Customer Solution Brief
/ Oil Producer Improves Productivity, Reduces Costs with Operating System Upgrade
“With Windows Vista, our workforce and IT support teams are improving productivity and helping us reduce costs.”
Fahad Aldossary, Project Manager, Saudi Aramco
Business Needs
Saudi Aramco is one of the largest oil corporations in the world. The company produces, manufactures, markets, and ships crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum products to meet global demand. Its client computing environment is composed of 45,000 desktop computers and 5,000 portable computers running the Windows® XP operating system. The company was looking for a solution that would help it enhance security while reducing costs and increasing productivity for its mobile workforce.
Solution
Saudi Aramco decided to upgrade its entire organization to the Windows Vista® Enterprise operating system. It has already upgraded 15,300 computers with plans to roll out the operating system to a total of 50,000 computers by the end of 2009. It will take advantage of integrated features in Windows Vista such as User Account Control to implement standard user privileges and Sync Center to centrally manage data synchronization between devices. As part of the deployment, Aramco is upgrading to Microsoft® Office Professional 2007. To help simplify deployment, it will implement Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007.
Benefits
n By centralizing network control through Group Policy, Aramco simplified its IT infrastructure, resulting in cost savings.
n Instant Search helps increase employee productivity. Employees can now quickly find documents and other files.
n Aramco has seen increased collaboration among employees—in the office and on the road—with improved data synchronization management through Sync Center.
n With the built-in diagnostic tools in Windows Vista, employees can troubleshoot computers themselves, resulting in reduced calls to IT support.
n With User Account Control, Aramco can reduce incidents caused by harmful downloads and changes to the configuration of a computer.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published January 2009