Toronto – Next year’s World Police & Fire Games event, which will be held in more than forty different venues across British Columbia, is expecting well over 30,000 attendees during the 10-day international sporting competition beginning July 31st.
In an effort to keep its thousands of individuals connected, World Police and Fire Games turned to TELUS Business Solutions to implement a unified communications (UC) technology solution using Windows Mobile-based and BlackBerry handheld devices together with the Microsoft technology platform.
The World Police & Fire Games event, held once every two years, was established in 1985 by the non-profit organization, World Police and Fire Games Foundation. The event brings together athletes from across the globe who work as police officers, firefighters and customs and correction officers, to compete in over 65 different sporting events from July 31-August 9, 2009.
Don Hardman, vice-president and general manager of sport and venue for the 2009 World Police & Fire Games, said with 10,000-plus athletes, 20,000-plus visitors, 3,000 volunteers, plus World Police & Fire Games office staff expected to attend the 2009 event, the company needed an easy-to use, turnkey solution that would allow efficient collaboration and communication amongst its participants both during the preparation of and during the games themselves.
“When the games start we’ll go from one location in Burnaby, B.C., to 40-plus locations spread throughout the lower mainland of B.C.,” Hardman said. “We were looking for an easy solution that could scale with us as we grow our operations.”
World Police & Fire Games, Hardman says, has been working with Telus, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, for the past four years, and is leveraging off of the long-time Telus-Microsoft partnership for its UC solution. The partnership between Telus and Microsoft spans back to 2001 and enables various handheld devices to support a vast array of Microsoft applications.
Sean Seaton, director of communications sector at Microsoft Canada, said when it comes to mobility, the demand for mobile data services is still relatively untapped in the Canadian market today.
“Businesses are constantly looking for new ways to strengthen their established models today,” Seaton said.
“Canadian SMBs want more profitability and productivity and they look at cost and usability too. For those small businesses that sign up for a service based offering from Telus using Microsoft applications, they’ll almost immediately see productivity benefits,” he added.
World Police & Fire Games ended up deciding on a solution that’s built on the .Net platform to help create a seamless registration process for its athletes. Brent Douziech, vice-president of new products at Telus, said the company is the exclusive sponsor for the World Police & Fire Games and is working with them on all of their UC needs.
“We’re supporting their voice, data, Internet services, development and hosting of their Web site,” Douziech said. “We’re working closely with Microsoft to help deliver on these collaboration aspects for the games.”
In addition to creating a registration Web site, Hardman said World Police & Fire Games is also using Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft hosted Exchange services for collaboration and integration planning purposes. To help store its data, Hardman said the company is using Microsoft SQL Server 2005.
The end result, Hardman said, is a very user-friendly system that allows for athletes to easily register themselves online where payments can also be processed for the events.
“As we continue to grow both in numbers and in our footprint of operations, communication becomes very key,” Hardman said. “We’re also using Microsoft Office Live Meeting to enable real-time communications for our various sport and venue teams and for our outside clients to communicate with one another.”
Douziech said Telus’ recent announcement that SMBs can now access their e-mail, contacts and calendars by simply using their voice and their Windows Mobile-powered or BlackBerry handheld device now leads to further business options. World Police & Fire Games, he said, is a perfect example of a small business utilizing this solution.
Using Microsoft Exchange 2007, World Police & Fire Games is able to use Outlook Voice Access with a phone line or handheld device to access their mailbox to hear, forward and dictate e-mails, as well as manage contacts and calendar appointments. Once the games begin, Douziech said there will be anywhere between 300-500 mobile devices out on the field using this technology.
Douziech said through the Telus-Microsoft partnership, Telus has been able to bring more awareness to UC solutions using Microsoft technologies.
“Partnerships are key for us in spreading awareness to show what types of tools can help smaller businesses make faster decisions and raise customer service levels,” he said.
Seaton also says by way of UC solutions, Microsoft sees huge opportunities for its other partners who also deal in this space as well.
“We see great opportunities for our partners to help emerging Canadian businesses take advantage of UC solutions,” Seaton said. “Microsoft must continue to make this technology accessible, easy to understand and flexible so that the technology can grow in the SMB space,” he added. “At Microsoft, we’re committed to offering our customers the power of choice.”
