REDMOND, Wash., and WASHINGTON — Nov. 13, 2012 — The American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), in coordination with Microsoft Corp., today released the results of a new survey of health and human services departments and agencies nationwide. The report, “A Promising Future for HHS Transformation — The Real Impact of IT System Modernization,” includes survey findings that identify the expectations, strategies and practices that health and human services (HHS) agencies use for the planning, acquisition and implementation of their information technology (IT) systems.

APHSA and Microsoft surveyed 67 agency program leaders from 35 states at various stages of modernizing their HHS IT systems, from those who have implemented solutions for eligibility determination and benefit issuance, case management, and online self-service to those who had not yet modernized. The survey focuses on capturing the agencies’ experience with organizational transformation planning efforts, the agencies’ system life-cycle challenges, and the impact and benefits the agencies experienced from IT modernization. The results revealed that with dynamic executive leadership, due diligence and solid program management practices, departments are seeing incremental benefits expected of IT modernization, but a number of challenges remain. With those challenges, a bright path exists to achieve the desired business benefits for transformation through the promise of today’s technology.

The key takeaways from the survey are as follows:

Implementation

• Forty-three percent of agencies have implemented a new HHS IT system within the past 10 years.

• Fifty-seven percent have not modernized, yet most (55 percent) plan to do so over the next three to five years.

• Nineteen percent of respondents had no plans to modernize, mainly due to lack of funding.

• Of the states planning to modernize, approximately 22 percent are very likely to consider the cloud for future system deployment.

Timing

• Forty percent of agencies surveyed experienced an implementation timeframe of more than three years when implementing a new system. Long timeframes generally correlate to agencies with a larger number of business rules and practices to re-engineer complex IT environments with multiple legacy systems, requiring extensive training and support. States with larger constituent populations also report longer implementation timeframes, but the programs themselves (e.g., Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Child Welfare, etc.) did not have a direct correlation.

Benefits and Expectations

• State agencies planning to modernize (55 percent) expect a new system to meet about 63 percent of their needs in the areas of customer-centricity, improved self-service and improved decision-making.

A full report and APHSA webinar on the survey findings can be found at http://www.aphsa.org.

Of the states that modernized, 100 percent cited the need to extend system functionality with nondevelopers, and 80 percent felt the amount of required customization and interoperability across programs and systems was not in line with expectations. These deficiencies were perceived as factors that lead to project delays and contract and scope modifications.

“State human service agencies average spending $40 million over a three-year implementation timeframe, but the time has never been more opportune to benefit from IT advances to achieve the mission of HHS agencies,” said Tracy Wareing, APHSA executive director. “As an organization, we are committed to sharing best practices with one another to ensure that human service agencies are achieving the outcomes we seek.”

Modernization Best Practices

The agencies surveyed also outlined the reasons for their successes, as well as key learnings on the planning and implementation of HHS IT systems:

• Leadership and effective cross-boundary communication is a bedrock requirement to effectively leverage technology. Today’s technology can help facilitate effective communication throughout and across organizations. However, it can only do so when organizations define clear goals for communication and work together to support implementation of the technical tools.

• Technology must be nimble and responsive to change. HHS environments are dynamic and changing rapidly. IT solutions must be able to adapt effectively to this constant change.

• Gaining cost efficiencies requires the use of benchmarks and measurement. IT deployments are long-term projects, typically taking years to complete. To ensure that projects stay on track and focused on the original, key deliverables, it is critical to define benchmarks and track against them.

“Many states are taking a forward-thinking and visionary approach to transforming their programs and modernizing IT systems,” said Laura Caliguiri, managing director, U.S. Public Sector Health and Human Services, Microsoft. “Human services agencies are leveraging technology advancements and best practices, enabling an incremental strategy to ensure immediate benefits from the new systems and are able to accommodate policy and program changes.”

States Achieving Intended Benefits of IT Modernization Efforts

IT can play a pivotal role in government redesign, delivering on strategies to connect systems and streamline data to eliminate redundancies, reduce costs and increase efficiencies of HHS, and several states are already seeing improved outcomes due to these advancements.

Florida’s Office of Early Learning and the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (DIDD) are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, a customer relationship management solution that can improve access, quality and efficiency in the financing and delivery of HHS programs. By building a foundation that can be configured to work the way an agency needs it to, whether it is on-premises or in the cloud, to help streamline processes, reduce costs, and improve staff productivity and citizen service, agencies and case workers have access to enhanced visibility, streamlined processes, and improved coordination and outcomes.

Florida’s Office of Early Learning is working with HP to deliver the Early Learning Information System (ELIS), built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, for the enhancement of the state’s early learning programs. ELIS is a consolidated information system that manages the early learning programs used by 300,000 Florida families whose children attend the Voluntary Prekindergarten Education and School Readiness programs. The benefits of ELIS will include streamlined administrative processes, reduced potential for fraud and overpayments, data-sharing capabilities across multiple stakeholders, and easy access to child care resource and referral information.

The Tennessee DIDD selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Mid-America Consulting Group to help the organization operate more effectively with greater transparency, greater accountability and reduced costs — ultimately delivering greater value for the taxpayer. Most important, the Tennessee DIDD hopes to provide greater protection and significantly improve the lives of the people and families who depend on its services. More information on states achieving the intended benefits of IT modernization can be found here.

About APHSA

APHSA is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization representing appointed state and local health and human service agency commissioners. APHSA is the only association of the nation’s top government human service executives, including states, the District of Columbia, and the territories, their key state program managers, and hundreds of county-level human service directors nationwide.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Nov. 13, 2012 — HP Enterprise Services today announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded the company a five-year contract valued at US$36 million to provide a departmentwide email and calendaring infrastructure to the VA’s 600,000 users with Microsoft Office 365 for Government.

The agreement was awarded under the Veterans Administration Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology (VA T4) program, the department’s information technology modernization contract. The modernization effort will begin with 15,000 people and expand agencywide to 600,000 people when all contract options are executed.

“VA is moving to cloud-based email and collaboration as part of a broader effort to leverage emerging technologies to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and, most important, improve service delivery to our nation’s veterans,” said Charles De Sanno, executive director of Enterprise Systems Engineering, Department of Veterans Affairs.

Under the agreement, HP will lead and manage the implementation of Office 365 to enhance reliability, security, privacy and compliance as well as create geographically diverse disaster recovery. Moving to the cloud enables the VA to fulfill the Cloud-First federal mandate while anticipating improved employee productivity and collaboration and reduced costs.

The VA will use Office 365 for Government, which features a separate community cloud, for email, shared calendars, instant messaging, and web- and videoconferencing. It also includes industry-leading applications for productivity and collaboration including cloud-based Office, Exchange, Lync and SharePoint.

“The VA needed to transform into a 21st century organization that could enable employees to collaborate more effectively,” said Marilyn Crouther, senior vice president, general manager, U.S. Public Sector for HP Enterprise Services. “Together with the VA and Microsoft, the HP team will modernize the VA’s communications infrastructure while lowering costs and setting the stage for other U.S. government agencies to enter the cloud era.”

HP and its alliance partners deliver best-in-class capabilities and practices, innovation and a distinct history of service delivery excellence. For more than 13 years, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has worked with HP on some of the agency’s most critical initiatives, including multiple IT solutions with the Veterans Health Administration and VA Office of Information and Technology.

“The VA’s decision to implement Office 365 for Government with HP Enterprise Services validates our long-standing partnership and our commitment to helping the VA move to the cloud on its terms with the most complete productivity and collaboration tools available while helping to keep its information protected and secure,” said Greg Myers, vice president of Microsoft Federal.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov. 13, 2012 — Harnessing the power of Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (PDW) and Microsoft SQL Server 2012 business intelligence tools, CROSSMARK, a leading provider of sales and marketing services, recently launched a new self-service data portal that delivers actionable, real-time business insights to its manufacturer and retailer clients in the consumer goods industry. The portal provides sales and marketing channels with quick access to real-time market data, allowing them to analyze and capitalize on market trends quicker than before and make informed decisions about their retail growth strategies.

“As the consumer goods industry has grown, so have the ways to measure the effectiveness of sales and marketing campaigns, creating large, complex datasets that are hard to derive meaning from without the right tools,” said Jim Norred, executive vice president and chief information officer at CROSSMARK. “By extending our current SQL Server 2012 business intelligence implementation to include SQL Server PDW, we’ve enhanced our self-service data portal to accommodate these large data sets, as well as daily point-of-sale data, which provides on-demand results from our clients’ sales and marketing efforts.”

For CROSSMARK, one of the most critical needs behind implementing SQL Server PDW was scalability. Last year alone, the company’s 34,000 associates supported 26 million in-store activities for its consumer goods clients — including many of the world’s biggest brands — across more than 550,000 retail outlets in five countries. Such massive sales and marketing campaigns generate enormous amounts of point-of-sale (POS) data, ripe with extremely valuable insights into shopper-buying behaviors.

“The fast, on-demand data access that SQL Server PDW provides through our self-service portal will give our clients tremendous opportunities to leverage shopper insights into their strategic planning and tactical operations,” Norred said. “Using that data, they’re able to quickly adjust any number of variable factors associated with their sales strategy, such as pricing, promotion or placement, which can dramatically boost sales and profitability.”

In conjunction with its SQL Server PDW deployment, CROSSMARK also will implement a full business intelligence solution using Microsoft Corp.’s industry-leading analytics suite of solutions in SQL Server 2012 and SharePoint Server. SQL Server 2012 Power View and PowerPivot will provide scorecards and other data-rich visualizations, such as interactive dashboards, as well as powerful ad-hoc analytics.

Norred said the combination of SQL Server PDW and Microsoft’s business intelligence tools will eliminate a bottleneck caused by its legacy platform of data reporting, which wasn’t scalable. The new infrastructure elements will help CROSSMARK redeploy employees in more client-focused efforts, helping the company better support its customers and increase client satisfaction.

“Although we do want to strengthen our leadership position as a sales and marketing services provider in the consumer goods industry, we ultimately want to be able to better help our manufacturer and retailer clients extend their market leadership. Our vision is to provide manufacturers and retailers with technology solutions that drive growth and efficiencies in their businesses, and that is exactly why we collaborated with Microsoft on this solution,” Norred said.

More information about how organizations are turning to Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer Spotlight newsroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

REDMOND, Wash. — Nov . 12 , 2012 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Windows and Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky will be leaving the company and that Julie Larson-Green will be promoted to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering. Tami Reller retains her roles as chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows. Both executives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

These changes are effective immediately.

“I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company,” Ballmer said. “The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft. We’ve built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012 and ‘Halo 4,’ and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings.”

Julie Larson-Green

Downloads: Web | Print

“It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company,” Sinofsky said.

Since 1993, Larson-Green has worked on and led some of the most successful products for Microsoft, including the user experiences for early versions of Internet Explorer, and helped drive the thinking behind the refresh of the user experience for Microsoft Office. For Windows 7 and Windows 8 she was responsible for program management, user interface design and research, as well as development of all international releases. She has a master's degree in software engineering from Seattle University and a bachelor's degree in business administration from Western Washington University. In her new role she will be responsible for all future Windows product development in addition to future hardware opportunities.

Tami Reller

Downloads: Web | Print

“Leading Windows engineering is an incredible challenge and opportunity, and as I looked at the technical and business skills required to continue our Windows trajectory — great communication skills, a proven ability to work across product groups, strong design, deep technical expertise, and a history of anticipating and meeting customer needs — it was clear to me that Julie is the best possible person for this job, and I’m excited to have her in this role,” Ballmer said.

Reller joined Windows in 2007 from the Microsoft Dynamics Division where she held a number of leadership positions. She began her career in technology at Great Plains Software in 1984 while still in college, and was the company’s chief financial officer at the time the company was acquired by Microsoft in 2001. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Minnesota State University Moorhead and an MBA from St. Mary's College in Moraga, Calif. In her expanded role she will assume the lead in driving business and marketing strategy for Windows devices, including Surface and partner devices, in addition to her current marketing and finance responsibilities.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/news/contactpr.mspx.

For more information, press only:

Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070, rrt@waggeneredstrom.com

SC12 -- NVIDIA today unveiled the NVIDIA® Tesla® K20 family of GPU accelerators, the highest performance, most efficient accelerators ever built, and the technology powering Titan, the world's fastest supercomputer according to the TOP500 list released this morning at the SC12 supercomputing conference.

SC12 --NVIDIA today announced that 70 more widely used applications have added support for GPU acceleration so far this year, bringing the total number available to researchers, engineers and designers to more than 200.