<p>Soarsoft Africa, a specialist in archive, migration, collaboration and messaging services, was recently awarded a contract to migrate the AECI Group of companies' messaging platforms to Microsoft Exchange 2010.</p><p>AECI is a South African-based explosives and specialty chemicals group of companies, with 19 individual businesses. The group has an extensive footprint in Africa, which it is seeking to expand further, and is also targeting selected growth opportunities in South America and South East Asia. AECI's head office recognised the advantages that could be gained by standardising the heterogeneous messaging platform across the various business entities, into a single platform that would drive down costs and allow for a better delivery of messaging, unified communications (UC) and collaboration services.</p><p>AECI engaged Soarsoft Africa, an organisation with extensive experience in multiple messaging platforms, to weigh up options and plan a migration strategy to a single forest solution. After a detailed consultation and assessment process, AECI chose to standardise and migrate the entities in its specialty chemicals portfolio to Microsoft Exchange 2010, thereby providing a single platform for its South African operation.</p><p>Supporting disparate platforms requires multiple skills, which are relatively scarce in the local market. The cost savings AECI could expect would be realised through a single set of Microsoft skilled resources. Furthermore, the group will leverage its existing Microsoft investments in SharePoint and then extend these benefits with the rest of the Microsoft 'stack' through integration into Lync Unified Communications services (UC).</p><p><a href="http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=60056:Soarsoft-assists-AECI-in-migration-to-MS-Exchange-2010-platform&catid=213">Keep reading...</a></p>