Dec 08: Polymorph to Resell Lotus-SharePoint Integration Software

Cheshire, UK and Milpitas, Calif. - December 10^th, 2008 - Mainsoft^® Corporation, a leading provider of Microsoft^® SharePoint^®-Java^™ EE interoperability software, and Polymorph Ltd., a UK- based IBM Premier Business Partner and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, today announced the availability of SharePoint Integrator for Lotus Notes^® for the UK and Irish markets.  Mainsoft’s client-side Java add-in for Notes enables business users to access, modify, and publish emails and attachments on SharePoint directly from their familiar Notes environment.

In November, Polymorph Ltd. signed the agreement to resell Mainsoft software and offer first-line support to IBM customers based in the UK and Ireland. Mainsoft has already established an enthusiastic customer base within the banking, financial services, and education sectors.  Customers have a well-established Lotus Notes and Domino infrastructure in place that they want to integrate with SharePoint, without the risk or expense of a migration.

"Given the widespread use of Microsoft Office on the desktop, it's not surprising to see SharePoint emerging in most organizations, including those that use Lotus Notes, Sametime, and Domino," said Yaacov Cohen, president and CEO of Mainsoft. "Notes users are surrounded by SharePoint sites, and they get stuck with limited integration between messaging and collaboration platforms. Teamwork suffers, and managing team records is all but impossible. Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator promotes team collaboration and worker productivity, without enterprise IT having to migrate their messaging platform."

Unlike migration solutions, which replicate SharePoint content, Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator relies on documented SharePoint SOAP Web services to access SharePoint content directly from either Windows SharePoint Server 3 (WSS) or MOSS 2007. In addition, IT organizations can build enterprise mashups that run on Notes from disparate systems, including SharePoint custom lists and document libraries; Notes and Domino; and Java and .NET applications. IT users gain a more productive work environment as well as insights into business performance that help them make current decisions. With

Mainsoft, existing systems can be used within business processes, without the cost and expense of recoding each one on a common platform.

“Aligning enterprise IT with business users’ needs, and doing so cost-effectively, is a high priority in today’s challenging economic environment,” said Andy Dunbar, UK solutions sales manager, Polymorph. “As both an IBM and Microsoft business partner, Polymorph shares Mainsoft’s vision of helping our customers unify document/content management with their existing messaging and collaboration platforms, without making a significant investment in their IT infrastructure.”

Product Features

Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator is available as an add-in for Lotus Notes 8 and as a rich, standalone client that docks to Notes 7.x and 6.5.x. Both user interface options offer a Notes sidebar application that enables Notes users to:

• Quickly navigate multiple SharePoint sites using a rich client interface
• Attach SharePoint documents to Notes applications, including email, calendars, task lists, and team rooms
• Initiate a Sametime^® chat with the last modifier or the creator of a SharePoint document, and drag-and-drop documents to the Sametime IM window
• Publish Notes emails and attachments on SharePoint using drag-and-drop or a Save-to-SharePoint button in Notes emails
• Update SharePoint metadata from Notes. Email fields such as "Subject", "To", "From", and "Date", are mapped automatically to SharePoint columns as they are uploaded on SharePoint, and Notes users can fill in custom document metadata from Notes. The metadata makes it easy to view, sort, and retrieve SharePoint content. It also allows Notes emails to be incorporated into a SharePoint-based Records Management site, for compliance with government regulations and corporate policies and minimizing the risk of business loss
• Access email stored on SharePoint. Notes users can view emails in the Notes format, edit, and forward emails, regardless of whether they received the original email. Extranet users that have access to the SharePoint site can view Notes emails from their browser, with the document attachments displayed as internal links

About Mainsoft Corporation
Founded in 1993, Mainsoft Corporation develops software and solutions that integrate Microsoft technologies, specifically SharePoint and .NET applications, into IBM middleware:  Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Expeditor^®, WebSphere^® Portal, and WebSphere Application Server.  For developers, Mainsoft has built a patented plug-in to Visual Studio^® that allows .NET developers to write Web applications in C# or Visual Basic^® and run them natively on Java EE platforms.For more information about Mainsoft, visit www.mainsoft.com.

About Polymorph Ltd

UK-based Polymorph Ltd is an IBM Premier Business Partner and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner with an excellent track record of providing IT consultancy, solutions, and support services to fulfill a wide range of business issues. The company is involved with a variety of IT projects, including e-business solutions, upgrades, migrations, integrations, strategic consultancy, project management, and knowledge management. In addition, Polymorph provides a full range of support services, including remote and on-site desktop and server support, third party application support, and upgrade or migration services.  For more information, visit www.polymorph.co.uk.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Nov 08: The Salvation Army selects Polymorph's service desk product

The Salvation Army, one of the largest and most diverse providers of social services in the UK and Ireland after the Government, has selected a new helpdesk solution from Polym orph – one of the UK’s fastest growing IT services companies – to manage the organisation’s International IT helpdesk calls. The solution, HelpDeskPro, eliminates multiple Lotus Notes call tracking systems to provide the Salvation Army with a unified repository for call data. For the first time, the organisation’s IT staff can now log, action and resolve incidents from across five international zones in under a minute – compared with up to four minutes with the previous system – via a Blackberry device.

The Salvation Army’s previous system was based on a number of different Lotus Notes and Excel spreadsheet applications, which were cumbersome and expensive. After investigating a number of Lotus Notes specialist and non-Lotus Notes suppliers, it chose Polymorph’s HelpDeskPro for its fully integrated service desk software and its comprehensive management reporting capability that analyses and processes data very quickly and effectively.

“From seeing what Polymorph’s HelpDeskPro solution could offer at the 2007 Service Desk & IT Support show, we knew we were on to a winner,” commented Mark Calleran, Chief Information Officer at the Salvation Army International Headquarters. “We were very impressed with the breadth of functionality Polymorph’s HelpDeskPro was able to offer in a simple and easy-to-use application. As we handle complex IT calls, ranging from hardware and software queries to support requests, we needed a solution that would help us not only gain control over these increasingly complex environments, but also allow both our experienced, on-site and roaming IT staff to deal with such requests more efficiently.”

“Once the system’s template was completed, things moved very fast!” Mark continued. “We were fully up and running on HelpDeskPro in just two days. Training only took a couple of weeks to carry out so there were no time lags between us implementing the system and us going live. Polymorph’s support professionals were also able to offer us many additional capabilities that we have incorporated into the solution. This added flexibility has proven really valuable to us to provide faster and more efficient call resolutions.”

HelpDeskPro seamlessly integrates with the Salvation Army’s existing IT infrastructure. Its fully integrated service desk software has enabled the Salvation Army to collate all necessary data from the very first interaction. The system provides automatic notifications of nearing warranty expiration dates, giving time to IT staff to action such requests. Staff can provide detailed incident reports – sorted by zone, country or call priority for example – but also extract information by department, expert or status much easier than its previous systems that relied on excel spreadsheets and manual input.

“These are exciting times to be working with the Salvation Army,” commented Steve Harris, Managing Director of Polymorph. “Having been chosen after a comprehensive selection process – and standing out from our competition – is a great endorsement of the skills, quality and capability Polymorph has to offer and we look forward to building on this international project.”

Nov 08: UK’s official graduate careers support service selects Polymorph

PRESS RELEASE: Nov 2008

- Polymorph consultants carry out strategic and technical review of Graduate Prospects' IT infrastructure

- Will ensure fast, effective communication between Universities, students and careers advisors - for the best careers advice

- Polymorph assists in recruiting Graduate Prospects' new Chief Technology Office

Polymorph has been working with Graduate Prospects (Prospects.ac.uk), the UK's leading provider of information, advice and opportunities to students and graduates, to review its IT strategy and infrastructure. Polymorph consultants will be working closely with Graduate Prospects to provide guidance, advice and recommendations to help the organisation ensure optimisation of its new online and digital communication channels, which include its website, newsletter and e-zines. These will provide a critical link between students and graduates, careers support services, UK Universities and graduate employers to ensure that all students and graduates have instant access to up-to-the-minute careers advice and the latest vacancies.

In order to optimise Graduate Prospects' new communication channels, the company needed to address some challenges inherent in its current IT architecture. Polymorph's consultants conducted a series of structured interviews with key staff members across all sections of the company to understand the strategic direction of the business and existing pain points. A number of assessment tools were used, including Microsoft's Infrastructure Optimisation Framework, to review the technical infrastructure and to analyse how well it satisfied the business objectives. Polymorph's consultants proposed a set of recommendations and highlighted the primary need for Graduate Prospects to appoint an IT Executive who would focus on driving IT developments and provide strategic technical leadership.

"With the continuing changes in our key markets and the growth of IT reliant products and services, we had come to an important junction at Graduate Prospects," commented Allan Brown, Sales Director at Graduate Prospects. "We were increasingly developing our digital channels, our website, newsletters and e-zines, which meant that we were more and more reliant on IT to deliver these to our audiences. In Polymorph we found a comprehensive solution, as the company's consultants understood our particular business needs, which in effect are led by our technology needs, and provided the most holistic approach."

On the back of Polymorph's recommendations and with its support and involvement throughout the recruitment process, Graduate Prospects hired Adrian Preston as its new Chief Technology Officer. He brings over 17 years of strategic leadership, solution architecture, programme management and delivery experience.

Stephen Harris, Managing Director of Polymorph, said: "Growing organisations such as Graduate Prospects now see their IT operations as a key competitive differentiator and a way of improving the service they offer to their clients and customers. We look forward to continue working with Graduate Prospects to provide assistance and support for the development of the company's new streamlined IT infrastructure, as well as helping it achieve true value and return on investments."