Tomoye Becomes Microsoft Certified Partner, Achieves ISV/Software Solutions Competency

June 21, 2006

Tomoye Community of Practice solutions extend value of offerings of Microsoft Office System and SharePoint

Tomoye, the Community of Practice Company, today announced that it has achieved Microsoft Certified Partner status with an ISV/Software Solutions Competency, which certifies Tomoye Ecco to run on Microsoft-based infrastructure. Tomoye community of practice solutions enable organizations to integrate and extend existing investments in Microsoft productivity and collaboration tools including the Microsoft Office System and Windows SharePoint Portal Server. The company's latest offering, Tomoye Ecco was developed on the .NET platform to ensure rapid integration with Microsoft-based solutions.

According to leading industry firms, the collaboration market is set to reach a value of over $1 billion USD by 2008. As project teams increasingly work together using productivity and collaboration tools, often the valuable intellectual property - people, knowledge and conversations - associated with these project team efforts are lost. Without access to organizational best practices and knowledge, team members are left working without the benefit of this information, which impacts overall organizational productivity and efficiency.

A Tomoye community of practice enables organizations to leverage the intelligence gathered from collaboration by capturing the critical context around the work and decisions of the project team. This context is then stored in a place where people who trust each other and who are passionate about that practice can steward and build on that knowledge for the long-term benefit of the organization.

The Microsoft ISV/Software Solutions Competency recognizes the skill and focus technology partners bring to a particular solution set. To achieve ISV/Software Solutions Competency, vendors undergo a testing process to ensure solutions can be easily integrated with Microsoft-based infrastructure. Now, customers have the power to quickly extend their existing infrastructure including the Microsoft Office System, SharePoint Portal Server, and SharePoint Team Services.

"The reason why Microsoft Certified Partner status is a symbol of excellence is due to the hard work and dedication of valuable technology partners like Tomoye," said Lora Gernon, Director of Partner Marketing, Microsoft Canada Co. "The extension of valuable resources and early access to Microsoft-based technology help to further define technology partners as leaders in their respective industries, and today we are happy to welcome Tomoye as a new Microsoft Certified Partner."

The Tomoye Approach to Communities of Practice

The Tomoye approach to community of practice is based on a proven understanding of actual community leader and users' needs, and provides the processes and tools that make communities of practice successful. This unique insight is based on the company's work with large corporations and government organizations worldwide and the hundreds of thousands of people using communities of practice within those organizations.

With a Tomoye community of practice, organizations apply the social architecture of communities - i.e. trusted professional relationships where there is a natural willingness to share and collaborate - to promote a culture of sharing across functional units in the organization and external boundaries, and create a professional environment where people learn from their colleague's challenges and successes.

"The opportunity for close integration of Tomoye technology with existing Microsoft-based productivity and collaboration tools provides enterprises with a unique opportunity to leverage their existing infrastructure investments," said Eric Sauve, Co-Founder and CEO, Tomoye. "Communities of practice enable organizations to increase overall productivity, promote teamwork and achieve cost savings through the creation and application of information. The use of Tomoye software by hundreds of thousands of people around the world serves as a testament to the social and organizational benefits that result from leveraging that information for long-term sustainable results."

The business benefits of Tomoye community of practice solutions include:

• Increased Productivity: Organizations using a Tomoye community of practice are able to increase overall productivity by leveraging trusted professional relationships and trusted knowledge.
• Stronger Organizational Communication: The creation of a sharing environment between trusted peers facilitates stronger organizational communication, as well as increased organizational use of best practices, which significantly contributes to stronger overall excellence and professionalism.
• Agility and Efficiency: By capturing valuable intellectual property of experts within the organization, employees have the information they require to efficiently make critical business decisions and respond quickly to new issues.
• Stability: Communities of practice foster knowledge generation and professional development contributing to stability within the organization.