| |
|
|
 |
Enterprises have high expectations for their desktop
environments. Users need to be connected to information quickly and easily and
collaborate effortlessly with colleagues, customers, and partners, whenever and
wherever necessary. Organizations that have put off upgrading due to budget
constraints are finding that their environment is not capable of delivering at
the speed and reliability they require.
If your company has been talking about a desktop deployment, there's probably a
fair amount of excitement surrounding it. You'll see increased functionality
and productivity. You'll reduce management costs. You’ll increase the security
of your existing desktop operating system. There's so much to love about a
desktop deployment. So, why do you look so pale?
No doubt, it's because you know that migration can be incredibly disruptive to
your company.
But it doesn't have to be. Selecting an experienced partner to assist your
internal team with the desktop migration can help put the color back into your
cheeks, and start you down a pain-free deployment path that leads to a
reduction in operational costs.
The Avanade Desktop Deployment Solution is the most cost-effective method of
deploying and managing the latest desktop versions of Windows and Office. The
solution ensures a smooth transition during upgrades to Windows XP. Plus, the
best practices we provide for ongoing desktop management help keep things
running smoothly long after the deployment. The Desktop Deployment Solution has
numerous proven assets available to make upgrades go faster, easier and greatly
reduce risk. One of those assets is the Migration Accelerator for Microsoft
Office (MAMO).
MAMO was created specifically to tackle the issues and mitigate the risks of
migrating from Office 97 — an upgrade that can be particularly
complicated.
Migrating from Office 97 offers some daunting business challenges:
-
Unknown applications
Often business units have developed a lot of applications independent of the IT
department.
-
A monstrous load of documents and applications
IT departments and business units underestimate the effort of migrating Office
documents and Applications because they do not have a full view of all of the
applications and documents in use (VBA, Macros and Access).
-
Database compiles
Access databases have to be compiled the first time you migrate from Office 97
to Office XP/2000/2003.
-
Estimation difficulties
It's almost impossible for most enterprise customers to estimate the time,
money and risks when starting to migrate from Office 97.
In the face of a Herculean effort and possible downtime, it's easy to see why
some companies have been reluctant to upgrade from Office 97. But MAMO cuts
through those issues and makes the decision to migrate practically a
no-brainer.
MAMO outputs a clear and complete overview of Office documents, as well as
applications and their complexity. It identifies all critical files. And it
delivers detailed recommendations for the migration.
This automated asset also gives Avanade and its customers advantages in
planning the migration. MAMO ensures:
-
Everyone has full knowledge of all costs, risks and work involved.
-
All business critical applications are identified upfront to ensure continuity.
-
Incompatible applications are identified with sufficient lead time to prepare
alternative approaches.
By using Avanade's MAMO, companies are typically able to save 20 – 30% of
originally planned migration efforts.
One company that discovered firsthand the benefits of MAMO is the TRUMPF Group.
TRUMPF opened its doors in Stuttgart, Germany in 1923 as a manufacturer of
flexible shafts for dental and printing use. Today, with almost 6,000 employees
and sales in excess of 1.2 billion Euros, they are one of the world's leading
companies in production technology.
In 2003, TRUMPF, famous the world over for their cutting edge thinking, was
using Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 for desktops and Windows 2000 for laptops. Their
laptops were equipped with Microsoft Office 97.
For TRUMPF, upgrading was inevitable. However, as they assessed their
situation, two issues quickly emerged. The first was that, since their rollout
of Office 97, millions of Office documents and Office applications had been
created. Their headquarters alone housed at least five million. The second
issue had to do with the number of applications developed in the field. TRUMPF
simply had no idea how many existed.
Avanade put MAMO to work to provide an in-depth view into TRUMPF's Office
infrastructure. First, the team performed an Office Infrastructure Inventory,
gathering all the information available about Office documents within the
environment, including the identification of all Office applications. Next,
they completed a Migration Complexity Analysis. MAMO divided all critical
application code into various classes of migration complexity. It also
identified any applications that would be incompatible with the new
environment. Finally, the team provided a suggested migration approach,
including the build-up of an alternative infrastructure for incompatible
applications.
MAMO gave TRUMPF detailed knowledge about its Office infrastructure, including
any ad-hoc applications. They were able to identify all business critical
Office applications, as well as applications incompatible with Office 2003.
As a result of their partnership with Avanade and the Migration Accelerator for
Microsoft Office, TRUMPF was able to build an accurate plan to move the company
smoothly from Office 97 to Office 2003.
For too long, desktop deployments have been a double-edged sword; so many
benefits, yet, so many obstacles. With Avanade’s Desktop Deployment Solution
and assets like MAMO, you can stop worrying about overcoming the obstacles and
start looking forward to reaping the benefits.
back to top
|
|
|
