OREANDA-NEWS. On July 22, 2008 As was informed by the Bank press service.

Ukrsotsbank signed a strategic agreement with the Microsoft Corporation. The subject of the treaty was an agreement on the use of Microsoft products for building and optimizing distributed IT-infrastructure of the Bank within the frameworks of the Enterprise Agreement corporate licensing program.

"For Ukrsotsbank as part of UniCredit financial group use of modern and exclusively licensed software is a principled and strategically important step. We are confident that Microsoft's products will enable our bank to build the best IT-infrastructure that supports the dynamic development of our bank. Also, we pay special attention to issues of information security and data security - in fact today it is not a secret that only a genuine, licensed software provides a high level of information security guaranty", - said Gianni F. Papa, First Deputy Chairman of Ukrsotsbank.

The agreement signed by the heads of companies intends the acquisition of licensing software products from Microsoft for all jobs in the bank throughout the territory of Ukraine.

As pointed out Serhiy Popov, Director of the Ukrsotsbank Informatization Center, with the help of Microsoft software usage in the bank we plan to solve the following tasks:

Reduce total cost of ownership of IT-infrastructure of the bank through the standardization and consolidation of such key services as directory services, management of workstations, monitoring, etc.

Significantly increase productivity of the bank employees through introduction of advanced systems of team work.

Build integrated system of active and proactive monitoring of the bank infrastructure.

Optimize IT-infrastructure of the bank to meet current and future business needs of the bank.

Reduce the burden on the distributed technical support specialists of IT-infrastructure and avoid staff expanding with an increase in the number of jobs.

Optimize the financial burden on the Bank through dividing the sum of payment for 3 years in accordance with the terms of Microsoft Enterprise Agreement.

Dmitry Shimkiv, director of Microsoft Ukraine corporate clients servicing company, said: "The strategic cooperation within the framework of the project is a very important event for the Microsoft Ukraine Company. By signing this agreement, Ukrsotsbank demonstrated its commitment to the principles of openness and transparency of business, in full accordance with the Ukrainian and international legislation, including in the field of copyright protection. We are very pleased that the brand new elaborations based on Microsoft products technology will be realized in one of the largest banks in Ukraine which will make the bank work more efficient, productive and balanced".