where it can view details, request changes, place orders and review order histories.

“The solution Data^#3 created allowed us to tie together a lot of QRNational’s critical processes, knowledge resources and information in a single interface,” says Brad Cox, Solution Specialist for Data^#3 .

“Greater visibility of these critical areas allows the organisation to be more proactive and responsive.”

Benefits

The prototype has the potential to significantly decrease the time and cost involved in meetings, enable timely decision making and improve customer service and strategic planning.

Increased productivity

The solution would allow distributed staff to interact almost as if they were in the same room. Teams could meet regularly without associated travel costs or lost productivity.

“Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 would reduce the need for staff to travel every week, without losing the benefits of face-to-face meetings,” says Dallas Stower, Chief Information Officer, QR Limited. “Online collaborative workspaces allow distributed teams to work together to share knowledge, resolve issues and improve processes.

Improved access to information

Centralising all relevant information in a single portal gives staff easy access to the organisation’s knowledge base. This helps QRNational retain intellectual property and enables distributed teams to make well-informed, timely decisions.

“Increased visibility of critical information would improve our ability to service customers and resolve issues,” says Stower. “More up-to-date and accurate information about customer needs and resource utilisation could help us plan strategically for future asset requirements and allow us to be more agile and flexible in responding to changing market demands.”

Streamlined order processing

Using Office SharePoint Server 2007 to manage order processing would have far-reaching benefits across the organisation.

“An online mechanism that manages customer orders and delivery scheduling would give us more visibility right across the supply chain,” says Fechner. “This would make ordering a far smoother and less confusing process for customers. It could also reduce the issues we currently experience with capacity constraints, helping us decide which services we need to run based on order volume.”

Find out how we can tailor a solution to meet your organisations needs. To learn more about collaboration solutions and leveraging our experience to help you increase productivity and improve accessibility, call 1300 23 28 23 or Enquire Online.

Business Needs

According to Data^#3 Manager of Organisational Systems, Kim Partridge, the company’s decision to upgrade to Windows 7 was based on the need to provide users with a stable desktop environment that would enhance their personal productivity while simultaneously reducing demand on internal IT support resources.

Earlier, the company had introduced a Windows 7 pilot program using beta versions of the new operating system on desktops and notebooks. “Our main goal,” Kim says, “was to get direct user feedback on how good a product it was. When we saw that the messages being put out by Microsoft about the operating system’s reliability, extended battery life capabilities and positive user experiences were more than justified, we made the decision to go with a company-wide rollout.”

Rather than take on the rollout as an internal IT team project, Kim opted to use Data^#3 Professional Services. He explains: “The Professional Services team had been developing comprehensive methodologies and systems for Windows 7 deployments based on those used in Windows XP and Vista deployments undertaken over the years. Essentially, Professional Services had everything in place to ensure a smooth rollout, well before Windows 7 was a release candidate.”

Planning Leads to Success

Even before the project was completed, Data^#3 IT support personnel were reporting a significant drop in the number of issues relating to application and operating system stability. According to Kim, while this is due primarily to the stability of Windows 7 itself, the planning and preparation undertaken by Professional Services proved instrumental.

Due to an Australia-wide spread of Data^#3 offices and users, a zero touch approach was adopted as a business imperative. Using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), the project team conducted remote interrogation of every desktop and notebook across the network, generating comprehensive reports on machine configurations, installed applications and connected peripherals.

At the hardware level, Professional Services team members were able to verify the ability of each machine to run the new operating system and identify device drivers that would need to be installed on individual computers. Scott Gosling, Data^#3 Microsoft Services Practices Manager, says: “There were actually very few devices that weren’t supported with drivers included with Windows 7; even devices that were well past their support date.”

In fact, the device support proved to be so thorough that not a single one of the 400 computers needed a hardware upgrade. On that issue, Kim comments: “In many cases, the backward hardware compatibility of Windows 7 is such that we’re able to extend the life of some desktops and notebooks by at least another 12 months.”

Adding further to the improved client stability and reduction in support was the application rationalisation phase of the project. During that phase, over 30 applications were identified as being superfluous to the company’s requirements and as a result, removed from the inventory and support load.

In partnership with the internal IT team, Professional Services used SCCM installed application reports to establish a three-tier application SOE that eliminated instances of multiple applications being used for the one purpose, standardised on 64-bit versions where appropriate, and ensured a consistency of versions across all applications.

Uninterrupted Business

With 400 machines scheduled for operating system upgrade, Professional Services was faced with the challenge of ensuring minimum interruption to users and, importantly, preparing users for the transition. Key to this were communication and training.

On the issue of training, Kim explains that a three-level training program was developed to assist in preparing users of all experience levels for the move to Windows 7. “Well in advance of the upgrade, a survey was sent out to all users, requesting feedback on their knowledge and expertise with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7,” he says. “From that, a training program was put in place that ensured when the new operating system was installed, users would have the skills they needed.”

As part of the communication and preparation, Professional Services worked with Data^#3 business units to advise and assist on consolidating data into specific Windows XP system folders.

“One of the major concerns in any operating system upgrade is the loss of data,” Scott explains. “We ensured everyone throughout the organisation knew precisely what was required of them to protect that data and have a smooth user state migration.”

With the aid of Microsoft Windows User State Migration Tool, the process of user state migration worked virtually without flaw. Immediately prior to individual upgrades, the consolidated data on machines was transferred to temporary storage then reinstated without loss upon deployment of Windows 7. Essentially, it meant users left work on one day, and the next, logged in to a familiar – thanks to the training – operating environment, were using the latest and most stable versions of their applications, and had all their data in place.

“A project of this scope always presents concerns,” Kim says. “But the planning put into place by Professional Services, along with the communication, training and project management has resulted in one of the most successful and trouble-free operating system upgrades I’ve ever seen.”

Whilst I am sure there are no surprises in either of those lists for most of you, in the press release from Gartner they did make quite an interesting comment on what CIO s need to focus on during 2009…

“CIOs Must Be Decisive and Resourceful in 2009″

Meeting the challenges of 2009 requires CIOs to lead their organisations and enterprises through decisions that have no simple answers. CIOs need to lead and have the foresight to look at IT in new ways. They will demonstrate this leadership through four imperatives:

Top 10 Business Priorities

1. Business process improvement
2. Reducing enterprise costs
3. Improving enterprise workforce effectiveness
4. Attracting and retaining new customers
5. Increasing the use of information/analytics
6. Creating new products and markets more effectively
7. Targeting customers and markets more effectively
8. Managing change initiatives
9. Expanding current customer relationships
10. Expanding into new markets and geographies

Top 10 Technology Priorities

1. Business Intelligence
2. Enterprise Applications (ERP, CRM and others)
3. Servers and storage technologies (Virtualisation)
4. Legacy application modernisation
5. Collaboration technologies
6. Networking, voice and data communications
7. Technical infrastructure
8. Security technologies
9. Service-orientated applications and architecture
10. Document management

• Be decisive in setting priorities on actions that raise enterprise effectiveness, with a focus on improving business process, using business intelligence to raise visibility, and enhancing workforce effectiveness.
• Do the “first things faster,” as changing economic conditions render a large project irrelevant. CIOs need to apply a prioritisation process to their schedule and recognise that other important priorities can wait. They need to place greater emphasis on the schedule (when) rather than the priorities (why).
• Be resourceful in restructuring IT to raise its productivity and agility, because the business will not reduce its demand for IT just because CIOs have fewer resources.
• Modernise the technical infrastructure, as new technologies offer lower cost, use less energy, deliver better performance and provide greater capacity; the business will need all of these in the immediate future”

Gartner are pushing heavily along the line of prioritising the right projects. But how do you prioritise the dozens if not hundreds of potential projects on your plate? By looking at your business through Data^#3’s 5Cs lens.

With an understanding of how your organisation can Reduce Cost, Consolidate, Control, Co-ordinate and Conserve Cash, you are not only armed with the information you need to action Gartner’s recommendations above, you will also be in a far greater position than your competition during 2009 and beyond.

Finalist in Advanced Infrastructure and Information Worker Solutions

BRISBANE, Australia — 14 August 2008 — Data^#3 Limited [ASX: DTL], Australia’s leading systems integrator, has further strengthened its position as a market leader in customer focused solutions on the Microsoft platform by winning three categories at the Microsoft Australia Partner Awards. The awards were presented at a gala dinner held at the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference in Port Douglas on Thursday 6 August.

The three awards acknowledge Data^#3’s expertise in the following award categories:

• Licensing Solutions – License Delivery
• Licensing Solutions – Software Asset Management; and
• Security Solutions

Furthermore, Data^#3 was also acknowledged as a finalist in a further two categories (Advanced Infrastructure, and Information Worker Solutions) which illustrates both the breadth and depth of capability that Data^#3 has and the extent of its commitment to the Microsoft platform.

Data^#3 Managing Director, John Grant, who accepted the awards, said, “I am extremely proud of what our team has achieved. The key to winning awards like this is fostering an organisation wide dedication to developing deep expertise and maintaining a focus on the customer outcome. It is great to be acknowledged for our commitment to enabling customer success by leveraging Microsoft technologies.”

Mr Paul Voges, Director of Small and Mid Market Solutions and Partner Group, Microsoft Australia said, “Data^#3’s exemplary delivery of innovative customer solutions is reflected in its outstanding achievement in winning three Australian Partner Awards this year as well as being a finalist in two other categories.”

“It is an honour to acknowledge Data^#3’s dedication and success as part of the Microsoft partner community, and also to recognise the broader role that the company plays as a leader in Australia’s IT sector,” he said.

The Microsoft Australia Partner Program Awards recognise Microsoft Partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the last year. Data^#3 has a long history of success in the Microsoft Australia Partner Program Awards, with significant wins across Software and Infrastructure Solutions in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and now 2008.

Media Release 14 Aug 2008 PDF

Learn more about:

• Data^#3
• Media enquiries

Award recognises Data^#3’s innovative use of Microsoft solutions to solve customer’s business problems

BRISBANE, Australia — 10 September 2007 — Data^#3 Limited [ASX: DTL], a national information and communications technology (ICT) company, has been recognised as the Microsoft Information Worker Solution Messaging and Collaboration Partner of the Year for 2007.

The award, presented at the recent Microsoft Australia Partner Conference was in recognition of a project with a Queensland Government agency, which ultimately empowered teams distributed across 1000’s of kilometres to access information that allows them to make better decisions. The solution, which included collaboration tools, workflow, business intelligence, real time presence and web based video conferencing was built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.

“We are honoured to have received this award. To be recognised for work that has enabled our customer to achieve their business objective through technology is exactly where we want to be as a company and as a team of professionals,” said John Grant, Managing Director, Data^#3.

“Businesses need to increase productivity, streamline order management and improve decision making to become more agile in today’s competitive marketplace. Our team performed remarkably in working with the customer to develop a solution that is doing just that, whilst reducing cost and improving service delivery,” he said.

“The annual Australian Microsoft Partner Awards recognises our exceptional partners and their innovative projects,” said Ms Pip Marlow, Director SMB and Channels, Microsoft Australia. “Data^#3’s impressed all of our team with their customer commitment and the innovation they brought to the Queensland Government solution”.

“We are really delighted to have awarded Data^#3 Microsoft Information Worker Solution Messaging and Collaboration Partner of the Year for 2007,” Ms Marlow said.

Media Release 10 Sep 2007 PDF

Learn more about:

• Data^#3
• Media enquiries