1. Microsoft Government
Customer Solution Case Study
City Government Increases Mobile Worker
Productivity with Cloud-Based Solution
Customer: City of Barcelona
Website: www.bcn.cat/en/ihome.htm
“Launching this service in the cloud has enabled us to
Customer Size: 12,000 employees position the City of Barcelona as a strategic meeting
Country or Region: Spain
Industry: Government point in Europe.”
Francisco Rodriguez, Director of Telecommunications, City of Barcelona
Customer Profile
The City of Barcelona, the second largest The City of Barcelona wanted to make it easy for mobile workers
city in Spain, provides numerous services to find “third places” in the city—that is, suitable places to work
to its 1.6 million residents, including city
management, security, environmental, with wireless connectivity, quiet environments, and resources
welfare, and cultural services. such as printers. To achieve its goal, the city launched a web-
Partner Profile based portal recommended by the Microsoft Innovation Center
The Microsoft Innovation Center for for Productivity that helps mobile professionals find the highest-
Productivity helps companies increase
productivity through a better use of rated coffee shops, hotels, and other places to work depending
technology. on their specific location and needs.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Visual Studio Business Needs With the dual goal of helping businesses
− Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 The City of Barcelona, the second largest be more productive and drawing more
Premium city in Spain, serves more than 1.6 million visitors to the city, Barcelona city officials
− Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft inhabitants. About half of these people are and the Microsoft Innovation Center for
Visual Studio employed in and around Barcelona, with Productivity (MIC Productivity) decided to
 Windows Azure Platform many working remotely at least some of launch a portal aimed at helping mobile
− Windows Azure the time, such as in between meetings and workers find ideal locations to work no
− Microsoft SQL Azure while on-the-go. In addition, the city draws matter where they are in the city. The
 Technologies about 6.5 million visitors each year. portal—to be called “Third Place”
− Bing Maps Thousands of these visitors are business (www.findthirdplace.com) in reference to a
people who come to Barcelona to attend third place of work after the office and
For more information about other professional conferences, in part, because home—would offer helpful information
Microsoft customer successes, please visit: of the city’s reputation for IT excellence. about remote work locations, such as the
www.microsoft.com/casestudies

2. noise environment and the availability of In addition, the portal uses Bing Maps to scaled to offer users a seamless
tables, computer outlets, meeting rooms, show users the highest-rated spots and experience, even during peak demand
and printers. The goal for this portal was to how to find them. “By using the Bing Maps times. “Windows Azure lets you adjust
be able to enter feedback about various platform, we were able to support all the resources dynamically, ensuring that the
workspaces, such as coffee shops, hotels, standards and APIs [application system response will be fast, regardless of
airports, and public facilities. In addition, programming interfaces] needed to demand,” Llobera says.
this portal would provide applications that quickly get the portal up and running,”
could be downloaded to mobile devices, says Xavier Llobera, Business Development Increased Worker Productivity
articles about telecommuting, and tips for Manager at the Microsoft Innovation Perhaps most important, the City of
those entering this new way of working. Center for Productivity. “Additionally, Bing Barcelona has increased productivity—
allows us to rapidly launch new Third Place both for residents and tourists working in
To showcase its IT excellence, the City of portals focused on other cities anywhere in third places. This, in turn, has enabled the
Barcelona wanted to have the portal in the world.” city to better serve its citizens, while
place by February 2010, when it was to host expanding the city’s reputation as a
the Mobile World Congress. However, the Benefits premiere location for business
portal would need to be launched quickly as Basing its Third Place portal on the conferences.
the convention was just eight weeks away. Windows Azure platform enabled MIC
“It was important to us to have the service Productivity to get the portal up and “Various studies have demonstrated the
available before our city would be visited by running very quickly for the City of positive impact mobile working has on a
a huge number of professionals who have Barcelona. The platform makes it possible company—reduced time lost in travel,
mobility as a main priority,” says Francisco to easily scale as user demand grows, improved customer service, fewer
Rodriguez, Director of Telecommunications while increasing mobile worker and tourist greenhouse gas emissions, increased
for the City of Barcelona. productivity. productivity, better work-life balance,” says
Rodriguez. “Launching this service in the
Solution Fast Time-to-Market cloud has enabled us to position the City
MIC Productivity, experts in helping Launching the cloud-based portal on the of Barcelona as a strategic meeting point
businesses and public administrators Windows Azure platform took just six in Europe.”
increase productivity, helped the City of weeks, about half the three months it
Barcelona by implementing the portal and would have taken if the City of Barcelona Given the portal’s success in Barcelona,
adding data about places to work around purchased and configured its own servers, MIC Productivity has already launched the
the city. according to Llobera. “With Windows solution in other Spanish cities, and plans
Azure, the infrastructure was already up to expand the portal to other parts of
MIC Productivity built the portal on the and running in the cloud,” he says. “The Europe in the future. “Professionals are
Windows Azure platform and hosted within city simply had to add its own data, which spending more and more time working in
Microsoft data centers. It also used the was much faster than implementing a locations other than the home or office,”
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium portal using traditional, store-bought says Llobera. “Ultimately, we believe this
development system and Windows Azure servers.” portal will prove a useful tool for many
Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio to create a cities that seek to boost the competitive
cloud-based web portal that could easily Rapid Scalability advantage of companies in their
scale. Microsoft SQL Azure serves as the As more people have learned about Third jurisdictions.”
portal’s database, storing information about Place, its use has grown, with the portal’s
each work location as well as users’ greatest popularity occurring between 9:00
comments. A.M. and 3:00 P.M. (09:00 to 15:00).
Because the solution is hosted on the
Windows Azure platform, it can be easily
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS
SUMMARY.
Document published May 2011