Partner Type:	Platform Vendor	Region:	Global
Website:	http://www.microsoft.com	Global HQ:	Redmond, WA, USA
Industry Focus:	Financial Services, Telecommunications

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. Microsoft is committed to being a responsible industry partner, working with businesses, communities, and governments to help advance social and economic well-being and to enable people around the world to realize their full potential. Microsoft's commitment and responsibilities as a global corporate citizen are grounded in our company mission and values, manifested through our business practices and operations, and carried out by thousands of Microsoft employees and suppliers worldwide.

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IONA Relationship

Microsoft provides software product technologies and a development platform that enable IONA to develop integrated software solutions quickly. These platform products include Windows, SQL, Office, Dynamics, Visual Studio and more.

Partnership with Microsoft in mutually targeted markets allows IONA to leverage Microsoft's brand recognition in the form of the Microsoft Partner Program (MSPP). Through this program, IONA also has access to a host of resources as outlined in the program.

In the communications sector specifically, Microsoft offers service enablement frameworks and products (such as CCF, CSF, and more) that foster a partner eco-system of application integration and mutual support (The Communications Sector Partner Network). Through leverage of these frameworks and this eco-system, IONA can focus on the continued development and marketing of products around its core competency and leverage this eco-system for incremental sales opportunities.

Microsoft also offers specific applications and software-based services to end consumers that are available for hosting, resale, or royalty; these may represent additional revenue-generating opportunities for IONA at its discretion. In addition, some of these services may require integration with IONA's own applications to support their ultimate deployment to the end consumer; this too may represent additional sales opportunities for IONA.

Through the Communications Sector Partner Network, Microsoft - at its discretion - may offer additional resources to IONA in the form of product support, marketing, or field engagement that could be used to directly support IONA's development, marketing, or field sales efforts.

IONA's integration solutions (Artix and others) complement and extend Microsoft's service enablement platforms, CCF and CSF specifically. By offering direct Web services-based connectivity to legacy backend systems that are typically found in most telecommunications network infrastructures, IONA's products can simplify and accelerate the deployment of Microsoft's service enablement solutions to the service provider. In a similar context, IONA can offer these same back-end connectivity solutions more broadly to Microsoft's community of Visual Studio developers.

Microsoft can also benefit from IONA's established expertise and reputation within the communications-sector service provider community. IONA's support of Microsoft technology deployments may have the effect of minimizing perceived risk on the part of the service provider who might otherwise have minimal experience in working with Microsoft at the network control layer of their operations specifically.

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