Soneri Bank signs MoU with Microsoft

Soneri Bank Limited recently entered into an agreement with Microsoft Pakistan. The ceremony took place at the Soneri Bank Central office in Karachi.The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement will enable Soneri Bank to use Microsoft Virtualization, Unified Communication, System Management, Windows client and Portal software technology.

The MoU was signed by Mr. Kamal Ahmed, CEO, Microsoft Pakistan and Mr. Mr. Aftab Manzoor, President, Soneri bank Limited.

Talking about the agreement Mr. Kamal Ahmed said,

Microsoft believes in providing custom based solutions to its customers.  This accord will not only help optimize the IT infrastructure of Soneri Bank but the software provided by Microsoft will enable the bank to achieve maximum efficiency.

Microsoft virtualization is an end-to-end strategy that can profoundly affect nearly every aspect of the IT infrastructure management lifecycle. It can drive greater efficiencies, flexibility, and cost effectiveness throughout your organization.

From accelerating application deployments; to ensuring systems, applications, and data are always available; to taking the hassle out of rebuilding and shutting down servers and desktops for testing and development; to reducing risk, slashing costs, and improving the agility of your entire environment—virtualization has the power to transform your infrastructure, from the data center to the desktop.

Soneri Bank has furtherdecided to transfer their core banking application on SQL Server 2008 and has also signed a Professional Services Agreement with Microsoft Pakistan which will help in supporting the bank to deploy and maintain the software technologies.

Mr. Aftab Manzoor, President, Soneri Bank said,

Keeping abreast with the changing financial world and meeting the banking needsof our customers, effectively and efficiently, is very important to Soneri Bank. Through an integrated IT infrastructure that Microsoft is developing for us, we will be able to deploy, manage and help secure timely solutions for our clients.

With fewer servers to manage, the IT staff is saving time throughout the day. For example, the task of matching virtual machines to storage volumes takes one to two hours less each day than previous server virtualization technologies required. Provisioning a new virtual machine also takes dramatically less time—minutes versus hours—than provisioning a physical server.

The Microsoft CTM account team and their partner Premier Systems (Pvt) Limited has worked closely with Soneri Bank’s IT team led by Mr. Haider Devjianie, Executive Vice President,to discuss and understand bank’s needs.

Syed Arshad Raza, CEO,Premier Systems (Pvt) Limited, said,

Understanding the specific needs of the customerand catering to their software requirements accordingly is the key. Together with Microsoft we will be able to provide better solutions to Soneri Bank leading to total customer satisfaction.