1. Partner Opens New Market Segments
with Cloud-based Business Process
Solution
Country: United States
Industry: Hosting, Application-Service, and
Software-as-a-Service Providers
Partner Profile: With a focus on enterprise
"The Windows Azure platform has provided us with a
visibility, resource optimization, efficiency and great environment to deliver a rich product experience
agility, Metastorm offers market-leading
software for enterprise and business
for our customers and has relieved the burden of
architecture (EA), business process analysis having to manage and grow our own cloud
(BPA), and business process management
(BPM). Metastorm is helping organizations
infrastructure."
worldwide focus on the right business Greg Carter, Chief Technology Officer for Metastorm
improvements, instill stronger governance, and
accelerate time to value. For more information
and success stories on organizations powering
Metastorm provides an integrated set of software solutions for
strategic advantage with Metastorm products,
visit www.metastorm.com. enterprise and business architecture (EA), business process analysis
(BPA), and business process management (BPM). The solutions are
Business Situation: Metastorm wanted to
expand the market for their enterprise and typically deployed on-premise and are used by experienced Business
business architecture (EA) and business
Analysts who are adept at business modeling and interpretation. The
process analysis (BPA) solutions beyond their
traditional user base of Business Analysts. company saw an opportunity to expand the market by offering a new
product, Metastorm M3™, which targets a broader number of roles
Solution: Metastorm built a new easy to use
cloud-based offering on the Windows Azure within an organization. The company chose Microsoft’s Windows
platform called Metastorm M3, targeting
Azure™ platform to build and deliver its new cloud offering. By
business executives and departmental
managers. choosing Windows Azure, Metastorm was able to save 6 months of
development time by leveraging their existing code base, and offer
Benefits: With Windows Azure, Metastorm
saved 6 months of development time, and now complete customer deployment flexibility via the Cloud, on-premise,
has a flexible deployment model, and an easy
or on-premise as a SaaS offering.
to manage IT infrastructure.

2. Situation their use of Metastorm products. Manoj
Metastorm, a Microsoft® ISV partner, Kumar, manager of Business Process
provides software solutions to help Automation at AmerisourceBergen sums
organizations define and communicate up most customer feedback: "The
enterprise strategy, plan for change, and pharmaceutical industry is extremely
automate and improve business processes complex and competitive, and
to optimize the use of people, systems, AmerisourceBergen has embraced the
and information. The company’s Metastorm BPM suite as an enabler to
integrated set of software products help effectively address market demands
includes enterprise and business in a highly competitive environment. We
architecture (EA), business process analysis have used the software to automate and
(BPA), and business process management improve both internal processes as well as
(BPM). The company has three core external-facing business-to-business
product offerings: processes that involve our major
Metastorm ProVision® - an manufacturing customers. The results and
Enterprise and Business Architecture return on investment have been
(EA) software tool that allows significant.‖
companies to comprehensively
discover and model business strategy, Metastorm’s solutions are typically
goals, organization, processes, systems, deployed on-premise using the customer’s
and information – and then understand IT infrastructure. Deployment of the
the interrelationships to systematically solution can take several months primarily
and comprehensively plan changes to due to the need to allocate IT staff, the
the enterprise at all levels. purchase and provisioning of servers, and
Metastorm ProVision® BPA - a the actual software implementation.
Business Process Analysis (BPA) Once implemented, Metastorm products
solution that allows companies to are typically used by experienced Business
discover and model current business Analysts who are adept at business
processes and then conduct modeling and interpretation. The
sophisticated simulations and analysis capabilities of the Metastorm suite are
of where and how they can be very deep and rich —and business analysts
improved to deliver greater value and tend work alongside business owners who
improved business resource have the direct knowledge of specific
optimization. processes and workflows. As a result,
Metastorm BPM® - Once companies modeling tends to be an activity limited to
understand where they need to go and a select group within an organization and
how they want to do things, intermittently supported by the rest of the
Metastorm BPM helps rapidly and organization.
cost-effectively design, automate,
deploy, manage, monitor, and report In reality, most businesses could benefit
on human and system-based business from a broader number of employees
processes, so they can be continuously doing their own business modeling and
improved. sharing and collaborating with their co-
workers to solve issues. To do this,
Since the company’s inception in 1996, organizations would require a more
over 1,300 organizations have utilized simplified modeling interface and one that
Metastorm solutions. Many industry would enable a wide range of global
analysts have also recognized the quality resources to access shared models and
of the company’s solutions, including collaborate on content. The key would be
Gartner Research, who ranks each of the making some of the core, most widely
core products as leaders in the Gartner applicable features of EA and BPA
Magic Quadrant. Customers consistently available to a broader audience with little
obtain a positive return on investment in

3. to no training required and minimal time to build their models (via Microsoft
burden on IT resources. SharePoint Services), share and modify
models with designated team members,
Metastorm recognized an opportunity to and export their models into other
address this opportunity with a new productivity tools such as Microsoft Office.
product designed to be used by a large Models developed in Metastorm M3 can
number of business users across multiple also be incorporated into Metastorm’s
locations to help drive faster, more traditional enterprise EA, BPA, and BPM
accurate business and process products.
improvements and enhance productivity
and collaboration. Metastorm viewed the While Metastorm knew that ease of use
Cloud as the ideal delivery mechanism for would be a critical success factor for
its new modeling product. Metastorm M3, ease of implementation
and the ability to start using the product
―We’ve always developed Solution immediately would be equally important.
our products using Metastorm has a unique vision in that it The company determined that the best
Microsoft technologies. It believes the use of enterprise architecture approach would be to deliver the product
was critical to have the and business process management in a cloud environment. This would
ability to leverage our software is one of the critical catalysts for remove the need to involve an
existing developer skill company change and growth. ―There is organization’s IT department and allow
sets and knowledge for elegance and logic in visually representing users to simply start using the software.
developing Metastorm M3 company processes. Models bring clarity
in the Cloud. Time to to issues-- whether they are broad goals Metastorm evaluated all of the major
market was also very or a step-by-step workflow process. We cloud environments using criteria such as
important for us. We believe that if we can get more employees ease of management and the ability to
chose Windows Azure as it involved in modeling, those companies will leverage existing developer skills and
was the best development see greater benefits and function at a resources for the development of
and delivery platform for competitive advantage,‖ commented Kevin Metastorm M3. The company chose
our needs‖ Haugh, Vice President, Product Marketing
and Management for Metastorm.
Microsoft’s Windows Azure™ platform to
build and deliver its new offering. ―We’ve
Greg Carter, Chief Technology Officer for always developed our products using
Metastorm The company set out to build a new Microsoft technologies. It was critical to
product, called Metastorm M3™, targeting have the ability to leverage our existing
a broader number of roles within an developer skill sets and knowledge for
organization—from business executives, to developing Metastorm M3 in the Cloud.
line managers, to department-level Time to market was also very important for
employees. ―Metastorm M3 is a simplified us. We chose Windows Azure as it was the
modeling tool that incorporates the most best development and delivery platform
relevant models for business owners to use for our needs,‖ indicated Greg Carter, Chief
in their everyday work environment. Users Technology Officer for Metastorm.
of Metastorm M3 will be able to start
using the tool immediately, with no Windows Azure is a cloud services
training or expertise required,‖ stated operating system that serves as the
Haugh. development, service hosting and
service management environment for
Metastorm M3 was built entirely in the Windows Azure platform. Windows
Microsoft Silverlight using the Microsoft Azure provides developers with on-
.NET Framework and is delivered through a demand compute and storage to host,
browser over the Internet. The product scale, and manage web applications on the
provides an easy to use set of tools to internet through Microsoft datacenters.
build visual representations of business Windows Azure consists of a hosted
goals, strategies, processes, procedures, operating system, a hosted database
and systems. Users can collaborate in real- through Microsoft SQL Azure, the

4. AppFabric, and tools for migrating and previously had a hard time justifying the
integrating the application - all at cost of a complete BPA/BPM solution can
extremely competitive pricing. The use Metastorm M3 and gain some of the
Windows Azure platform AppFabric same benefits at a fraction of the cost. For
provides secure connectivity as a service to existing Metastorm customers, M3 helps
help developers bridge cloud, on- penetrate more deeply into the
premises, and hosted deployments. organization by expanding the number of
Developers can use AppFabric Service Bus employees that use the product.
and AppFabric Access Control to build Faster Time to Market
distributed and federated applications as Metastorm saved up to 6 months of
well as services that work across network development time by choosing Azure
and organizational boundaries. versus competing cloud solutions. ―Azure
As an example, Metastorm uses the allowed us to leverage our existing staff
AppFabric Access Control to allow users to and their knowledge of developing on
securely share models developed in M3 Microsoft technologies. We would have
not just with other employees in multiple had to build up a new team to support
geographic locations, but also with third production in another cloud environment,
party business partners such as and we would lose all of the product
distributors or outsourcers. development knowledge that we’ve
acquired from creating our other
―The Windows Azure platform has products,‖ commented Carter.
provided us with a great environment to Flexibility of Deployment
deliver a rich product experience for our Developing Metastorm M3 on the Azure
customers and has relieved the burden of platform allows Metastorm to actually
having to manage and grow our own deliver the product three ways- via the
cloud infrastructure,‖ commented Carter. Cloud, on-premise, or on-premise as a
SaaS offering. ―With the development
Benefits route we’ve taken, we actually get to
Metastorm’s M3 software application leverage the work three times over since
running on Windows Azure benefits both we can offer the same app in three ways.
Metastorm customers and the company Only Azure provides this kind of benefit
itself. Metastorm customers now have an and return on our investment,‖ indicated
easy to use business process modeling Carter.
solution that can be utilized by a broader Easy to Manage IT Infrastructure
number of employees within the Windows Azure removes the burden of
organization. Customers can start using having to manage an IT infrastructure.
the solution immediately as there are no IT New servers can be automatically
requirements to implement the product. provisioned and up and running whenever
Since Metastorm M3 integrates with needed. The massively scalable
existing Metastorm Enterprise software environment can expand up or down
products, current customers can enhance based on need, and costs are incurred for
their productivity by extending the reach only the resources that are used.
of business process modeling to all areas Metastorm is able to focus on product
of their organization. development without having to send time
For Metastorm, M3 running on Windows and resources on managing their cloud
Azure opens new opportunities for driving infrastructure. ―We did not want to have
revenue while increasing operational to deal with spending time managing the
efficiencies. infrastructure at all. Our focus is on
Opportunities to Expand Into New making better products that improve our
Market Segments customer’s ability to run their business.
Metastorm M3 on Azure makes BPA more Thanks to Windows Azure- that’s exactly
accessible and more affordable for all sizes what we’ve been able to do,‖ stated Carter.
of companies. Smaller companies that

5. For More Information About the Microsoft Windows About Microsoft’s Software-
For more information about Microsoft Azure Platform plus-Services Strategy
products and services, call the Microsoft The Windows Azure platform offers a When you combine the ever-growing
Sales Information Center at (800) 426- flexible, familiar environment for power of devices and the increasing
9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft developers to create cloud applications ubiquity of the Web, you come up with a
Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- and services. With Windows Azure, you can sum that is greater than its parts.
2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- shorten your time to market and adapt as Software-plus-Services is that greater sum.
of-hearing can reach Microsoft text demand for your service grows. Windows It all adds up to a commitment from
telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) Azure offers a platform that is easily Microsoft to deliver ever more compelling
892-5234 in the United States or (905) implemented alongside your current opportunities and solutions to consumer
568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 environment. and business customers—and to our
United States and Canada, please contact partners.
your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access  Windows Azure: operating system as an Microsoft has vibrant businesses on the
information using the World Wide Web, online service desktop and in the enterprise, and is
go to: www.microsoft.com  Microsoft SQL Azure: fully relational making sizable investments in online
database in the cloud services and devices. As these four worlds
For more information about Metastorm  Windows Azure platform AppFabric: converge, no technology vendor is better
products and services, call (877) 321- AppFabric Service Bus gives developers positioned to deliver on the vision of
6382 or visit: http://www.metastorm.com the flexibility to choose how their Software-plus-Services. Microsoft has
applications communicate, and to multiple ways to monetize the results
address the challenges presented by through the familiar model of software
firewalls, NATs, dynamic IP, and licensing, offering services by
disparate identity systems. AppFabric subscriptions, leveraging Microsoft's
Access Control enables simple, secure industry-leading advertising platform or
authorization for RESTful web services the growing form of micro-payments
that federate with a variety of identity known as Microsoft Points. And, Microsoft
providers. has the world’s largest and most diverse
partner ecosystem, which is committed to
For more information, visit its role in our strategy.
www.microsoft.com/windowsazure
For more information visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/softwareplusser
vices/
Microsoft Software and Services
 Microsoft Windows Azure Platform  Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
 Microsoft Windows Server 2008  Microsoft Visual Studio
 Microsoft SQL Server 2008  Microsoft Silverlight
This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published May 2010