Atos Origin Collaborates with Microsoft on Visual Studio 2005 Team System

Business Wire, July 5, 2005

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands & ORLANDO, Fla. -- Atos Origin today announced it will work with Microsoft Corp. to provide its customers with an integrated environment for the development of high quality, productive and innovative software applications. Atos Origin will use Microsoft's upcoming Visual Studio 2005 Team System as an integral part of its Impress Solution - a programme targeted at the development and improvement of software processes. Visual Studio Team System enables projects to be given clear and unambiguous structures within a team- and project-oriented environment.

This means that customers are able to use high quality tools for the effective management of all phases of development - from design and realisation through to testing the applications. Combining Visual Studio Team System with Impress also enables the organisational and human aspects of software development to be managed effectively. Together with Microsoft, Atos Origin will focus on the development and supply of these solutions.

As well as tools for application development, Visual Studio Team System provides teamwork support, process monitoring and process control, project management and software configuration control. Teams using the system are able to work together effectively and control the development process better. Atos Origin's Impress Solution adds process-oriented and organisational layers to this, so that the entire spectrum of software development can be handled within a single, clearly-defined environment.

Impress offers its customers the option of setting up a Software Maintenance & Development Centre for development and a Requirements Definition Centre for determining the technical and organisational demands. Additionally, Impress provides an Application Lifecycle Test Centre. This makes it possible to integrate people, organisation, processes and tools within a single, standardised, high quality environment.

Important innovation

"We recognize that the Visual Studio Team System from Microsoft is an important innovation in the field of application development for the coming years. Thanks to the combination of Visual Studio Team System and Impress, we are able to expand substantially the portfolio of services we offer. This means that our customers get the best functionality and technology, with the best delivery processes" says Pieter Buijs, Chief Technology Officer at Atos Origin.

"We are impressed by the efforts that Atos Origin has put into combining the strength of our Visual Studio Team System with its Impress services. This powerful combination gives us the opportunity to provide our customers with a significant advantage in the development of large-scale business applications based on Visual Studio 2005," concludes Rick LaPlante, general manager of Visual Studio 2005 Team System at Microsoft.

TechEd 2005 Europe is one of Microsoft's largest annual conference for providing IT professionals and developers with technical training, information and resources to build, deploy and manage solutions with currently shipping and near-term Microsoft technologies. TechEd Europe takes place in Amsterdam from 5 - 8 July 2005.

About Atos Origin

Atos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company's annual revenues are more than EUR 5 billion and it employs over 46,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, AtosEuronext, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting. For more information, please visit: www.atosorigin.com

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