Intergen's newsletter, Smarts, now available for online reading. Intergen provides information technology solutions across Australia, New Zealand and the world based exclusively on Microsoft’s tools and technologies.

1. The technology industry is known for its
rapid pace of change. Whether innovation
happens to hardware or software, the
industry is forever evolving, trying –
desperately at times – to provide us
all with the tools and technologies to
improve the way we live, work and play.
Broader industry trends such as the
increasing adoption of mobile devices, the
rise in big data and business analytics, and
the empowerment of people through social
media and, even, the movement to “bring
your own device” means those of us in the
IT sector have to regularly assess where the
industry is heading, and whether what is
happening is an evolution or a revolution.
Regardless, both situations require
consideration and action.
Microsoft is leading this change.
Recognising that people are more closely
tied to technology than ever before,
Microsoft is, over the next 12 months,
embarking on an aggressive release
schedule designed to attract and retain,
grow and shrink, evolve and upheave the
myriad ways we interact and work with each
other, our organisations and the devices with
which we interact.
Recent announcements – at Microsoft’s
Worldwide Partner Conference, and at
the Microsoft Office 2013 update event
– have explicitly laid out where Microsoft
and its partners (hardware, software and
implementation partners such as Intergen)
see the industry moving. Other more subtle
signals are sent and received virtually every
day by an industry that, for once in a long
time, is experiencing – as Gartner would
call it – a nexus of opportunity, where the
movements of mobile, cloud and social
are creating waves of (potentially
significant) change.
Like any revolution there are believers and
disbelievers, but also like any revolution, there
has to be a recognition that change is afoot,
and that there are new opportunities for all
of us to rethink how technology impacts what
we do and how we best take advantage of it.
THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE | ISSUE 29 | 2012
Evolution and Revolution:
Microsoft Challenges the Status Quo
With an active release schedule over the next 12 months, Microsoft is looking to
transform how we work, live and play with a series of exciting offerings.
IN THIS ISSUE...
intergenites at work and play 2
introduction 3
sharepoint 2013 4
clickdimensions for dynamics crm 6
case study: Rock team 7
the engaged web 8
windows readiness 9
microsoft worldwide partNer conference 11
case study: the co-operative bank 12
How we – as users and as organisations –
look to embrace or disregard these changes
can have consequences. Being too hasty
in our decision-making can create issues,
as time, effort and funding potentially get
squandered on initiatives that have limited
value; similarly, taking too long to decide
can have similar results. In the past, it was
often the IT part of the organisation which
initiated changes in technology, which may
or may not have aligned to the objectives
of the organisation. As the industry
matured, management took a greater role
in influencing what technology decisions
were made. This is still largely the case, but
users are also having an increasing level of
influence, as software becomes easier to
access, and personal devices straddle roles
at home and in the workplace.
What is certain is that the industry will
remain dynamic and we – as participants
and as decision-makers – all play a role.
Evolution or revolution? It’s up to us.

2. 2
© Copyright 2012 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of Intergen Limited.
x3. That’s how many times we’ve been awarded Microsoft
Country Partner of the Year for New Zealand. We thought it
was a pretty good reason to celebrate, and threw x3 parties on
both sides of the Tasman – complete with flashing ice cubes,
chocolate cakes and plenty of good cheer.
YellowCamp. This year Intergen held its first unconference,
a chance for Intergenites far and wide – from across Australia
and New Zealand – to spend a weekend in Turangi sharing
ideas, getting inspired, networking with people from across
the organisation and just generally having a good time in the
company of colleagues.
Cure Kids. In the name of raising money for research into life-
threating childhood illnesses, Intergenites across New Zealand
banded together and raised more than $30,000. Fundraising
activities culminated in the Great Adventure Race, with teams
of Intergenites across the country bracing inclement elements
and treacherous terrain for the cause.

3. SMARTS THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE ISSUE 29 3
The really big news for this issue of Smarts
is us winning the 2012 Microsoft Country
Partner of the Year award for New Zealand.
It is the third time we have won this award,
but stepping up in front of 16,000 of your
industry peers at Microsoft’s Worldwide
Partner Conference never gets old.
You cannot overestimate how good it feels
for everyone at Intergen to be recognised for
the great work we do by our most significant
partner. We have a very broad relationship with
Microsoft, both in terms of the technologies that
we help our clients get advantage from, but
also in terms of the services we deliver to and
through Microsoft. Through our partnership with
Microsoft, we not only deliver great outcomes to
New Zealanders and Australians, but to people
all over the world.
You will see, elsewhere in this edition of Smarts,
more news from the Microsoft Worldwide
Partner Conference. There’s lots of news and
upcoming releases from Microsoft this year.
Windows 8, and the new hardware that is being
released to support it, represents a significant
opportunity to bring really positive changes
to the way we all interact with our business
systems. Intergen has already been working with
clients on strategies and solutions to leverage
Windows 8. Our team loves working with the
new user interface and has developed some
really great skills in designing solutions for the
new paradigm. Very exciting stuff.
We are also very excited about our business in
Australia. Over the past year we have grown
a significant footprint and are very pleased to
announce the appointment of Michael Morgan
as our new Country Manager. Michael brings
significant experience in growing IT services
business in Australia and we are very confident
that he can take the business we already have in
Australia to the next level. Our objective is not to
be a New Zealand business with an Australian
presence but a truly Australasian business with
a presence in Australia equivalent to the one we
have in New Zealand.
Country Partner of the
Year for Intergen
Following on the Australasian theme, we are
very proud to be sponsors of the ANZ Netball
Championship Umpires and would like to
congratulate Waikato Bay of Plenty of Magic on
winning the 2012 Grand Final. It is a fantastic
sport to be associated with, and helps us cement
our brand on both sides of the Tasman.
You will also see in this issue some action shots
from the Cure Kids Great Adventure Race. We
were very pleased to be able to have three
teams competing in this year’s race. A large
number of Intergenites were involved in the
event as competitors, support crews and fund
raisers. Cure Kids is a great charity and we were
very happy to have been able to help their cause
by raising over $30,000.
We are more than halfway through the year now
and the days are starting to get longer again.
We have a lot happening over the next few
months, with some pretty significant projects
going live, and some really cool new projects
starting. We have Microsoft Tech.Ed to look
forward to, along with the Australian Partner
Conference and some really great product
launches. We look forward to continuing to work
with our many great clients and to becoming
familiar with some new clients as well. I hope
you enjoy this issue of Smarts and, as always,
please feel free to contact me or any of the
other contributors in this issue if you have any
questions or comments.
Tony Stewart
INTERGEN
In brief
»» Intergen appoints Australia
Country Manager
Intergen is delighted to
welcome Michael Morgan to
the helm of Intergen Australia.
Michael brings with him
a wealth of experience in
building and managing leading
technology services teams, and
we’re extremely excited about
the future of our West and
East Coast offices under his
leadership.
»» Awards season for Intergen
It has been a bumper year for
awards so far for Intergen.
Not only did we collect the
New Zealand Partner of the
Year award at the Microsoft
Worldwide Partner Conference,
but we also collected two
surprise regional awards: APAC
Subsidiary Partner of the Year
and Solution Partner of the Year.
»» ANZ Netball winners
Congratulations to Waikato
Bay of Plenty Magic on a great
result. As sponsors of the ANZ
Netball Umpires for 2012, we
watched the competition with
great interest, and look forward
to doing it all again in 2013.
»» Intergen Alumni
Have you ever worked for
Intergen and want to stay in
touch with our news and events,
as well as see what your ex-
colleagues are up to? Then join
our Alumni Network.
Email alumni@intergen.co.nz
and we’ll add you to the
network.
Tony Stewart is Chief Executive Officer
of Intergen. Contact Tony at:
tony.stewart@intergen.co.nz
And a new leader at the helm for Australia.

4. 4
SharePoint 2013 is here
Portals,Content&Collaboration
The beta has just been released and we can
expect the final version towards the end of
2012. SharePoint 2013 contains a significant
number of improvements in key areas such as
mobility, productivity and social, and if you’re
considering a new SharePoint deployment
or upgrade then you need to be seriously
looking at the new version now.
Intergen has already been working with
SharePoint 2013 for over six months. We’re the
only Microsoft Partner in New Zealand working
with a well-known organisation to deploy
SharePoint 2013 as part of Microsoft’s early
adoption program. This means we’ve already
seen SharePoint 2013 in action in an enterprise
setting and can advise you on the best way to
move forward with this new technology.
What does SharePoint 2013 have in store?
Here’s an overview of what you can expect in
the latest version.
Social for the Enterprise
SharePoint 2013 goes well beyond 2010 and
brings Yammer, Twitter and LinkedIn capabilities
to the enterprise space. The main benefits of
these capabilities are information sharing and
connectivity between staff in order to reduce
silos and speed up knowledge transfer. Key
capabilities of Social include rich micro-blogging,
a full activity feed, following of people and
information, rich Community sites and a much
improved People search.
Mobility
SharePoint 2013 is almost exclusively written in
HTML 5 with full support planned for Safari on
the iPad. Users can browse, contribute and edit
documents directly from iPads.
The vast majority of organisations have iPads
in their ecosystem and are considering mobile
experiences for web content. These SharePoint
2013 capabilities are a huge benefit for mobile
access and, in a number of cases, eliminate the
need for complex development and third
party apps.
Search
With so many versions to choose from, Search
has always been challenging to understand
– Foundation, Standard, Express, FAST… Now
there is only one version of Search, and it’s
amazing! The best capabilities of all products
have been combined into one. Think search
suggestions, document previews, continuous
crawl, recommendations, social distance
ranking, deep refinement, auto identification of
company names, advanced analytics, even more
integration, easy customisation and you are
getting close to what the new Search provides.
What does this mean? A highly engaging
search experience for end users that provides
the fastest, most accurate results ever seen in
SharePoint.
Productivity
Accessing knowledge and collaboration have
been cornerstones of SharePoint since 2001.
There are a number of improvements in this
space, taking SharePoint to the next level:
»» Users have a folder on their desktop which
syncs directly to their My Site. No more
Dropbox for syncing and sharing files with
colleagues!
»» A new area in My Sites rolls up tasks for the
user across SharePoint, Project Server and
Exchange. Huge productivity boost!
»» A new Share feature allows users to
easily share sites and content with each
other rather than dealing with complex
permissions.
»» There are a number of new and well-
designed collaboration templates available
for use.
»» Access Services has been completely rebuilt
and now exists as a stand-alone solution,
separate from SharePoint. Access has far
more capabilities now than in 2010 for rich
forms and reports.
And it's more social, mobile, collaborative and searchable than ever.
SharePoint 2013 takes knowledge sharing and collaboration to the next level.

5. SMARTS THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE ISSUE 29 5
If you’d like to find out more about what
SharePoint 2013 has in store, we’d love
to talk with you.
Email me at toby.spendiff@intergen.co.nz.
To read about SharePoint 2013 in more
detail visit the Intergen blog:
www.intergen.co.nz/blog
The App Store
Apps are here in a big way and Microsoft has fully
embraced this concept. SharePoint 2013 provides
a full-featured enterprise app store allowing staff
to access company-built, purchased or externally
available applications. There are lots of options
to control how this works, but essentially you can
think of the app store as a highly organised and
controlled way to manage add-on features which
business areas might want to leverage.
Websites
SharePoint 2010 provided some great
functionality for intranet, extranet and public-
facing web sites. The capabilities in 2013 have
raised the bar and well and truly positioned
SharePoint as a leader in the web content
management space.
»» A new Product Catalogue capability allows
site navigation to be controlled using
metadata. This powerful capability allows
e-commerce and knowledge-based sites to be
quickly developed and to adapt over time.
»» Digital asset management has greatly
improved, with much better handling of
images and video.
»» Search Engine Optimisation has been
implemented, with friendly URLs and auto
sitemap generation.
»» A new Design Manager puts all the branding
aspects of the site in one place with the
ability to import and export for designers.
And much more!
There are many, many more exciting capabilities
to talk about in SharePoint 2013. We haven’t
even covered full support for running 2010
sites in 2013 to allow easy migration,
improvements in eDiscovery, allowing full search
across SharePoint and Exchange with export
capabilities, or the fact that versioning now
stores only the differences instead of the full
document each time!
We’re excited about bringing SharePoint 2013
to our clients and we’re looking forward to lots
of in-depth SharePoint conversations over the
coming months.
One Search to rule them all - faster and more accurate than ever. The SharePoint 2013 app store.

6. 6
Empowering sales and marketing with
ClickDimensions for Dynamics CRM
microsoftdynamics
Traditional CRM systems often fall short
when it comes to Marketing. They enable
lists to be generated, campaigns to be run
and managed, but they don’t often offer the
full integrated email marketing experience of
measuring email delivery, click-through and
capturing response via landing pages and
forms. In most organisations that I deal with,
you often find a number of separate tools
fulfilling the full marketing experience.
To enable a basic email campaign the Marketing
team would need to:
1. Generate a list of people to be contacted
2. Export the list of people
3. Import that list into the email marketing
engine (or Outlook)
4. Utilise a third party to pull together the
HTML required for the email
5. Send the email via the third party tool
6. Measure the deliverability of the email via
the third party tool
This process tends to be time-consuming,
disjointed, and it often doesn’t deliver the
expected results. Multiple parties are required
to be involved to deliver the entire process of
email, landing page, forms and web analytics. If
any forms have been developed then the results
are often emailed to the marketing department
to manage and distribute. Often a major step
in the process is missed, which is the importing
of activity as a result of the campaign back
into the originating CRM systems informing
stakeholders about the campaign that has
been run.
ClickDimensions for Dynamics enables a
full suite of marketing tools to be directly
accessed via the Dynamics CRM Marketing tab,
empowering Marketing to deliver a complete
integrated marketing experience for new leads
and existing customers. ClickDimensions for
Dynamics CRM utilises the power of Windows
Azure to deliver extended functionality along
with web integration and analytics, removing
the need to purchase third party services to
deliver marketing capability.
With ClickDimensions, a Marketing team
member can create their own compelling
marketing email using HTML via a wizard block
editor or free-form format, and include a link to
a micro-site for the email that ClickDimensions
create. They can add links to ClickDimensions
forms, surveys, subscription pages or landing
pages into the email content. They can then
test and preview the email via an inbox preview
tool, allowing them to view how the email will
be presented to users on different mail engines.
ClickDimensions offers extensive
functionality to help drive sales and
marketing activity from within your
Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.
Steven Foster is Intergen's CRM Product
Specialist. To arrange a ClickDimensions
demo, contact: steven.foster@intergen.co.nz
Then using standard Dynamics CRM Marketing
lists they can send the email (this can be a
combination of Lead, Contact or Account Lists)
either as a singular email or using split testing
(A/B with the winning email being sent to the
remaining members of the list).
Finally, to complete the process, all campaign
activity is fed back into CRM automatically so
Dynamic CRM’s dashboarding and reporting
capabilities can highlight (almost in real-time)
how the campaign is running, from emails being
delivered, opened, clicked and the pages that
have been viewed as a result.
TRADITIONAL MARKETERS' TOOL CRM + EMAIL + ANALYTICS + SURVEYS + SOCIAL
Without ClickDimensions With ClickDimensions
Microsoft
Dynamics CRM
Email
marketing
SURVEYS/
SOCIAL
DISCOVERY
MONITORING
DATA
WEBSITE
ANALYTICS
DATA
MICROSOFT DYNAMICS CRM
EMAIL
MARKETING
DATA
WEBsite
ANALYTICS
DATA
SURVEYS/
SOCIAL
DISCOVERY
With ClickDimensions and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, all data resides in one
place, and all marketing activity is driven from one place: within CRM.
Traditionally, marketers have had to use several separate tools to
complete their marketing campaigns.

7. SMARTS THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE ISSUE 29 7
As a provider of underground mining services,
including contracting, consultancy and
feasibility studies, Perth-based Rock Team
needed a technology foundation that would
allow better management of and visibility
across its projects. Microsoft Dynamics NAV
and Intergen entered the picture through a
case of serendipity; and what started out as a
well-timed out-of-the-blue phone call resulted in
what Rock Team CFO, Chris Stevens, calls “the
best project I have ever been involved with.”
Chris attributes part of the project’s success to a
strong cultural alignment and team fit between
Rock Team and Intergen.
“We were impressed by Intergen’s professionalism.
They really knew the product and their own
project management was excellent,” Chris says.
“The strength of our relationship has given us
the confidence to make further plans, including
introducing NAV into our cornerstone business,
Rapallo, and looking at how we can make use of
other Microsoft technologies.”
Finance and Administration Manager, Rita Maciel,
and CFO, Chris Stevens, both attest to significant
gains from their new system.
“Even after our first month-end we were really
pleased. We’ve noticed in particular that billing
is much more streamlined and we can get our
bills out a lot quicker. Reporting on the profit and
loss side is much deeper and we can see actual,
budget and variance very easily, which we’ve
never been able to do before,” Chris says. “We
now have more effective control of all aspects
of a project, from budgeting to management of
Setting a solid foundation
with Microsoft Dynamics NAV
expenses against budget. The NAV Advanced
Job Management add-in gives us enhanced
asset management of our equipment, which is
an important thing for us with our fleet of heavy
machinery.”
The greatest gain? “It’s on the reporting side of
things where we see the greatest advantage,”
Chris explains. “We can view things in detail,
right down to the job level. It’s the dimensional
aspect of NAV that has shown us the greatest
benefits.”
Dynamics NAV has met with such success within
Rock Team that there are now plans afoot to
implement it further afield. NAV’s benefits will
be introduced to the wider company structure,
with Rock Team’s 25 year-old parent company,
engineering firm Rapallo, soon to reap the
proven benefits of a new financial and project
management system.
With Microsoft Dynamics NAV and the To-
Increase Advanced Job Management add-in now
fully bedded in, Rock Team has a full view of its
organisational and project information and total
transparency across its transaction paths.
Rock Team’s satisfaction levels are running
high and a daunting precedent has been set.
“Best project ever” is a hard one to beat, but
Intergen’s Perth team will do its level best to
accept the challenge in Rock Team’s subsequent
project implementations.
microsoftdynamics
Intergenite
Ian Nuttycombe
What do you do?
I’m involved in the Dynamics AX
practice, working in our Sydney
office. I have worked with Microsoft
Dynamics on several continents. It has
given me the opportunity to work and
solve problems in lots of interesting
environments.
How do you make a difference?
I make a difference just by smiling,
adding knowledge and experience I’ve
gained from everywhere I have been
and from the people I have worked
with, and then sharing this knowledge
and experience with the people I
currently work with.
What do you love about your job?
I love being involved in new industries,
seeing the challenges our clients in
each industry face and then making
their systems work to meet these
challenges. I also love the teamwork
involved in the projects we do.
A bit about yourself…
I have worked with Dynamics on several
continents and hope to continue to
work in interesting environments. When
I’m not at work I enjoy outdoor sports
and hiking, reading old books and
looking to learn as much as I can.

8. 8
Web&DigitalStrategy
The future of the web
This year’s The Engaged Web in New Zealand
benchmark report, first conducted by Intergen
in 2011, showed some marked improvements
in websites’ engagement levels, and cast light
on some rapidly progressing trends in the
web space.
Websites are doing more, and they’re doing
better. They are engaging their audiences in
new ways. The perennial challenge for website
owners, now more so than ever, is to embrace
a world of constant change and to be unafraid
to make small – but determined – ongoing
improvements.
The report sets out to benchmark engagement
levels across New Zealand’s 50 most trafficked
sites in 10 industries. While in 2011, most
industries got a ‘could do better’ on their report
cards, this year’s results showed real strides
forward in engagement levels, with all but one
sector (Health and Medicine) showing marked
overall improvement in the past 12 months.
The stand outs
The top-performing industries for 2012 were
News & Media, Shopping & Classifieds and
Entertainment – an unsurprising result,
considering engagement is an absolute
prerequisite in these areas. Banking and Finance
showed huge improvements, as did News &
Media, and the ‘most improved player’ award
went to Government – while it still came ninth
out of the 10 industries, it nearly doubled its
2011 engagement score.
What major trends did we
observe?
It’s not just about the Mothership. We’re
coming to expect brands to engage with
us wherever we are, on multiple devices,
in numerous ways. It’s no longer enough
to think about your ‘Mothership’ website –
internet-via-mobile is New Zealand’s greatest
web growth area. As a result, the web
landscape has become increasingly fractured
– the web isn’t just about websites – and
website owners will need to stay mindful of
their users’ changing needs (and devices) in
order to stay engaged.
It’s mobile. New Zealanders are
embracing mobile technologies and
utilising smartphone and tablet devices
in increasingly large numbers. By virtue of
their personal, one-on-one nature, these
devices invite engagement, and many of the
organisations assessed in this year’s report
are investing heavily in this area.
While some sites and services are simply
rendering their websites in a suitable
mobile format, others are investing in
the development of targeted mobile
applications, designed for a particular
audience or a specific function or capability
(for example paying a bill or checking a bank
balance). As mobile devices become more
prevalent, investment in these solutions are
likely to significantly increase in the near
future, and for many years to come.
Social is the norm. In many areas of our
online activity we’ve come to expect social
interaction. 90% of the websites assessed
in this year’s report have embraced social
media, showing us that social media is now
the rule, not the exception. Social networks
such as Facebook have captured the hearts
and minds of New Zealanders, and New
Zealand organisations are following suit. And
where, in the recent past, organisations might
have looked to build their own stand-alone
community solution, now they’re embracing
existing social network platforms for their
own ends instead. Our digital footprints are
growing and digital content is becoming
increasingly ubiquitous. We consume all sorts
of content, on various devices, wrapped in
and around our lives. We expect to see an
increasing number of quality applications
that do a few things really well. But the
fundamental tenets of engagement will still
apply: make it professional, relevant, timely,
accessible, usable and interesting.
It’s not getting easier – but those that rise
to the challenge and remain restless will
survive, and those that think they are ‘done’
are in trouble.
Giles Brown leads Intergen's Web & Digital
Strategy team. To find out more about the
Engaged Web Report, contact Giles at:
giles.brown@intergen.co.nz
Gone are the days when your 'Mothership' website was your only concern. Think mobile, think social,
embrace change and make small, ongoing improvements, this year's Engaged Web Report tells us.
The chart above shows the overall performance of each sector, comparing 2011 to 2012.

9. SMARTS THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE ISSUE 29 9
Future-proofing in a
Windows world
managedservices
Intergenite
Don Smith
What do you do?
My role is a Solution Architect in the
Consulting & Architecture practice
working for our Seattle office, but I'm
physically located in our Auckland
office. For our Seattle business, I
build software solutions for various
Microsoft product teams, which
primarily involves using brand new/
beta products and technologies. For
our Auckland customers, I consult on
Web and mobile solutions and help
them position Microsoft's upcoming
technologies.
How do you make a difference?
I help customers define and realise
their mobile and web strategies. I
build solutions using predominantly
new tools and technologies so when
customer requirements warrant them,
we already know the appropriate ways
to apply them.
What do you love about your job?
I love that it combines my favorite
parts of the software and internet
spaces (web and mobile), which
are maturing at exciting rates, with
providing real customer solutions. It's
about combining new technologies
with interesting customer challenges.
A bit about yourself…
I'm originally from the US, and I have
been married to a wonderful Dutch
woman for over 20 years. We have two
beautiful daughters (17 and 19).
I love to travel, walk in the bush,
and play tennis.
Organisations need to be running current
versions of Microsoft’s operating systems
in order to take full advantage of the “new
era” of products and services coming from
Microsoft.
While Windows 8 is generating excitement,
the reality for many organisations is that
such a move needs to be considered carefully.
Many organisations will be evaluating
Windows 8 with a view to determining
whether its new features will justify the
investment of upgrading; for others, there
are other drivers that may compel such an
upgrade. Windows XP, released in 2001, is
approaching its end of life and support from
Microsoft will end on 8 April 2014.
What does no support mean? At the very
least, it means that there will be no future
updates to resolve functional, performance
or – importantly – security issues. At another
level, it means that the productivity benefits
of later releases of Windows won’t be
realised.
While this milestone is more than a year
away, any organisation running XP needs to
critically weigh up the risks of not upgrading,
versus the cost and opportunities afforded by
looking at a newer Windows release.
Explore Windows 7 Now
Before contemplating Windows 8, organisations
that adopt Windows 7 now can make the
transition to Windows 8 in the future, as
Microsoft asserts the new operating system will
run effectively on the same hardware.
In fact, there are many advantages to
upgrading to Windows 7, particularly for larger
organisations: support for Windows XP may end
before Windows 8 can be deployed in many
organisations; most new applications will run
on Windows 7 and 8, but not XP; and more
applications are currently available for Windows
7 compared to 8, as software vendors gear up
for the arrival of Windows 8.
For anyone with only a few PCs, the process,
cost and timeframes required to upgrade can
be minimal. For larger organisations, this isn’t
the case: there are usually more devices, greater
levels of complexity and increased IT demands.
Once the decision to upgrade is made, though,
there are options to ensure a good result.
Microsoft has developed a series of planning
services – delivered by qualified partners – that
can help organisations evaluate, plan and
manage any upgrade. These services include the
Desktop Deployment Planning Services (DDPS)
which offers evaluations, proof-of-concept
and planning help for Windows 7, Microsoft
Office, and Office 365; and the Private Cloud,
Management and Virtualisation Deployment
Planning Services (PVDPS) which provides
fundamental analysis, business case, process,
and technical procedures needed to optimise
your data centre and explore new ways of
delivering software capabilities.
Ed Rouse is Intergen’s Solutions Manager,
Managed Services. For more information
contact Ed at: ed.rouse@intergen.co.nz

10. 10
microsoft
Watching the dawn of a new era at the
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference
Every year, Microsoft runs its Worldwide
Partner Conference (WPC), a multi-day
event that entices ever-increasing numbers
of Microsoft partners to a location in North
America. For 2012, the destination was
Toronto, Canada, and 16,000 people made
the trek, including around 300 people from
partners in Australia and New Zealand.
The premise of attending a WPC is simple: It’s
one of the few opportunities to hear about
Microsoft’s plans directly from Microsoft’s leaders
– from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, through
to product leads and regional management.
Regardless of the offering, there’s an opportunity
to hear both big picture thinking from the
leadership team, through to having discussions
about specific products and strategies with
Microsoft employees on the coal face. The role
of WPC is also changing: rather than focus
purely on Microsoft’s plans for the year ahead,
Microsoft is now using the event to make more
substantial announcements; the sharing of the
Windows 8 release date was an example of this.
Beginning a “new era”
The mood at this year’s WPC was positive,
reflecting the enthusiasm of Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer: “This will be the biggest product and
services launch year in our company's history,
creating massive opportunities for our partners
to grow their businesses," Ballmer said. "With
Windows — Windows 8, Windows Phone 8,
Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure — and
Office 365, there's never been a better time to
be a Microsoft partner. The opportunities for us
to do amazing things for our joint customers
have never been greater." The partners in
attendance were similarly bullish about the next
12 months.
More information about Windows 8 was
forthcoming at WPC, including its release
date. With Windows 8 being released to
manufacturing in early August, and available
for consumers in late October, the next release
of Windows isn’t far away. With momentum
building, we attended a pre-conference event on
Windows 8 which provided a lot of information
around the core product, hardware partners
and the overall strategy. Microsoft is going to
be aggressively pushed by Microsoft, who will
invest significantly in above the line marketing
across the world. For those who remember the
release of Windows 95, indications are that
Windows 8 will be promoted just as heavily.
With Windows 8, Microsoft is trying to spread
its risk widely. The market has changed since
Windows 7 was released, and new form factors
– and tablets, specifically – have emerged
that threaten Windows’ role at home and in
the office. Microsoft is addressing this threat
head-on: by providing a functional and flexible
operating system; and by working with hardware
device manufacturers to devise compelling
hardware. As in any situation where one is
trying to please all of the people all of the time,
the risk for Windows 8 is that its core experience
is diluted by making too many compromises,
but indications are that the feature set of
Windows 8, and the flexibility of its new user
interface framework, is sufficiently compelling
and adaptive to support a range of hardware
devices.
Hardware variety is going to be important to
Windows 8’s success. Microsoft’s hardware
manufacturer partners were out in force at WPC,
featuring a wide range of devices and form
factors that should satisfy the needs and wants
of home and business users alike. Devices from
Samsung, Lenovo, Acer and Asus (amongst
many others) were highlighted in the Windows-
focused keynote presentation, with tablet-only
designs, designs that allowed detached a
keyboard, through to high-end, powerful (and
more conventional) laptops. The beauty of
this approach is that consumers have choice
when it comes to selecting hardware that fits
their needs. Touch plays a major role in many
devices – several devices that didn’t have a
touch-sensitive screen offered a touch pad, that,
in turn, offered a touch screen-like experience.
It is great to see PC manufacturers looking at
both the function and form. (Interestingly, and
Simon Bright, Intergen’s Chief Operating Officer, accepts New Zealand Country Partner of the Year award
from Jon Roskill, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of the Worldwide Partner Group.
The Windows Phone 8 experience.

11. SMARTS THE INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE ISSUE 29 11
Intergenite
Victor Philp
What do you do?
I am Intergen’s Infrastructure Services
Manager. It’s my role to lead the
infrastructure side of our business
which includes supporting Intergen's
internal infrastructure requirements
such as our development environments
and providing hosting services to
external clients.
How do you make a difference?
By developing and leading my
team, implementing good processes
that enable quality outcomes and
implementing excellent technical
solutions. I believe we need all three
to be a successful infrastructure
service provider.
What do you love about your job?
It would have to be the people and
the technology. Building a team,
challenging them and supporting
their growth is incredibly rewarding,
and after 25 years in IT I still find
the technical innovation and ability
to make a difference to businesses
exciting.
A bit about yourself…
I’m married to Susan and have a
seven year-old son Oliver, a dog, a
cat and three horses. I spend most of
my weekends breaking in our 13-acre
lifestyle (or life sentence) property.
If I’m not in a suit I’m usually in
gumboots digging holes, fencing or
planting things. It’s a nice balance – IT
all week and spending the weekend
doing physical stuff.
frustratingly for many, Microsoft barely whispered
any mention of its own Surface device, presumably
on the basis this would be politically insensitive to
its OEM hardware partners.)
In addition to the hardware, Windows to Go was
also a highlight. This is a feature mainly targeted
at the enterprise that enables you to boot up into
Windows 8 from a USB-connected external drive
on a Windows 7 compatible PC. This allows you to
carry around your Windows 8-based desktop and
spin it up on anyone else’s compatible PC, without
impacting the environment of the device. We
believe this will be of interest to organisations that
might need alternative workplaces.
Windows Phone 8
Overshadowed to some extent by its older sibling,
Windows Phone 8 was also present in force at
WPC. Windows Phone 8 is being positioned as a
mobile operating system for business, delivering
both a compelling user experience, but an
experience that can be managed by organisations.
This a logical position to take in the market,
where competing mobile platforms either have
limited management capabilities, or are delivering
an uninspiring end user experience. Microsoft
is actively working with both its hardware and
software partners to develop innovative handsets,
and to build on the Windows Phone 7 momentum
to grow the availability of applications from the
100,000 apps that exist today.
Windows Phone 8 has a number of very
interesting features that make it even better suited
for use by organisations. These include providing a
greater customisation of the home screen that will
allow better utilisation of the “live” tiles – think the
ability to see email, text messages, or information
from other applications on your device’s home
screen. Other key features include expanded
Skype and Lync integration, the inclusion of the
Wallet (although it will be interesting to see how
this gets adopted outside the United States),
support for near field communication (NFC)
which has been talked about for some time, and
improved systems management of Windows Phone
devices. The Company Hub is also interesting,
allowing organisations to distribute and manage
their own line of business applications to their
Windows 8 users – effectively creating their own
custom “app stores.”
While there are lots of benefits, these come at a
cost: there is a requirement for new hardware to
allow for dual (multi) core processors, required
for Windows Phone 8. While there will be a new
Windows Phone 7 release (7.8) it will be the last
for current devices.
Solutions selling
With most of Microsoft’s solutions getting a refresh
in the next 12 months, there were a large number
of breakout sessions on the product roadmaps.
The one exception – at the time, since rectified
by Microsoft – was Microsoft’s steadfast refusal
to talk about specific plans for Office 2013; plans
which were subsequently disclosed a week after
WPC. The one exception was SharePoint where
snippets of information were provided at WPC,
particularly around the solution embracing the
“social enterprise,” and taking advantage of the
acquisition of enterprise micro-blogging service
Yammer.
Other business solutions from Microsoft, including
Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV and Dynamics NAV
will all receive updates this year, although the
specifics of these updates – and their timeframes
– were generally unspecific, and will be disclosed
through existing roadmap-related documentation
or in events to be held later in 2012. Microsoft
didn’t want to give away all its secrets at WPC.
Behind the scenes
As an organisation, Intergen once again worked
behind the scenes at WPC, creating many of the
demonstrations that featured in the keynotes. As
attendees, we often heard people commenting
that they liked a particular demo, only to make
them aware that the demo was created by
Intergen. The demonstrations we worked on were
across the board, including multiple examples of
new user interfaces for the Dynamics ERP and
CRM solutions, and a set of demos that featured
public, private, hybrid and Azure Infrastructure as
a Service (IaaS) capabilities.
The Road Ahead
Organisations who are using or considering
Microsoft solutions need to keep a closer-than-
usual watch over what's coming up over the next
12 months. Virtually every significant Microsoft
solution will receive an update in the next 12
months, and these updates will create implications
and opportunities for all organisations. Windows 8
is at the core of these changes, however updates to
Office – including SharePoint – and the Dynamics
offerings will also need to be factored into
organisations’ plans. Regardless of your appetite
for change, the next 12 months represent an
exciting period for those of us invested in Microsoft
and its solutions.
Tim Howell is Intergen's Strategic Marketing
Manager. Contact: tim.howell@intergen.co.nz

12. AUCKLAND CHRISTCHURCH DUNEDIN PERTH REDMOND SYDNEY WELLINGTON
microsoftdynamics
The Co-operative Bank steps out on the right
foot with Microsoft Dynamics AX
www.twitter.com/teamintergen www.linkedin.com/companies/intergenFOLLOW US www.intergen.co.nz/blog
The Co-operative Bank, formerly known
as PSIS, is one of the longest serving
financial institutions in New Zealand. The
Bank is a co-operative 100% owned by
its members, and its purpose is to provide
a range of benefits to members to help
them get ahead financially. With exciting
changes afoot, The Co-operative Bank
needed a new financial system that could
meet a whole new set of demands as a
registered bank.
As Peter Nicholson, Operational Risk
Manager for The Co-operative Bank,
explains:
“Our old GL system was written in LINC
and was well past its use-by date. We
needed a system that could handle day-to-
day accounting processes effectively and
efficiently, with the capacity to consolidate
financial information from all areas of the
business to deliver the best financial insight.
Safeguarding our financials through a new
up-to-date system was essential to ensuring
our bank got off on the right foot.”
Ellen Cheyne, Financial Controller for The
Co-operative Bank, highlights:
“Our old system, while still functional, was
no longer capable of efficiently meeting the
increasing reporting demands we would
have as a registered bank. Our goals were
to provide the wider business with greater
accessibility to our accounting systems and
have the flexibility to construct reports in a
manageable way that was easy to share on
a more regular basis.
“To meet our reporting requirements, we
needed to produce external reports more
frequently. Our old system required all
journal entries to be manually entered,
we were limited to printing to a text
file or paper and new reports required a
programmer to write them. We needed a
system that could load information from
multiple data sources, consolidate quickly
and enable us to construct reports straight
away, to suit any user’s need.
“Our Accounts Payable was also a manual-
based process and was reliant on our colleagues
returning their coded and approved invoices
so they could be loaded into the system for
payment. We now have real-time electronic
visibility of all invoices and their status through
the Creditors cycle. This ensures we have
accurate financial information and that invoices
are paid on time.”
The Co-operative Bank chose Microsoft Dynamics
AX as its financial platform not only because it
could support their growing needs but because
it was Windows-based – something their users
were already familiar with. Ensuring staff could
easily adopt the new system was especially
important. To further extend the capability of
the Dynamics AX platform, Atlas, MW Solutions
and Forecaster were implemented to give staff
the best reporting, budgeting and forecasting
functionality.
The gain
Ellen explains the greatest benefits of the new
AX system:
“Everything is now done in real time and we
have greater financial visibility of our financial
performance and position. ATLAS allows us to
construct reporting at the touch of a button,
meaning if our stakeholders require specific
information we can get it to them straight away.”
Peter concludes:
“Our financial processes are now up with the
play, all financial data is consolidated for
reporting, budgeting and forecasting.
AX safeguards our financial matters, meeting
internal and external requirements and
streamlining our financial duties. Overall,
it helps us reach our goal of giving
New Zealanders a co-operative bank that
provides them the best financial outcome.”
Intergen is a trans-Tasman
information technology
services company that solves
challenging business problems
using the latest Microsoft
solutions. We provide our
customers with a range of
solutions and services, including
financial and relationship
management, portals, content
and collaboration solutions,
custom software development,
and consulting services.