We were pleased to attend the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston last week to learn about the latest Microsoft directions for on demand services. Besides interacting with the Microsoft representatives, we held numerous meetings with other partners and helped staff the Microsoft Enterprise Project Management kiosk in the Microsoft Office booth. Look for more developments from our partner meetings in future blogs.
July 14, 2008
Project Hosts, the leading provider of on demand Microsoft Enterprise Project Management (EPM) solutions, renewed its relationship with Microsoft Corporation as a Gold Certified Partner for the 2008/2009 program year. The Gold Certified level indicates partners who have demonstrated proven expertise in multiple Microsoft technologies.
“As the leading provider of on demand Microsoft EPM services, we value our continually evolving partnership with Microsoft,” says Terry Erisman, vice president of marketing and business development for Project Hosts. “This is our second year at the Gold certified level and the fifth year as a Microsoft partner. Our close collaboration with Microsoft allows us to work closely with their technical experts and enjoy the benefits of ongoing joint promotional programs including our involvement supporting the EPMConnect program.”
Only a small number of the tens of thousands of Microsoft partners worldwide are ever elevated to Gold Certified status. As part of the certification process, Project Hosts was awarded four Microsoft partner competencies for the coming twelve months:
- Information Worker with the Enterprise Project Management Specialization
- Advanced Infrastructure Solutions with the Hosting Solutions Specialization
- Network Infrastructure Solutions
- Microsoft Business Solutions with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Specialization
In addition to demonstrating technical competency in the underlying Microsoft technologies, Project Hosts provided customer reference for the Microsoft Partner Program that demonstrated success in supplying Microsoft EPM and CRM solutions to organizations worldwide.
June 9, 2008
InformationWeek published a very useful article entitled SaaS: Red Light, Green Light on the issues that confront organizations when considering whether to deploy a SaaS option for their business needs. Among the issues were data analysis capabilities, data security and backup, data center strategy, third party security audits, and vendor track record. At Project Hosts, we’re pleased to compare our record and capabilities in all of these areas with any vendor - ask us for information on any of these aspects of our service for further details.
May 27, 2008
A great overview of the growth of EPM usage in government appeared recently on Gantthead.com. The article, The Suite Life: Enterprise Project Management in Government, details reasons for the growth of EPM in government agencies. EPM in the FedGov market has been bolstered by the publication of a PMBOK Government Extension and the Federal Acquisition Certificate for Program and Project Managers (FAC-P/PM).
Project Hosts has served government agencies from the Navy to the USDA. On demand is an easy, secure way for government agencies to deploy the proven Microsoft Enterprise Project Management solution quickly and cost effectively. EPM tours and 30 day Trials can help in the evaluation process by allowing potential users to see and then try the Microsoft EPM solution before making a purchase decision.
May 13, 2008
A recent MPA article by Gary Chefetz and Dale Howard discusses improvement versus change the reason why Enterprise Project Management initiatives often fail. As they discuss, technology is a part of the solution, not the solution. Making life simpler by outsourcing EPM tools through hosting makes sense and frees up an organization to focus on the process changes that spell the difference between the success and failure of EPM initiatives.
April 28, 2008
We’ve completed a handful of upgrades for our previous Microsoft CRM 3.0 customers who wanted to tap into the increased functionality of Microsoft CRM 4.0. The feedback has been very positive as all of the upgraded customers have reported increased user satisfaction and better product performance.
Project Hosts currently focuses on providing highly secure, reliable, and high performance dedicated Microsoft CRM 4.0 environments. Unlike the new Microsoft CRM Live service, we provide dedicated servers that accommodate large numbers of users, third party software installations, and can use customer supplied server licenses. A dedicated CRM 4.0 server can be a great solution for companies with special performance or functionality requirements that require their own environment for maximum performance. Check out further information on our CRM services (including online product tours, 30 day Trial environments, Interim Hosting and Long-Term Hosting services) by clicking here.
April 14, 2008
Our previously scheduled webcast with Projility on EPM for the FedGov market has been postponed. The new date is anticipated to be late April. Further details will be posted as information becomes available.
April 3, 2008
We’re pleased to be one of the first Microsoft CRM 4.0 hosting companies to deploy a production CRM 4.0 environment. Working with Allin Corporation, we deployed the service for a sizeable Silicon Valley bank. The bank chose CRM 4.0 over Salesforce.com because of its superior integration with Microsoft Outlook. They chose Allin for their outstanding Microsoft CRM experience and ability to customize the environment to the bank’s unique requirements.
To learn more about the deployment, read our press release by clicking here.
March 17, 2008
Microsoft released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the Microsoft Office 2007 System in December 2007. On February 18, 2008 they released the post-SP1 hotfix package which includes fixes made between the time SP1 was locked down and the release of SP1. Microsoft also released SP1 for Project Portfolio Server 2007 on February 18th.
Click here to read further details from Microsoft regarding SP1 for Project Portfolio Server. Click here to review the issues SP1 for Project Portfolio Server resolves.
Project Hosts will be pushing the Service Pack and post-SP1 hotfix package into production in consultation with current customers.
February 20, 2008
