Office 2007 early adopter: Mary Kay putting together a SharePoint makeover

Mary Kay wants to be more than just another pretty face, and the company’s IT department is digging deep into Microsoft’s Office 2007 product lineup to make that happen.

The 43-year-old cosmetics company with more than $2.2 billion in annual sales in 2005 is focusing on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 to become the foundation of its content management, collaboration, search and business intelligence efforts.

MOSS is part of a family of Office-branded products that includes software, hardware and a Web conferencing service for real-time communication. The lineup includes the traditional Office applications, Office Communications Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, the Office Communicator 2007 client including a version for phones, and the Office Live Meeting 2007 Web conferencing service.

Microsoft’s intent is to provide users with a single platform for real-time communications that can be integrated with traditional desktop and network applications, mobile devices and the business processes that run across all three.

Mary Kay’s goal is to set up a corporate collaboration infrastructure with MOSS as the hub that ties together front-end Office applications, such as InfoPath forms technology, real-time communications and a Vista desktop.

MOSS also will become Mary Kay’s main content management repository and workflow engine to automate its manual business processes.

It’s a lofty endeavor, says Obe Salahuddin, senior analyst/programmer with Mary Kay, one he admits has rewards and risks.

“It just seems like Microsoft’s operating system, server, and Office groups are all getting on the same page and attempting to deliver solutions that truly complement each other. Our hope is that all this comes together so our employees can use all these components to be more efficient at what they already do.”

But with enough experience in long-term projects, Salahuddin is realistic: “Things don’t always work out perfectly, but this is our plan going forward.”

The plan began back in June when Mary Kay jumped into Microsoft’s Technology Adopter Program and began rolling out MOSS, which will be officially released to volume licensing customers Nov. 30 along with Vista and Exchange Server.