For Many Companies, Field Workers Are the Crucial Link in the Delivery Chain. in Every

Situation

For many companies, field workers are the crucial link in the delivery chain. In every industry—from utilities to logistics—it’s these employees that act as the face of an organization. With such a large responsibility, it’s vital that they have the right information. After all, if you slip up during a customer interaction, you risk devaluing your brand and losing business. TBS Mobility understands that dilemma better than most. The company is one of the leading providers of enterprise mobility software, which helps field workers provide accurate service and collect data securely at the point of delivery. Its clients include some of the largest employers in the world—such as AVIS, G4S, ADT Tyco, and E.ON—spanning a wide range of industries. The company’s TaskMaster software runs on WindowsMobile® devices, and is configured to perform many different functions depending on the context. Customers use TaskMaster to manage the delivery, inspection, and collection of vehicles andassets; ensure process compliance through sophisticated workflow mapping; and provide real-time updates on activities with GPS information and lone worker safety features.

Since TBS Mobility was founded in 1993, its products have been built around Microsoft® technologies. Dan Sadler, IT Manager at TBS Mobility, says: “We trust Microsoft to deliver the performance we need in our business-critical applications. Microsoft solutions have become even more usable over the last few years, so it’s a smart choice.” The server-side component of TaskMaster is based on the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5, Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 data management software, and Bing™ Maps for Enterprise. The software is highly configurable so end users can adapt it to their specific requirements. The client part of the software runs on the Windows® CE and Windows Mobile operating systems.

Until recently, customers needed to install the TaskMaster software on their own servers, administering the system in-house and taking responsibility for backing up and protecting their data. This approach was perfect for many industries, such as security, where established organizations have the resources and, in some cases, the obligation to set up their own data centers and IT teams. For many smaller businesses, however, the cost of installing such a system can be prohibitive. In 2006, the team at TBS Mobility decided to adopt a new approach. Alongside the traditional model, the company would create a hosted solution. Jon Poynton, Commercial Director at TBS Mobility, says: “We wanted to open our business to new target markets, and expand internationally. Building a software-plus-services solution was the sensible way to offer our product more flexibly and at a lower cost, making it accessible to many more organizations.”

Solution

The team at TBS Mobility set about creating a hosted version of TaskMaster, again using Microsoft technologies. “The development process was simple, because we were working with familiar tools,” says Sadler.

In 2006, the company began offering the service to its customers. The hosted solution runs from data centers leased by TBS Mobility that guarantee availability and uptime. Customers pay for the service on-demand, typically on a per-user per-month basis, with no upfront costs. Poynton says: “Set-up costs for an in-house server environment average at around £30,000, so the alternative of using our hosted service makes a lot of sense for smaller businesses that want to use our software.”

The hosted version of TaskMaster is a multisite solution, meaning the software is hosted from a number of data centers. If one site fails, another immediately takes on the processing load, with no disruption of service for the end user. “For many of our customers, TaskMaster is a critical line-of-business application. There’s no room for outages or failures. With the hosted solution, we take away that burden from our customers, guaranteeing near-constant uptime,” says Sadler.

Having run the hosted solution successfully for three years, TBS Mobility is now planning to move the service to the Azure™ Services Platform by early 2010, a solution that provides application hosting with virtually unlimited processing and storage capacity. Says Poynton: “The cost of data centers has increased exponentially over the last few years because of rising energy prices. Azure offers us the chance to host our applications at very reasonable rates—and with expert support. Who better to

host our SQL Server solution than the people that created the software?”

Benefits

Adopting software-plus-services for the TaskMaster application has helped TBS Mobility open new markets, with many smaller businesses finding the pay-on-demand model more accessible. The organization is also more responsive, because it can now deploy complete software solutions in a matter of days rather than weeks. Having removed the need for customers to install their own server environments, the company is expanding internationally. From a customer perspective, the hosted solution offers lower set-up costs and improved reliability, without the worry of maintaining an in-house server system. TBS Mobility is now planning to transfer its on-demand product to Azure, which will reduce data-center costs and offer even better reliability and performance.

Creates New Business Opportunities

The on-demand version of TaskMaster requires no in-house server set-up costs, and customers pay only for the services they use each month. “In the past, there was no way that companies with a handful of field workers could justify the cost of deploying their own servers, so they couldn’t take advantage of our software. The hosted solution removes that barrier, so we’re getting a lot of orders from new customers,” says Poynton.

Reduces Deployment Time for Complete Solutions

In some cases, the time and cost of setting up the TaskMaster solution for a new customer used to be prohibitive for TBS Mobility. The company occasionally lost business because it could not react fast enough to customers’ needs. Offering a hosted solution means the organization can significantly cut its rollout time. “Using a software-plus-services approach, we can deploy a complete system in days instead of weeks. It’s helping us expand our business on a global scale,” says Poynton.

Delivers Enterprise-Class Reliability and Performance

With the hosted solution, system management is no longer a pain point for customers. All maintenance is performed off-site by TBS Mobility engineers. “Our customers don’t need to think about running their own servers. We handle all the routine work from our own sites, so our clients can get on with doing business,” says Poynton.

TBS Mobility hosts the solution on data centers that guarantee high levels of availability and performance. The company can pass on that reassurance to its customers, many of whom use TaskMaster as a key line-of-business application. Moving the solution to Azure will help the company offer even stronger uptime guarantees.

Reduces Costs by Moving to Different Hosting Service

The price of data-center hosting has increased rapidly in recent years, in line with rising energy prices worldwide. Having seen the profit margins on its hosted solutions decreasing steadily, the team at TBS Mobility has decided to move its solution to Azure. “Transferring TaskMaster to Azure will cut our data-center hosting costs and help us offer improved performance and reliability to our customers,” says Poynton.

Provides Complete Disaster Recovery Solution for Customers

Because TBS Mobility hosts applications in multisite data centers away from its customers’ premises, it helps to ensure that its clients can continue business in the event of a disaster, such as fire or flood. Poynton says: “We only use multisite data centers, keeping our customers’ data safe from damage or theft. In the event of a disaster such as a fire at their offices, they can recover all of their important application information and continue working seamlessly.”

Software + Services

Software-plus-services is an industry shift driven by the fast-growing recognition that combining Internet services with client and serversoftware can deliver exciting new opportunities. Microsoft is dedicated to helping individuals and businesses take advantage of these opportunities. By bringing together the best of both software and services, we maximize capabilities, choice, and flexibility for our customers. The broad software-plus-services approach unites multiple industry phenomena including software as a service, service-oriented development, and the Web 2.0 user experience under a common umbrella.

For more information about software-plus-services, go to: