Southwest Transplant Alliance

With approximately 150 users, STA found themselves paying nearly $4,000/ per month for hosted email.  Another issue was their computers were running different versions of Microsoft Office, and each had varying of patches and service packs installed.   Patches  and Services Packs were addressed as needed with users, and version upgrades typically coincided with machine upgrades.   Tracking and resolving issues can become very time consuming when multiple versions of the same application are used, and when each may have different levels of patching and Service packs installed.

Pain Points
  • High cost of Hosted email.
  • Multiple versions of Microsoft Office running across their user base.
  • Varying degrees of installed patches on machines. 
  • Managing 150 different licenses, and corresponding renewals. 

Solution
Netsphere Technologies recommended the implementation of Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise (E3 Plan), integrated with Active Directory.  This greatly reduced administration time and cost moving forward.  All users would have full access to same Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, OneNote and Access.  ROI on this solution was approximately 5 months.

Added Benefits
​  Not only did this solution resolve their pain points, but incorporated other benefits such as:
  • Each user could now also load office on up to 5 of their tablets and mobile devices without further cost.
  • Availability of Skype for Business and to host On-Line meetings
  • Each user now has up to 1TB of personal cloud storage.
  • Team Site availability, and SharePoint Access.
  • Video Conferencing