How Great Customers Can Energize You...

Sorry for the lack of posts last week, but I had a hectic travel schedule which included spending time with a great chemical customer of ours.  I hope to be able to share who they are and point you to a story about how they are using our technology to solve business problems over the next month or two.  I left there very impressed.  They truly believe that enabling their people is a source of differentiation, and a very effective way you do that is through software.  They are doing a really nice job bridging line of business systems with their personal productivity environment, using Office SharePoint Server 2007 as the foundational collaboration and user experience environment.  They have extended this environment out to their key business partners, and even surface SAP information and access through this environment.  Certainly, other chemical companies are doing some of these same things, but the depth of functionality combined with the simplicity of their technical architecture and the efficiency which they run their operations makes them stand out in my mind.

If you think you are further along, invite me to your site for a visit.  I'd love to see how you are tackling these same challenges.

Brian Willson

Microsoft Chemical Team