Microsoft Online Services website

Business challenge:

The Microsoft Online Services site offers businesses a suite of online productivity services which allows them to integrate their desktop-based applications with fully hosted Internet services. This is a pre-sales site that offers potential customers the chance to learn about services available to them and what those services might cost.

For a new iteration of the site in late 2010, Microsoft chose Resources Online to develop, produce, and publish the site. The challenges for Resources Online included:

• Creating a new, one-off site using ASP.NET.
• Working with a near-shore localization partner to create customized sites for 26 markets worldwide.
• Working with subsidiary product managers to determine which services were available in each region.
• Working with site designers to accommodate specific needs of localized versions of the sites.
• Developing a customized cost estimator flexible enough to be used in all markets.

Challenge met.

Microsoft chose Resources Online for this project because of our technical expertise with ASP.NET and because of our project management expertise in working with localization teams. To meet the challenge, our team successfully:

• Developed the templates for the localized versions of the sites.
• Project managed and tracked services offered, per market.
• Produced the sites, using search engine optimization best practices.

Resources Online developed and was solely responsible for the rate calculator included in all versions of the site, which is used by businesses to determine the cost of using the services offered. The application features:

• Localized strings, currencies, and services.
• The ability to calculate costs per user.
• The flexibility to include only those services available in a specific market—and to add services as they become available.