Microsoft Corp. Press Release

REDMOND, Wash., April 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Microsoft Corp.
today announced that Chicago-based uBid, which helps sellers and
manufacturers liquidate excess inventory, has chosen Microsoft Dynamics AX
4.0 with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to replace both its Oracle
E-Business Suite enterprise resource planning system and its Siebel CRM
software. uBid, which operates uBid.com as well as live auctions and other
channels, anticipates that Microsoft Dynamics solutions will enable it to
create efficiencies in its IT platform specifically by supporting hardware,
operating systems and databases, while reducing hiring needs.

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Microsoft Dynamics AX is an adaptable business management solution that
provides powerful, role-based industry-specific functionality for midsize
and larger organizations and makes it easy to do business across locations
and countries. Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides powerful, role-based
customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities through online,
on-premise or partner-hosted deployment models.

uBid selected international Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Columbus
IT to implement Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 to handle back-end transactions
for e-commerce and integrate it with uBid’s current custom-built,
Microsoft-based e-commerce engine and Microsoft SQL Server. Microsoft CRM
Online will provide contact management for uBid’s call center, replacing a
Siebel solution, and will be integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics AX
solution. Credit card management software also will be integrated into the
system.

“uBid was looking for a partner that would offer some synergies with
its own staff,” said Ed Crawford, senior account executive at Columbus IT.
“We have involved our professional services team at every step to provide
the appropriate functionality and flexibility for uBid within Microsoft
Dynamics AX.”

Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 will allow uBid for the first time to
separate out financials across its three legal entities and its holding
company into separate general ledgers and to enjoy the benefits of
forecasting. The new technology will make it easier for uBid to handle
international shipping and varying vendor commission structures, and will
automatically sort out taxation that applies differently to a variety of
vendors. Microsoft Dynamics AX users can also access all the data and
reports over the Internet, taking advantage of Microsoft SharePoint
Services.

The Microsoft solution will offer a number of other specific benefits
to help uBid grow efficiently:

— Cost savings. uBid anticipates it will reduce its hardware costs with
its Microsoft solutions and will be able to keep its IT head count from
growing because it will need far less support for its new technology.
— Market expansion and revenue improvement. Microsoft Dynamics AX enables
uBid to sign up more and larger suppliers that want to integrate with
its systems. Large sellers, including major retailers, will be able to
post their excess inventory for sale on the uBid auction site in a much
more direct fashion. uBid will receive more inventory that it can move
out into its channels.
— Time savings. The company now can get data into the hands of business
users in real time, and orders to its warehouse and supply chain will
move much more rapidly than with its previous batch system of releasing
orders. Because Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online
use the familiar Microsoft Office interface, the learning curve for new
employees will be much shorter than before, so the growing company can
bring employees on board faster. Also, the turnaround time on new
projects will be quicker because the uBid IT staff is accustomed to
working with Microsoft development tools.
— Accuracy of data. Microsoft CRM Online will eliminate multiple entries
of the same data because it is tightly integrated into the Microsoft
Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. The company no
longer will need a technological bridge between two types of systems
and can enter data just once to record it in both areas.
— Better reporting. The company never before had the ability to organize
data by various lines of business, other than through tedious manual
processes. Now information can be sorted in many different ways and
will be available through Microsoft SharePoint Services to
decision-makers. The improved reporting also will allow real-time sales
forecasting for the first time.
— Companywide integration. uBid expects business issues to be resolved
more efficiently because Microsoft Dynamics AX enables people to
collaborate better than the previous system did. Everyone will be
looking at the same key performance indicators. Also, instead of
uBid.com’s listings, photos and other elements being housed in multiple
databases, they all can reside in Microsoft Dynamics AX, reducing
errors and maintenance and easing the listing process.
— International transactions. Right out of the box, Microsoft Dynamics AX
4.0 handles the conversion of currency automatically.
— Improved compliance. As a public company, uBid will benefit from the
ability to separate its roles and ensure that permissions are set
appropriately, tasks that were difficult to do with its earlier
technology.
— IT support. The entire infrastructure will operate in object-oriented
language that all the company’s programmers can understand. No longer
will uBid need to hire expensive niche specialists to deal with
different system issues.

“By consolidating our operating systems, applications and developer
tools with Microsoft, we gain a lower total cost of ownership, because we
can leverage the same developer knowledge base and skill set across our Web
platform, ERP and CRM,” said Amy Powers, vice president of Technology at
uBid.

Powers noted that the extensibility of Microsoft Dynamics AX has drawn
particular interest from her IT staff, who are mimicking some of the design
patterns in that solution to revise its own customized programs.

“Increasingly, businesses like uBid are finding far-reaching benefits
in adopting a new generation of business solutions to provide the speed,
visibility and flexibility they require in a rapidly evolving marketplace,”
said Michael Park, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s U.S. Dynamics
business. “Microsoft Dynamics AX is designed to integrate and automate the
gathering and distribution of information, helping organizations stay ahead
of the marketplace and see around the bends in the road ahead.”