At Convergence 2006 EMEA, the first Convergence event in EMEA, Microsoft Corp. today announced an offering of new tools, services and role-based solutions to help simplify the deployment, management and support of IT infrastructure for midsize businesses.

Midsize businesses � of which there are 1.4 million worldwide and 384,000 in Europe* � face the same challenges as enterprises, such as the business demands of globalization and increasingly complex regulations. But they must manage with considerably restricted resources.

In an effort to better understand how midsize businesses should think strategically about their IT investments, Microsoft commissioned Professor Michaela Draganska of Stanford University�s Graduate School of Business to study the effects of IT investment on business performance. In her study, �Strategic IT Investment in Midsize Firms,� Draganska identifies the importance of core IT investment to overall business performance and productivity, and shows that IT is not a commodity, because companies that view IT as a strategic asset to drive value and growth for the business see higher gains from IT investment.

�Midsize business customers have enterprise-like needs but are challenged with unique resource constraints that could be better addressed by the IT industry. In the past year Microsoft has made great strides by focusing our investments on removing complexity via role-based solutions,� said Davide Vigan�, general manager of worldwide midmarket marketing and acting worldwide midmarket lead of the Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners Group at Microsoft. �Today is a milestone in the journey to realizing our midmarket vision of merging the two worlds of people and processes to drive business success and delivering the right tools to our partners to better serve midsize businesses.�