Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

TITAN-2 Chooses Windows-based Microsoft Office 2007 for its Employees

OverviewCountry or Region: RussiaIndustry: Construction Services

Customer ProfileTITAN-2 is a leading construction holding in the North-West of Russia offering a complete range of construction and assembly work. The holding includes more than 20 organizations. Its own personnel includes about 4,500 employees.

Business SituationThe company’s expansion demanded software for the increased number of computers, and in particular, a suite of office applications. An efficient IT solution with a transparent and money-saving licensing scheme had to be selected.

SolutionHaving tested and evaluated Linux-based OpenOffice.org and Windows-based Microsoft Office, TITAN-2 selected the Microsoft software solution.

Benefits Stable Operation Of Apps Familiar User Interface Vendor Support, Access To Up-to-date

Technologies

“Considering that a business is to be built for many years ahead, we don’t want to save today for an unstable tomorrow.”

Elena Naginkaya, general director, TITAN-2

TITAN-2, one of the leading construction holdings in the North-West of Russia, needed to select an automation platform for its employees. Two choices were considered – Linux-based OpenOffice.org and Windows-based Microsoft Office 2007. After comprehensive analysis, the company chose to install Microsoft applications on all its computers. The licensing of Microsoft Office 2007 guaranteed vendor support, and gave TITAN-2 confidence in the stable operation of the solutions in the existing IT environment. The use of the Microsoft Office applications suite, even taking into account upgrading to the new 2007 version, saved time compared to the implementation and training of users for OpenOffice.org, which would also have caused file compatibility problems afterward. In the long run, the use of Microsoft Office 2007 ensured a lower total cost of ownership, and together with Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, improved TITAN-2 users’ collaboration and file access.

SituationConstruction holding TITAN-2 is one of the top dynamically developing companies in Russia's North-West. The holding comprises more than 20 organizations working on the construction of industrial facilities in the nuclear and energy industry, for scientific, military, and civilian purposes. The construction, assembling, design, and support organizations in the TITAN-2 holding have a 40-year history behind them, traceable to the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, the first-born of Soviet nuclear power engineering.

The holding continually enhances its fleet of machinery and vehicles. The annual turnover of TITAN-2 reached 18 billion rubles including WAT (US$570 million) in 2009. About 4,500 highly-skilled specialists work for the

company.

The Board of Directors of TITAN-2 holding set the goal of becoming the leading engineering company in management and performance of installation and start-up work for the main buildings of all power-generating units that are being, or will be erected, under the long-term program of Rosatom Government Corporation. At the moment the holding carries out construction and assembly work at the Leningradskiy Nuclear Power Plant – 2, Kalinin, Rostov and Baltic Nuclear stations.

The holding has raised its volume of work by 5 times in the recent 3 years. Increasing orders entailed an increase in the number of electronic documents stored and processed in the corporate network. Furthermore, most of TITAN-2 employees who work in the office may at any time need access to various office applications for creating and editing text documents, tables, reports, or presentations, as well as for emailing.

The holding needed to select an office applications platform that would ensure unobstructed data exchange with other process automation systems and business applications; and extended workplace functionality, reliability and flexibility of scaling of the entire information environment with the growth of the holding’s business.

In addition, the holding felt the importance of being sure that the software installed on user PCs had appropriate licenses.“For a dynamically growing business, it’s very important to properly select the IT solution supplier, which should provide updating and after-sale support for software, and have a clear strategy of product development. This gives us confidence that the vendor will be able to immediately handle any problems that may arise during the system’s operation," noted Olga Baeva, IT Director of TITAN-2 holding.

SolutionAs of the project’s starting date, the holding had 640 workstations where the office software packages had to be installed to replace old Microsoft Office versions.

The reasons for choosing Microsoft solutions were, first of all, about prepared users and easy integration at the level of data exchange, with IT products already used by the holding (Computer-Aided Design, Enterprise Resource Planning, etc.).Microsoft Office has a clear long-term development plan and release schedule for new versions and updates, which gives every reason to believe in the continuity of the investments made.

“We did more than just review various office applications suites. We made our strategic choice of a platform. Having selected the Microsoft solutions, we may be sure that we are protected and that we get what we have paid for in full,” Olga Baeva explained.

Thus, the Microsoft Office Professional 2007 suite comprising Access, Excel®, Outlook® with Business Contact Manager, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word applications was installed at all the workstations of the company, under the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Subscription licensing scheme. The Enterprise Agreement Subscription (EAS) is a version of the Microsoft corporate licensing program for organizations with more than 250 computers that select Microsoft platform as their corporate standard. Under the EAS agreement, the corporate customer has basic Microsoft products licensed for all the PCs used, making payments as annual deductions throughout the period of validity of the agreement, and getting access to all the latest versions of products.

“Under the EAS agreement, we got a chance to not only move to Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, but also ensure the infrastructure’s maximum controllability due to System Center (SCOM and SCCM),” Baeva added.

Benefits“We decided to make Microsoft platform our choice. Among the reasons for such choice was clear and convenient licensing and vendor support. Microsoft Office ensured stable and convenient work in the customary environment and integration with our infrastructure,” Baeva said.

The Microsoft Office deployment allowed TITAN-2 to avoid costs on training employees to work with new office programs and adopting business applications.

“We chose to install the newly released Microsoft Office 2007 that was available under our license agreement. Moving to this suite was not easy for unprepared users but according to our calculations, it paid for itself,” Baeva noted.

“We did more than just review various office applications suites. We made our strategic choice of a platform. Having selected the Microsoft solutions, we may be sure that we are protected and that we get what we have paid for in full.”

Olga Baeva,IT Director, TITAN-2

“We chose to install the newly released Microsoft Office 2007 that was available under our license agreement. Moving to this suite was not easy for unprepared users but according to our calculations, it paid for itself.”

Olga Baeva,IT Director, TITAN-2

With the Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 deployment that followed, users got more effective tools for collaboration and joint access to files.

“We began using our Microsoft Exchange post system and SharePoint portal solutions. At the same time, we constantly widened their capabilities for use by employees,” said Baeva. System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) and System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) solutions deployed after signing the EAS agreement made it easier for TITAN-2’s IT specialists to monitor and manage IT infrastructure.

Thanks to EAS licensing, TITAN-2 got an opportunity to fully control the costs of buying software products. The cost of licenses for each PC remains the same in the course of the acting period of the agreement, and the Software Assurance option included in EAS opens access to support and the latest versions of software. By choosing Microsoft solutions, TITAN-2 holding has achieved both current goals and ensured stable further development of its IT infrastructure.

Microsoft Office SystemThe Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to: www.microsoft.com/office

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about TITAN-2 products and services, call +7 81369 229-61 or visit the Web site at: http://www.titan2.ru/en

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published December 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Forefront Microsoft Office− Microsoft Office Professional 2007− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

2007

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM)

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise

Edition