IP Telephony

AT&T announced today that it’s joined the Microsoft (News - Alert) Partner Solutions Center as a vehicle to demonstrate its mobility expertise and technologies to Microsoft and other enterprise customers.

 

AT&T (News - Alert) officials say that by joining the MPSC, AT&T will be “able to develop and demonstrate its products in the MPSC briefing centers,” and will have “the ability to provide on-site customer briefings, design sessions, proof of concept engagements and training,” customized for specific customer needs.

 

Involvement with the MPSC enables Microsoft’s multiple lines of businesses and customers to test out applications wirelessly enabled over the entire suite of Windows Mobile 6.0 and Windows Mobile 6.1 devices, according to the company, such as Mobile Device Manager (News - Alert), TeleNav Track, Wi-Fi and simultaneous voice and data using Windows Mobile 6 with tethering.

The venerable telephony firm says it maintains a full-service retail store in the MPSC that allows Microsoft campus employees access to Windows Mobile-based phones, accessories and services.

The MPSC is a 21,000-square-foot facility located in building 25 on the Redmond campus of Microsoft and features Hyper-V technology laboratories, partner showcase labs, an executive technology briefing room and partner offices for building, testing and designing network products, company officials say.

 

In June, Microsoft announced that Dunbar Armored, an armored car company, has selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 for its sales teams.

 

Dunbar, headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, says it’ll bring together data from its 80 facilities across the United States. In addition to its armored car operations, Dunbar also sells cash vault and cash management services.

 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM was picked for its “role-based customer relationship management capabilities,” according to Dunbar officials, who say they’ll replace their current system with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to be the repository for all the company’s prospect information.

 

The Microsoft product will be integrated with Dunbar’s legacy software, which houses current customer information, routing programs and other modules, according to the company. Previously, Dunbar staff members needed to get prospect information and customer information from spreadsheets and a number of manual processes, company officials say. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is expected to automate the process, eliminating manual operations.

 

“We will use Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a sales force automation tool,” said Seth McElroy, vice president for marketing and sales administration for Dunbar. “When a prospect converts to a win, the technology will feed that information directly into our customer data.”