Manufacturer Finds Other Online Vendors Not Enterprise Ready, Chooses Microsoft

Companies of all sizes, all around the world move to cloud computing to take advantage of immense benefits. In today’s post we hear from Tyco Flow Control on why Microsoft was the best decision for their business in their move to expand and embrace cloud computing!

“We did not believe other vendors were enterprise ready. We had concerns about their security, their ability to support offline and online scenarios, and their business focus.”

-- Tony DeGregorio, Global Chief Information Officer, Tyco Flow Control

Tyco Flow Control
Tyco Flow Control, a division of Tyco International, is a manufacturer of heat-tracing and flow-control solutions with 250 worldwide offices and annual revenues exceeding U.S. $4.5 billion.

IT Challenges
The company has approximately 12,000 desktops in over 250 locations around the world. It has grown through numerous acquisitions over the past ten years, and as a result, the IT department found itself managing a heterogeneous assortment of servers, networks, and e-mail systems. Offices in the Americas were consolidating on Microsoft Exchange Server for communications, but offices in Europe and Asia still had hundreds of servers running IBM Lotus Notes. Not surprisingly, having a collection of disparate systems caused problems. To improve stability and reliability and simplify IT management, Tyco Flow Control wanted to consolidate its communications infrastructure.

IT Solution & Benefits
Tyco Flow Control prepared detailed requirements for the project and spoke with representatives from Microsoft and other online vendors. Tyco quickly realized that the Microsoft solution was the only one that would meet its needs. They saw Microsoft as a company with deep expertise. “With Microsoft, I saw an experienced enterprise group with the clout and power to make the solution work the way I wanted it to,” says DeGregorio. "I had a lot more confidence in Microsoft. The Microsoft contract promised greater uptime and availability, and the company has data centers around the world with robust failover and backup plans.”

Microsoft also offered greater features and flexibility. “With Microsoft, we could choose an on-premises or a hosted solution,” DeGregorio notes. “We chose the hosted solution, and Microsoft gave us the option of single-tenant or multi-tenant hosting. Single-tenant was important to us for security, and that wasn’t an option with the other vendors. Microsoft also provided offline capabilities, stronger security, better archiving, and easy connectivity with the Microsoft Office suite, which we use internally. That way, we can gradually move existing Notes applications over to Microsoft Office SharePoint.”

Tyco Flow Control also had confidence in the Microsoft Partner Network. “When we looked at migrating our systems, we found that other vendors were working with third-party companies that I don’t think had a lot of experience,” says DeGregorio. “With Microsoft, you’ve got a lot of very experienced partners around the globe. We’ve migrated 8,000 users so far, and will migrate the rest in the coming months.”

With its move to dedicated Microsoft Exchange Online, Tyco Flow Control has ensured that its e-mail solution is scalable, easy to manage, cost-effective, and reliable. With hosted e-mail, Tyco has reduced hardware and maintenance costs, as well as third-party licensing costs for features like e-mail filtering which are included in Microsoft Exchange Online. “By going off-premise, we saved the purchase of additional hardware,” DeGregorio says. “And it’s not just that, there’s also the ongoing upkeep, maintenance, and upgrades. That’s all out of our hands now, and I don’t have to worry about it. We also save money by consolidating and standardizing all the different systems we used to manage.”

Read the full story here.