Microsoft Office 2010Customer Solution Case Study

New Technologies Consulting Firm Gives High Marks to Office 2010 Innovations

OverviewCountry or Region: SpainIndustry: IT Services

Customer ProfileBarrabés, based in Zaragoza, Spain, is a technology services company that strongly embraces Microsoft products internally and externally for its customer projects.

Business SituationBarrabés had been using Microsoft Office for years. To maintain a competitive advantage and stay innovative, it participated in the Microsoft Office 2010 early adoption programs.

SolutionAfter trying out the Beta version and the subsequent Release Candidate, Barrabés staff confirmed there were many advantages offered by Office 2010, especially in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

Benefits Co-Authoring Office Web Applications Improved Performance, Productivity Ease of Use

“Office 2010 allows you to do more, more efficiently, with less user effort and fewer resources.”

Héctor Barbosa, Head of Systems and Communication, Barrabés Internet S.L.U.

Barrabés is a company known for its strong commitment to Microsoft products and technologies. It is also a pioneer in information technologies. In keeping with its spirit of innovation, Barrabés installs and tests preliminary versions of software, giving it a clear competitive advantage over other companies in its field. Since late 2009, Barrabés has used Microsoft Office 2010, an example of how it is using best practices and leveraging the latest innovations in the market for its business activities.

SituationBarrabés Internet S.L.U. is a company dedicated to innovation, which gives its employees great pride. It is also a company that has firmly embraced Microsoft products and technologies for many years. With its strong focus on innovation, it finds that Microsoft products give it an excellent opportunity to improve its competitive standing. Above all, Barrabes is a pioneer in installing, testing, and trying out the new features of these products, technologies, and services.

This vision of business innovation undoubtedly has its risks, but at Barrabés, the firm considers these risks to be well managed and the potential benefits to far outweigh any unforeseen or negative effects.

That is how Luis Gutiérrez Martín, Director of Business Development, and Héctor Barbosa, Head of Systems and Communication at

Barrabés, put it when they describe their pioneering experience with Microsoft Office 2010.

Microsoft Office has always been used at Barrabés as an individual productivity solution, as is the case in the majority of Spanish companies.

When the Beta version of Office 2010 became available in November 2009, and at Microsoft´s suggestion, they decided to install it on several desktops to test the features. Barrabés was also invited to participate in the evaluation program and continue on with the Release Candidate. Gutiérrez says, “Due to Barrabés’ innovative nature and its close relationship with Microsoft, we decided to implement the Office 2010 Beta in order to gain first-hand knowledge of this version’s new features.”

Over this period, the company has put the product to the test, especially Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and also tested Outlook, the products’ Office Web Apps, and OneNote.

Barbosa says: “We are preparing ourselves to be one of the most innovative leading-edge companies. To innovate, you have to take risks, and even though certain functions may not be maintained in the final versions, we took certain security precautions.”

Gutiérrez explains the Office 2010 innovations he finds most relevant for the company and for himself as a user: “Above all, it’s the connectivity with social networking and cloud computing that are the most notable changes overall in Office 2010.”

Barbosa says: “These features are ideal for us because they fit perfectly with our business approach.” He gives as an example Outlook’s social networking add-in. “A good deal of consulting work consists of integrating and taking advantage of social

networking, so this is a wonderful feature. And that’s considering that so far we've only tried it with LinkedIn, working with preliminary versions,” he says.

There are other notable improvements as well, such as Excel’s data analysis enhancements with PowerPivot, and the mini-graphics “Sparklines,” which he considers “a fantastic feature.”

Other great features include the security and accessibility features in Backstage View for cleaning up metadata, customization features, and the possibilities offered by the PowerPoint slide broadcast capability.Gutiérrez says: “Slide broadcasting in PowerPoint 2010 is going to save us quite a few trips to client facilities since the quality, even with low-speed connections, is excellent.”

In his experience, the most valuable innovations are those related to communication, connectivity, and collaboration. Gutiérrez gives high marks specifically to the co-authoring features. “We’ve tested the functionality and even though it’s not a core feature, it can be considered an important capability,” he says.

Office Mobile 2010 applications are very useful for the company. Access to online business and back-end applications is also a great advantage. Gutiérrez says: ”It’s very important for us to be able to work from a friendly, powerful, and familiar interface, with diverse sources of data.”

SolutionLearning Curve and Productivity As part of this evaluation process, the best known desktop applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint were easily installed and used without any help. The user interface, especially the Ribbon, was essentially the same as Office 2007, which was already very familiar, so the learning curve was very low.

Thanks to that, there was no productivity loss except in certain aspects which required some changes in user habits.

For example, some new features such as the Backstage View or the ones in Outlook 2010 –Conversation View, message cleanup, MailTips – are very useful and practical, but require time for users to adapt, notes Gutiérrez. He says: “It depends on the user. There are cases in which, due to habits or personal organization methods, it may be more practical to not use the new options offered in Outlook 2010.”

However, as Barbosa points out, “there’s already a lot of information on the Web and on the official forums and blogs about each of the products in the suite.” He expects users will have little difficulty learning on their own.

Compatibility, Open Formats, and the CompetitionMicrosoft Office 2010 is the first version of Microsoft Office to clearly embrace standard document formats, and apart from compatibility advantages, the clear superiority over other market offerings makes it the best option for the company, according to Barbosa. Office 2010 can work directly with documents in ODF and OpenOffice.org format.

Gutiérrez explains: “We’ve worked with some documents from the OpenOffice.org suite and had no problem bringing them

“The options offered with the integration of Office Web Apps in Office 2010 are numerous and well- received.”

Héctor Barbosa,

Head of Systems and Communication,

Barrabés Internet S.L.U

“Slide broadcasting in PowerPoint 2010 is going to save us quite a few trips to client facilities since the quality, even with low-speed connections, is excellent.”

Luis Gutiérrez,Director of Business Development,

Barrabés Internet S.L.U

over to Office 2010.” There have also been no compatibility issues with previous versions of Microsoft Office.

Office Web ApplicationsOn using Office Web Applications to develop online individual productivity applications, Gutiérrez says, “The options offered with this integration are numerous and well received.” Windows Live with Excel and PowerPoint were used for the tests, and the positive feedback during testing was confirmed with the final version. Moving forward at Barrabés, they expect Office to become a truly useful tool for all users. The trend of Microsoft Office’s new applications toward Web access and use may represent a paradigm shift for companies and consumers using the most broadly-used environment in the PC world.

Gutierrez says: “At Barrabés, we also embrace working in the cloud as the platform of the future in computer systems, and we clearly trust the use of this service architecture in business environments.”

Barbosa says: “The Office Web Apps give us the freedom to share documents within the company. Before, for example, you had to depend on users having Office installed on their computer, receiving their mail, etc. Now you can use a web page to grant access to certain people, or co-authoring.” He adds: “Google Docs, for example, doesn’t offer the same level of functionality.”

BenefitsFrom the perspective of a company accustomed to working with the latest technologies and leveraging them to the maximum, Office 2010 offers a series of unquestionable advantages, both in comparison with previous versions of Office and other market offerings. These are a few of the top advantages:

• PerformanceThe application loading time for Office 2010 is less than in Office 2007 on the same type of hardware, and it leverages resources better on powerful machines, especially 64-bit devices, according to Barrabés.

Barbosa says, “Office 2010 allows you to do more, more efficiently, with less user effort and fewer resources.”

• Productivity

Office 2010 lets you do more, especially when it comes to collaborative work, due to new possibilities in document sharing and connections to social networks.

• Ease of Use

It is an automated office environment particularly well suited to the way users work. The learning curve is considerably lower than with other products of the same type. It is more complete and user-friendly.

Microsoft Office 2010Microsoft Office 2010 gives your people powerful, timesaving tools to do their best work from more places. With new capabilities and insightful updates to Excel, PowerPoint, Word and Outlook, Office 2010 offers the complete

package — with familiar, intuitive tools. Now you can express ideas, solve problems, connect with people, and create amazing results — in the office, at home, or on the go. For more information about Microsoft Office, go to: www.office.com

Software and Services Microsoft Office System

Document published 10/12/10

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For more information about Barrabés Internet S.L.U. products and services, call 34-902-106-185 or visit the Web site at: www.barrabes.biz