Project Leadership Associates Honored as Microsoft Central Region Partner Award Winner

April 26, 2011 - PRLog -- Chicago, IL - Project Leadership Associates (PLA) announced it has won the Compete to Win Award as part of Microsoft’s H1 Central Region Partner Awards Program. The company was chosen out of an extensive field of Microsoft partners for delivering market-leading customer solutions built on Microsoft technology.

The Microsoft Partner Program Awards recognize Microsoft Partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year. This award recognizes key competitive wins achieved by partners who understand their customers’ business and consistently demonstrate value.

A key aspect that led Microsoft to select PLA for the “Compete to Win” award was a Microsoft Lync Voice solution PLA designed and delivered for Organic Valley. Organic Valley, a Microsoft Corporate Account based in Wisconsin was looking at competing voice solutions and selected Microsoft due to the business value that Microsoft Lync delivered. With the help of PLA, Organic Valley adopted a Microsoft unified communications solution with PBX functionality. Organic Valley now has the long-term scalability it sought at half the cost of the traditional PBX.

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 ushers in a new connected experience transforming every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative, engaging and accessible from anywhere. A single interface unites voice, IM, audio-, video-, and web-conferencing into a richer, more contextual offering. This includes a visually compelling experience that is consistent throughout Microsoft Office and other business applications, including color-coded presence icons, pictures, high-resolution video and desktop sharing.

“PLA is honored to win another award from Microsoft for our Communication and Collaboration solutions.  We pride ourselves in delivering UC solutions that meet our customers’ needs for collaboration and telephony replacement. This engagement is another example that Microsoft Lync 2010 can fully replace PBX solutions in the marketplace and compete head to head with competitors like Cisco and Avaya,” said Don Penland, Partner and National Solution Group Leader for Project Leadership Associates.

Microsoft Lync 2010 Solutions
PLA designs and deploys a full portfolio of Unified Communications (UC) solutions including infrastructure, messaging, telephony integration and replacement, contact center recommendation and deployment, desktop and video conferencing solutions with Polycom and communication enabled business process development and customer solutions.  PLA has several fixed fee Lync Jumpstarts that can be used to allow a customer to pilot these solutions in their production environment at a low cost. PLA also offers an exclusive Microsoft Lync On-Demand hosted solution that allows a customer to absorb these solutions on a per user, per month cost basis.

More information about PLA’s Microsoft Lync solution offerings can be found at www.projectleadership.net or contact Don Penland at (312) 441-1953 or email dpenland@projectleadership.net.

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About Project Leadership Associates, Inc.
Project Leadership Associates is a business and technology consulting firm that empowers small, middle market and enterprise organizations with services across four core solution groups: 1) Strategy & Execution; 2) Business Operations; 3) Applications and 4) Infrastructure. PLA has been consistently ranked among Inc. Magazine’s Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America, Crain's Chicago Business’s Fast 50 and Everything Channel's CRN Fast Growth 100 List as an annual recognition of growth, performance, and maintaining profitability since its founding in 1998. In 2010, PLA earned Microsoft Corporation’s Central Region FY10 Business Excellence Partner Award. With headquarters in Chicago and branch offices in Houston, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco, PLA is uniquely poised to offer a broad array of solutions that work collaboratively with clients to help them realize substantial results.