IT professionals use new System Center 2012 to embrace cloud computing for business

LAS VEGAS, April 17 — Today at the sold-out Microsoft Management Summit, Corporate Vice President Brad Anderson spoke to nearly 5,000 IT professionals about their opportunity to deliver fast, reliable services with cloud computing. His keynote speech highlighted how customers around the world are already using Microsoft System Center 2012, available today for evaluation and purchase, to create private clouds. Anderson also discussed how IT professionals can evolve their roles with cloud computing to help their businesses be more competitive.

"Cloud computing gives IT professionals an opportunity to increase their strategic value to their businesses while building new skills," Anderson said. "Microsoft's private cloud solutions help IT professionals become cloud innovators for their companies, managing and delivering the applications people need to be productive across private, hybrid and public clouds."

In addition, Anderson provided a preview of how Microsoft's private cloud will become even more powerful with Windows Server "8" and announced that the operating system will officially be named Windows Server 2012. The new "cloud-optimized OS" is due out later this year.

Management Makes the Difference for Customers

IT organizations that use System Center 2012 and Windows Server with Hyper-V for cloud computing are helping their companies move faster, save money and compete better. For example, EmpireCLS Worldwide Chauffeured Services, a luxury car service headquartered in New Jersey, has used a Microsoft private cloud to reduce datacenter costs by 50 percent amid 30 percent company growth during the past 18 months. With more than 1,000 employees, EmpireCLS relies on the Microsoft private cloud to deliver a reliable reservation system to customers in more than 700 cities around the world. Using System Center 2012, EmpireCLS also used its cloud environment to create a new business with its BeTransported software as a service offering. The application is now in use broadly within the car service industry.

Similarly, The Walsh Group, a construction firm based in Chicago, switched to a Microsoft private cloud to automate delivery of virtualized servers and applications for 5,000 employees. In addition to business efficiencies, the company has been able to reduce hardware and energy costs by 20 percent.

"With Microsoft, we are moving beyond virtualization to cloud computing, so we can automate and manage our IT environment as a whole," said Patrick Wirtz, manager of Technology Innovation at The Walsh Group. "It's all about giving our engineers, tradespeople and software developers the computing resources they need to build roadways, bridges and high-rises."

In another case, Apartments.com, a national online apartment search service in Chicago, needed a more dynamic and responsive IT infrastructure to stay competitive in the market and deliver faster service to its 6 million site visitors each month. With Microsoft's private cloud, the company realized 50 percent faster server provisioning for new services and 75 percent lower licensing costs.

More From MMS 2012

Anderson published a blog post today that further details the opportunities for IT professionals to accelerate their careers in the era of continuous services and connected devices. Tomorrow, April 18, he will again take the stage at MMS and address the "World of Connected Devices." The keynote broadcast will start at 8:30 a.m. PDT.

More information about System Center 2012 and Microsoft private cloud is available here, including the live and on-demand keynote broadcasts, links to evaluation software, and more. The STB News Bytes blog has further details on the news discussed at the event. The conversation on Twitter can be followed at #MMS2012.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Website: http://www.microsoft.com.

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Source: Microsoft Corp.