Aisle7 moved 30 users from on-premises Microsoft Exchange Server to Google Apps in an effort to expand the company’s use of cloud computing. In the nine months the company used the Google unified message solution, it faced daily issues with synchronizing email to Microsoft Outlook, managing meeting invitations, and managing contacts and distribution lists. Aisle7 turned to the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite. Now the company’s IT department is saving money and taking advantage of advanced features that work seamlessly.

1. Microsoft Online Services
Customer Solution Case Study
Wellness Company Abandons Google Apps,
Adopts Microsoft Technology
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Media and entertainment quite excited to be using tried-‐and-‐true Microsoft
Advertising
products. The Exchange Online pricing is competitive,
Customer Profile
Aisle7 is a health and wellness marketing
Jake Harris, Director of IT, Aisle7
company that uses in-‐store kiosks and
content on mobile devices to enhance
the grocery shopping experience with
product guides and purchase
Aisle7 is a provider of online and offline marketing services for
information. retailers' wellness products. After moving its 30 users from on-‐
Business Situation
premises Microsoft Exchange Server to Google Apps in July
In 2009, Aisle7 looked for a hosted 2009, it had chronic problems with its email system. In the nine
unified messaging platform. Based on
price, the company deployed Google
months that the company used the Google unified message
Apps. After experiencing numerous solution, it faced daily issues with synchronizing email to
issues, it abandoned the solution nine
months later.
Microsoft Outlook, managing meeting invitations, and managing
contacts and distribution lists and the company had difficulty
Solution
The company replaced Google Apps with
getting support from Google. When Google Apps stopped
the Microsoft Business Productivity downloading new messages to Outlook, Aisle7 turned to the
Online Standard Suite, which gives
employees access to a range of
Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite, which
enterprise-‐class services from email to offered competitive pricing and full-‐featured productivity tools.
unified instant messaging.
Now the comp
Benefits support calls. Aisle7 is also saving money and taking advantage
Decreased IT workload
Reduced costs
of advanced features that work seamlessly.
Gained enterprise-‐level support
Moved to advanced feature set

2. The Outlook Connector Situation
Based in Portland, Oregon, Aisle7 delivers What sold Harris on the Google solution
advanced functionalities
for Google Apps was wellness-‐driven marketing programs to was the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft
engage shoppers and increase sales in-‐ Outlook tool, which is designed to enable
that you get from As
dreadfully broken. the an store, online, and on-‐the-‐go with users to synchronize their Google Apps
full, rich feature set
IT Director, it was a of applications for mobile devices for information with Outlook. He spent three
supermarkets, drugstores, and natural months migrating to Google Apps Premier
the Business Productivity
nightmare for me. There product retailers worldwide. Edition, and the company went live with the
information about health and wellness to solution in July 2009. Although the sync
Online Standard Suite.
were periods when not a our customers such as Wal-‐Mart, Whole tool was intended to allow Aisle7 to use
And it actually works.
day went by when Foods, and T Office Outlook as a front end, employees
had many problems synchronizing between
our content on their websites and in their
reporting an Director of IT, Aisle7
Jake Harris, issue with
In 2009, when Aisle7 needed to replace its disappeared. Employees had issues with
on-‐premises Microsoft Exchange Server calendar and meeting-‐request functionality,
Jake Harris, Director of IT, Aisle7 2003 environment, Harris was committed to -‐end
using a hosted offering. Aisle7 was already management of distribution lists, as the
using the Salesforce.com customer Address Book in Office Outlook does.
relationship management solution, and
of cloud computing (﴾the use of computing
resources hosted in external data centers calendar
and available as managed services over the sync tool really fails badly. I had to update
distribution lists manually, save them onto
a network share, and then send everyone a
ten-‐step procedure for remediating their
price-‐per-‐feature basis and cost was a
When converting email from Outlook, the
The 30 employees at Aisle7 had been using Google tool applied labels to folders but
Microsoft Office 2003 productivity software,
and the Office Outlook 2003 messaging hierarchy was collapsed and replaced with
and collaboration client to manage their one long label. Though a Firefox add-‐in
email. When Harris proposed switching to supported folders in Google Apps, it was a
Google Apps Premier Edition to the Aisle7 slow, multistep process that sometimes
workforce, one third of people said they stalled the email application.
use the Microsoft Outlook messaging and Aisle7 employees also complained about a
collaboration client anymore. Two thirds number of other issues with Google Apps
voiced concern about losing their Outlook including service outages during business
ned that Google hours, no way to synchronize tasks or notes
from Outlook, and the multistep processes
appropriate for business. I think those required to put an image in a message.
Throughout this difficult implementation,
Harris was unable to get full support from

3. disappointed with the sales process.
and affordable with product demonstration and a trial, but
let me talk to someone, but when I asked for these things, I got
Microsoft Online
Services, plus we can pay a case number, ask for log files, and that
she rarely responded to questions. She kept
repeating that the best way to try Google
long-‐term commitment. Harris tried turning to the support forums
That makes it very easy on Google but found that they had The company chose to replace Google
place for unhappy customers to Apps with the Business Productivity Online
agree with each other that the product is Standard Suite available through
Microsoft Online Services which includes
Jake Harris, Director of IT, Aisle7
were no answers to the problems that Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft
people were reporting, and that explained SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office
Communications Online, and Microsoft
Office Live Meeting. Everything would be
One day in early 2010, the sync tool hosted at Microsoft data centers. The suite
stopped downloading new messages to is available on a per-‐user, per month basis,
Outlook inboxes, and that was the final and the company paid only for the services
insurmountable concern for Aisle7 to which it subscribed at any time. Aisle7
leadership. After nine months, the company deployed the suite in June 2010, and
implemented Microsoft Office Professional
the majority of employees, it was death by 2007 at the same time.
suggestion of the CEO, I sent an email Harris prepared Aisle7 workers by bringing
message to the entire company asking if all their old email from Google Apps to
there was anyone who did not want to their new Microsoft Exchange Online
profiles. To simplify management, he
employed the Microsoft Online Services
Solution Directory Synchronization tool. The tool
After reviewing several hosted options, verified the Aisle7 domain with Microsoft
Harris came across Microsoft Online Online Services
Services, which he decided was the obvious company, I can use the synchronization
choice. During the sales process, he worked tool to delete them from Active Directory
with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
MessageOps getting questions answered somebody to the
about how the solution could work to meet
Aisle7 needs. Also, Microsoft offered a free* automatically in Exchange Online and
trial of the Microsoft Online Services available companywide through the Global
solutio
great lengths to make sure that the
Employees can use Microsoft Online
Services to gain access to a range of
By contrast, when Harris had approached enterprise-‐class services including
Google for purchase information, he was desktop and mobile email, calendaring and

4. contacts, instant messaging, presence, web guaranteed 99.9 percent scheduled uptime.
conferencing, collaboration tools, shared IT staff at Aisle7 can take advantage of
lengths to make sure workspaces, and workflow. Also, Harris has twenty-‐four-‐hours-‐a-‐day, seven-‐days-‐a-‐
built a time-‐off request tool using week support from web forms, with phone-‐
that the solution was the SharePoint Online. based Tier-‐2 support for IT administrators.
Benefits
Jake Harris, Director of IT, Aisle7 Aisle7 benefited from deploying Microsoft
Online Services with a significantly reduced problems, and I can monitor and close my
IT workload as well as reduced costs and an issues from an administration portal. I also
got fast and helpful information on the
-‐and-‐
true Microsoft products. The Exchange Moved to Advanced Feature Set
Online pricing is competitive, and the By switching to Exchange Online, Aisle7 can
provide a host of Office Outlook features
that are commonly used by employees,
Decreased IT Workload including Tasks, Notes, and meeting
Since Aisle7 adopted Microsoft Online requests. Another example is the Out of
Office Assistant, which is integrated with
representative has become much easier. Microsoft Office Communications Online,
The Outlook Connector for Google Apps so that employees can see if someone is
n out by looking at their contact list. Aisle7
IT Director, it was a nightmare for me. employees can now incorporate Office Live
There were periods when not a day went by Meeting into their meeting requests.
Employees can also use the SharePoint
with it. When we switched to Microsoft, my Online tool to save time when going
phone stopped ringing. Now I can focus on through the process of requesting time off.
Reduced Costs functionalities that you get from the full,
Despite the low cost of Google Apps, Aisle7 rich feature set of the Business Productivity
is saving money by switching to Microsoft Online
Online Services. To enable web
conferencing, the company had been
spending U.S.$3,000 annually for five
* Access to and use of the Internet may require payment of a
WebEx licenses, a cost it can forgo by using separate fee to an Internet service provider. Local and/or
long-‐distance telephone charges may apply.
Office Live Meeting. Aisle7 has realized a
predictable and affordable with Microsoft
Online Services, plus we can pay monthly
-‐
Gained Enterprise-‐Level Support
Aisle7 benefits from the fact that Microsoft
Online Services are backed with a

5. For More Information Microsoft Online Services
For more information about Microsoft Microsoft Online Services are business-‐class
products and services, call the Microsoft communication and collaboration solutions
Sales Information Center at (﴾800)﴿ 426-‐ delivered as a subscription service and
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft hosted by Microsoft. With these offerings,
Canada Information Centre at (﴾877)﴿ 568-‐ customers can cost-‐effectively access the
2495. Customers in the United States and most up-‐to-‐date technologies and
Canada who are deaf or hard-‐of-‐hearing immediately benefit from streamlined
can reach Microsoft text telephone communications, simplified management,
(﴾TTY/TDD)﴿ services at (﴾800)﴿ 892-‐5234. and business-‐class reliability and security
Outside the 50 United States and features.
Canada, please contact your local
Microsoft subsidiary. To access For more information, visit:
information using the World Wide Web, www.microsoft.com/online
go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about MessageOps
products and services, call (﴾877)﴿ 771-‐
2767 or visit the website at:
www.messageops.com
For more information about Aisle7
products and services, call (﴾503)﴿ 234-‐
4092 or visit the website at:
www.aisle7.net
Software and Services Microsoft Office Live Meeting
Microsoft Online Services Microsoft SharePoint Online
Microsoft Business Productivity Microsoft Office Professional 2007
Online Standardand Services
Software Suite Microsoft Business
Microsoft Exchange Online
Microsoft Online Services Productivity Online Standard
Microsoft Office Communications Suite
Online
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published September 2010