Today’s businesses are looking to succeed by working smarter, faster and more efficiently, and construction companies are no different in that regard. Where they do often differ from most other businesses is in their structure. Many construction companies have lots of employees in numerous offices scattered across the country and sometimes the globe. This presents challenges in building a scalable and secure IT environment for their employees.
How are some of the leading construction companies meeting this challenge of providing effective computing and productivity solutions to their dispersed workforces? They’re doing it by teaming up with Microsoft, the world leader in cloud computing and trusted partner with over 30 years experience providing enterprise solutions for businesses. Let’s take a closer look at three examples of how Microsoft is helping the construction industry.
Global facilities management and construction group VINCI uses Microsoft Office 365 to help provide a collaborative and mobile environment for its massive organization. With collaboration tools like Skype for Business and Lync, VINCI’s 183,000 employees are able to work together despite finding themselves spread out over 2,500 subsidiaries in almost 100 countries around the world. With access to content, files and projects online and offline, VINCI is giving its people the ability to get the job done anytime, anywhere. Learn how VINCI chose Microsoft for its entire organization after an early success for one of its divisions. >>>
California-based McClone Construction needed a cloud solution that would enable it to unify computing for its newly integrated business divisions that had previously operated autonomously. In stepped Office 365 to provide a more agile environment that enable collaboration and the sharing of information from anywhere in real time. Rather than relying on ineffective email to share files, McClone now relies on Microsoft SharePoint to safely and quickly share and manage files across all its offices. As McClone’s business evolves, Office 365 is giving it the flexibility to evolve its IT infrastructure along with it. Read more about McClone's push to create a collaborative and mobile workforce utilizing Office 365.>>>
At the heart of any construction company is project work and management. Construction solutions firm Hilti Corporation was looking to coordinate projects in its offices in over 20 countries spread out over 6 continents. How did Hilti keep its projects organized and moving forward when contributors where scattered across different time zones around the world? Hilti chose Office 365 and Microsoft Project Online over a homegrown solution for the security and global availability with the added flexibility to quickly scale out and up – all at a fraction of the cost of building their own solution. See how Hilti bolsters its bottom line with Microsoft Project! >>>
Learn why more and more businesses are playing it smart and trusting Microsoft to help them with their cloud computing needs. See how Microsoft Office 365 delivers the productivity tools we’ve all learned to trust like Word and Excel, along with services and apps like Sharepoint, Skype and Project that allow teams, whether local or remote, to work efficiently and collaboratively.
You send and receive a lot of emails, and it’s natural to make mistakes along the way—you forget how to spell someone’s name, leave someone out of a group email or forget to add a flight to your calendar. We’re bringing new people and calendar features to Outlook on the web to help you avoid these common mistakes and get things done faster. These changes are coming to Office 365 users beginning in a few weeks.
Outlook on the web learns from you
Do you spend extra time trying to add the right recipients to your email? Ever struggle to find someone because of the spelling of their name—is it John or Jon? Have you ever sent an email only to realize that you forgot to add someone? Outlook now helps you avoid these problems.
First, Outlook will save you time when choosing recipients. Just place your cursor in the To: or Cc: line and Outlook will bring up suggested contacts in a drop-down list based on your usage. These are the people you’re most likely to email based on who you’ve been communicating with recently and most frequently.
Suggested contacts learns from you to make reaching the right people easier.
Outlook has long had a spell checker for the body of an email, but what about common variations on the spellings of names? Outlook can help. Outlook will now show you names of people you email most frequently—even if you spell their name wrong. For example, if you occasionally write to “Kathryn,” her name will appear as a suggestion even if you typed “Catherine.”
Finally, forgetting to include people in an email is common. Now, Outlook has help for that too. If you frequently send emails to the same set of people—say, Steve, Anna and Bob—then whenever you email only Steve and Anna together, we’ll ask, “Do you also want to include Bob?” This prompt will not get in your way and will only show when Outlook is highly confident you want to add Bob.
Flying somewhere? Let Outlook make sure it’s in your calendar
Have you ever struggled to find your flight information because you forgot to copy/paste it into your calendar? Moving forward, Outlook will take care of this for you. When you receive a flight confirmation via email from a supported provider, Outlook will gather key information and automatically add it in your calendar—no extra clicks, no copy/paste, no drag and drop.
In addition, Outlook will block out the time of your flight and show the flight number, destination and airport. You will receive an automatic reminder three hours before your flight that includes the original email in the calendar event, so you have all the details handy.
Outlook will automatically add a calendar event for flights detailed in an email.
To find “Events from email” in Outlook on the web, click the Settings icon (gear icon), Options and then Calendar. It’s on by default, but you can turn it off if you want.
Great, you say, but what about other types of events? We like the way you think! That is why we won’t stop with just flights. In addition to supporting more providers, future Outlook updates will support event types beyond flights.
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Managed Solution partners with the surf industry to drive productivity while minimizing IT infrastructure costs. Worry about the WAVES - not IT!
Meet with Managed Solution and discover how we can work together to forecast the technologies you'll need to help your business grow! Call us at 877-243-4084 or complete the contact us and someone from our team will reach out shortly.
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Microsoft announced back in October that Windows 10 had surpassed 110 million installations worldwide, which for October was an impressive achievement. But that was over 3 months ago, and since 2015 is coming to a close, we thought now was probably a good time to check in on that install count. Last time I checked, 120 million was the number.
According to my contacts, Windows 10 has now been installed on over 200 million devices worldwide.
Windows 10 was released to the public exactly 5 months ago today, meaning the operating system has averaged around 40 million new installs a month. That’s pretty impressive, but when you factor in Microsoft pushing Windows 10 for free straight from the desktops of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users, it’s not all too surprising.
So with 2015 at a close, Microsoft has 200 million installations in the bag. 200 million thanks to people upgrading for free, Windows Insiders testing new builds, and holiday buyers purchasing new PCs and tablets for their loved ones. Still, the company is a fair way away from their goal of 1 billion devices in three years, but I’m pretty hopeful that they will reach their goal.
What a year! In 2015 Lync became #Skype4B. Take a look back on the journey as we prepare for another exciting year ahead!
WEBCAST: Consume it! Revive and Boost Productivity by Deploying Assets you Already Own.
Enjoy this ON DEMAND WEBCAST on Skype for Business and SharePoint - hosted by Managed Solution and Microsoft featuring best practices, resources and great business stories that all transpired from companies simply deploying and driving adoption on the cutting edge productivity tools they already own. Look at how deploying Skype for Business and SharePoint specifically can meld with the tools staffers have already adopted to boost productivity, output and morale!
Presenter: Sean Ferrel, President and CEO, Managed Solution Guest Speaker: Jason Collier, Beta Engineer, Skype for Business
Jason Collier is a member of the Beta Technical Services team for Skype for Business at Microsoft. With his extensive background and experience, Jason is frequently requested to speak conferences on a range of topics including Skype Meeting Broadcast, Lync Phone Edition, Enhanced 911 and more. In his current role, Jason provides support to customers utilizing Skype for Business on-premises and Skype for Business Online offerings prior to release. His main area of focus is Skype Meeting Broadcast, PSTN conferencing, iOS and the new Mac client.
Presented by: Microsoft & Managed Solution
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