Moving to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite quickly and smoothly may require the help of a qualified advisor. That's an opportunity for potential BPOS customers and those who want to become BPOS advisors.

When you want to plan your taxes and estate, you go to a CPA. When you want to defend yourself in court properly, you go to an attorney. And when you’re thinking about migrating your communications platform, you go to a professional advisor, such as Avanade.

We’ve now covered Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) in two prior articles, the first explaining what it is, and the second why businesses would want it. If you’ve made it through those and feel that BPOS could be a good fit for your organization, then comes the point where it can pay to bring in an expert to guide you through the adoption process. In a 5- or 10-seat operation, migrating to a new messaging and collaboration model may not be a big deal. One guy goes around after dinner, exports everyone’s Outlook data, imports it into their new BPOS accounts, and the world is fine come the next morning. But when you’re dealing with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of accounts, such migrations are more prone to accidents, the risk of data loss increases, and the organization is likely to suffer workflow disruptions.

This is why it can pay to have a trusted advisor guiding you through the conversion to a cloud model. In fact, a good advisor may even tell you when a cloud model isn’t right for your company. Again, one size does not fit all.

In casting about for a BPOS advisor to profile, Avanade quickly emerged as a logical choice. The firm, founded in 2000 as a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture, is the largest IT consultancy in the world solely focused on the Microsoft platform, including products such as Microsoft CRM and Dynamics AX. The company has resources around the world, but its BPOS efforts are focused in North America—predictably, since BPOS has been available in the U.S. since late last year but overseas only very recently. Avanade’s activities span across application development and outsourcing, as well as infrastructure outsourcing and support. Essentially, when a company needs to make a significant IT move, Avanade is one expert that can offer valuable advice and provide the oversight to make the transition happen smoothly.

Check out our Microsoft BPOS Resource Center