Press Releases and News Articles

The Company:
Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. With 466 global sites and over 61,000 employees, Microsoft’s revenues exceeded $39 billion in 2005.

Challenges & Project Goals:
Microsoft’s vast library of End User License agreements is vital to its global business operations. Each agreement must be accurate, up to date, legally approved, relevant for each product and available in multiple languages. Like many legal departments, Microsoft’s Legal and Corporate Affairs team used a manual process to draft, translate and store their product license terms. This resulted in a large legal team taking time to identify the appropriate contract terms for each license, draft the agreement in English and then translate into local languages.

To maximize the performance of its legal team and to streamline the contract lifecycle, Microsoft decided to automate the document assembly process. Initially, they considered building their own solution based on a database of clauses and programs to control the assembly of clauses into an agreement. However, the high costs of development and extensive IT testing led them to evaluate the commercially available online document assembly products instead.

Microsoft searched the marketplace for a product that would:
• Integrate seamlessly and consistently with Microsoft
• technologies, including SharePoint
• Dynamically generate new agreements from within
• Microsoft Word
• Utilize a familiar, easy to use, browser-based interface
• Use familiar legal terms and mark-up notation
• Have a proven track record with global law firms and
• corporate legal departments

The DealBuilder Solution:
Microsoft selected the leading document assembly product, DealBuilder from Business Integrity, for its outstanding ability to fulfill all the project’s requirements. DealBuilder has transformed the way Microsoft’s lawyers create complex new agreements.

Instead of users searching, cutting, pasting and editing old documents to create a new version, DealBuilder presents a browser-based questionnaire. Once completed, the system automatically generates the required document using Microsoft-approved content.

DealBuilder records and captures the business information enshrined in each document. The contract ‘metadata’ can then be analyzed and made available to other information systems, enabling the Legal & Corporate Affairs department to build sophisticated contract processes. License agreements are automatically produced and analyzed to ensure compliance, with exceptions being picked out for further legal review and scrutiny.

DealBuilder utilizes the most recent version of Microsoft Word, enabling users to work with familiar technology. Close integration with both Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft SharePoint enables the department to seamlessly and intelligently connect its users, teams and knowledge. Now lawyers can take advantage of the relevant contract information across business processes to help them work more efficiently.

Benefits:
DealBuilder has proved essential to the high - performing Legal & Corporate Affairs department. The turnaround time for creating complex contracts has been reduced to a fraction of the time previously required. Agreements are accurate, consistent and meet Microsoft’s strict compliance guidelines.

The close integration between DealBuilder and Microsoft SharePoint has not only created efficiencies for the legal team, it has also driven improved customer satisfaction.

Software license agreements can be complex and difficult to understand. Customers were frustrated with inconsistent provisions across the family of software products. By using this automated process, the legal team can create agreements that are pre-approved, prelocalized, and consistent across products.

Choosing an out-of-the-box solution has also saved considerable development and testing costs. Lawyers can create and maintain the automated agreements without the need to involve programmers. A new version of each automated license is running almost as soon as a lawyer has made a change, without the need for extensive IT testing; a huge advantage in a fast moving business like Microsoft.

DealBuilder and Microsoft Solutions:
Microsoft’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Department has improved the service to its global businesses by enabling lawyers to create better, faster, and cheaper license agreements.

DealBuilder is a key piece of Microsoft’s contract lifecycle, delivering innovative, world class assembly products and processes.