Microsoft expects RP businesses to benefit from its latest products

MANILA, Philippines - Software giant Microsoft said it expects Filipino businesses to significantly benefit from productivity gains and make higher returns on their software investments with the launch of its latest products.

The company launched last Tuesday Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, as well as Microsoft Vision 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010, to customers in the Philippines.

“Microsoft Office 2010 and the 2010 set of products offer people the flexibility to work across their PC, phone, and browser. As a result, companies can save, innovate and grow. This is what we mean when we say that Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 are defining the future of productivity,” Microsoft Asia-Pacific sales and marketing vice president Ken Wye Saw said.

Saw said by enabling flexibility and choice for customers, Microsoft also helps companies save costs.

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting on the total economic impact of implementing Microsoft’s Integrated Office Productivity Platform found the ROI to be 301 percent with a payback period of 7.4 months after deployment. Moreover, the study found that the composite organization would see more than $13 million in savings over a three-year period and on average, a savings of more than two workweeks per year.

With three times the number of participants compared with the Office 2007 beta program, the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 beta programs were the largest ever. About 8.6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products. In addition, more than 1,000 partners are already building solutions for the 2010 set of products. 

“With Office 2010, workflows are more efficient, Web applications make your work available anywhere, and collaboration is much easier,” Transnational E-Business Solutions, Inc. (TESI) president and general manager Renvi Martinez noted.

TESI is a full ICT solutions provider, offering its clients comprehensive IT solutions and services that are aligned with their business needs, strategies, and goals, which includes business process outsourcing, contact center services, application development, remote data processing, web development, and technical support services.

During the launch, Microsoft also introduced two of the Office 2010 Icons. The Office 2010 Icons campaign brings together a group of Filipinos empowered by innovative technology and demonstrates how Microsoft Office 2010 easily fits into people’s lives and offers a flexible and powerful tool to help individuals deliver their best work.

 “Coming from the finance industry, Microsoft Office Excel 2010 is a reliable tool for my work. Through these new Excel features, I can not only manage huge amounts of data, but also make sense out of the figures easily and quickly, and these enhancements have a huge impact on the efficiency of an organization,” BDO Capital & Investment Corp. president Eduardo Francisco said.

“Even if people are out of the office, they can still work at home, off site, or even while they are on the go or don’t have their PC with them. The new features of Microsoft Office 2010 ensure that people have access to their documents across a range of platforms,” Microsoft Philippines information worker product manager Femee Cruz pointed out.

For his part, Enrique Abadesco, chairman of the National HR Agenda of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP) and Office 2010 Icon, said: “I work with different kinds of people, and it’s great to see how technology, like Microsoft Office 2010, can empower them and help them deliver better results at work. The new features and enhancements in Office 2010, particularly those in PowerPoint, corresponds to our productivity needs by allowing people to team up and even work from wherever we are and deliver the best results.”  

Office Web Apps will now be available to all Office volume licensing customers. In addition, customers will be able to purchase a subscription to Office Web Apps as part of Microsoft Online Services, Microsoft’s cloud-based applications.

With more than 40 million paying customers on Microsoft Online Services, businesses are embracing Microsoft’s vision for the cloud. New international customers including Kraft Foods, Novartis International and Codelco, the largest mining company in the world, are choosing Microsoft Online Services for its ability to delight end users while delivering enterprise-grade capabilities, security and flexibility.