Business news

BackOffice Server 4.5 will include several new features to simplify the deployment and management of computer server software. Using Microsoft_s BackOffice server has enabled Antelope Valley Hospital, a 355-bed facility located in Lancaster, Calif., to reduce the costs of day-to-day operations such as managing patient records and scheduling operating rooms. "BackOffice Server allows us to reliably deploy very complex applications on a single system," said Ash Shehata, director of information systems at Antelope Valley Hospital. "This has allowed us to reduce our support costs by more than 20 percent with little or no downtime." Many other organizations are using BackOffice Server as a branch office standard. More than half of all Fortune 200 companies currently use the product, as do 45 of 50 state governments in the U.S. and all cabinet-level federal agencies.