Microsoft Real-Time Solutions Enhance Growth

Microsoft Corp. announced strong annual growth in new customers purchasing Microsoft® Real-Time Collaboration (RTC) solutions for Web conferencing and enterprise instant messaging (EIM).
In the last year, the number of new Web conferencing customers using the Microsoft Office Live Meeting service grew by 55 percent.

Recently, more than 1,000 customers participated in the closed beta program for Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005, which is more than triple the number of participants for the LCS 2003 beta program.

"We're excited about customer growth and anticipation, but even more excited to hear customers express how Microsoft's collaboration solutions are improving the quality of their business decisions, and saving their companies time and money, while improving their work-life balance," said Dustin Grosse, general manager for sales and marketing in the Real-Time Collaboration Business Group at Microsoft.

Despite strong growth in its current collaboration solutions, Microsoft is already adding valuable new features to these offerings in releases planned through the first half of next year.

Autodesk Inc., a global software company, realized cost savings of more than $650,000 since deploying Live Meeting across its organization. The company now hosts global training and marketing events with partners and customers online through its interactive Live Meeting solution, rather than incurring time and travel expenses.

"We have tripled the number of qualified leads we generate on a quarterly basis since beginning our Live Meeting customer showcase webcasts," said Paige Rodgers, senior marketing manager at Autodesk. "We've reduced our participation at trade shows because Live Meeting is so much more effective."