Small Ad Agency Expects to Cut Project Time
in Half and Accommodate Business Growth
Customer: Chemistry Advertising
Web Site:
www.chemistryadvertising.com
Customer Size: 5 employees
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Advertising
Partner: InfiNet Solutions
Partner Web Site: www.inetomaha.com
Customer Profile
Chemistry Advertising is a small
Midwestern advertising agency. It
produces a range of communications,
including television advertisements and
redesigned Web sites, for dozens of local
and regional customers.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Windows Server 2008 R2
Foundation
Hardware
 Dell PowerEdge T105 server computer
For more information about other
Microsoft customer successes, please
visit:
www.microsoft.com/casestudies
“We are experiencing major growth right now, with
more customers and work to contend with, and
we’re counting on Windows Server 2008 R2
Foundation to help us handle that growth
effectively.”
Thor Rosenquist, Creative Director, Chemistry Advertising
As a small advertising agency, Nebraska-based Chemistry
Advertising struggled to manage customer projects because it
lacked a centralized file storage system. To address that issue, the
agency implemented Windows Server® 2008 R2 Foundation. The
company now has an easy-to-manage system that helps
employees to better organize and collaborate on projects. As a
result, it expects to complete projects in half the time and to more
easily accommodate business growth.
Business Needs
Chemistry Advertising is a regional
advertising agency located in Omaha,
Nebraska. The five-person company
creates television and print advertisements
and develops Web sites for customers that
range from regional pharmaceutical
companies to local restaurants.
other custom graphics. But it was difficult
to use and store such files because the
company had only five client computers
and no central server computer. Those
computers were linked together with a
Linksys wireless network router, with no
redundant disk drives or automated
backup system.
For a typical project, Chemistry employees
need to work on large computer files
containing full-color, high-resolution
images with hundreds of photographs and
“We routinely work with 50-gigabyte files,
but we had no central place to store
them,” says Thor Rosenquist, Creative
Director, Chemistry Advertising. “We
would often resort to sending files back and
forth to each other in e-mail messages or
saving them on our individual computers.”
As a result, Chemistry Advertising had no
real way of efficiently organizing customer
projects. “Any project we do requires
different folders and subfolders, and it
became incredibly time-consuming to keep
track of updated files without a central file
system,” says Rosenquist.
Chemistry employees also spent valuable
time trying to resolve IT issues. “We had a
very fragile system,” states Rosenquist. “One
day last year, our disk drive went down and
we nearly lost some customer files. To lose
original files that belong to our customers
was a potentially huge risk that was
unacceptable. We knew right then that we
had to improve things.”
Implementing a new solution was especially
urgent because the agency had been
experiencing rapid business growth. “We
were getting some new customers and our
work was increasing,” Rosenquist says. “We
had to solve our problems—and in a costeffective way.”
Solution
In September 2009, Chemistry Advertising
began working with InfiNet Solutions, an
Omaha-based Microsoft® Gold Certified
Partner that provides IT solutions to small
and midsize businesses. “At first, InfiNet
helped us with some basic technical
support,” says Rosenquist. “Along the way,
they suggested a new solution that seemed
interesting.”
That solution was the Windows Server®
2008 R2 Foundation operating system,
which provides companies with a core
portfolio of IT capabilities such as file and
print sharing and remote access. It is
delivered preinstalled on brand-name server
hardware and is designed for fast, easy
deployment.
to conduct its business in a highly
organized fashion. “Now, if I’m working
on a television advertisement, I just need
to save it to the central server,” says
Rosenquist. “One of our writers or
designers can then go to that same file
and work on it in the same place, and
add new things to it.” The centrally
managed networked infrastructure has
boosted the agency’s productivity
overall. “We are much more efficient
now,” he says. “We no longer have the
frustration of trying to locate updated
project files or having to deal with disk
drives going down. Windows Server
2008 R2 Foundation gives us a
trustworthy system that simply
transforms the way we do business
here.”
“Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation was
the perfect fit for us,” Rosenquist says. “It
was cost-effective, and InfiNet was able to
implement it in less than a day, so we
could start using it immediately.”
InfiNet connected the five computers at
Chemistry Advertising in a local area
network managed from one central Dell
PowerEdge T105 server computer. With
this system in place, all five of the agency’s
employees can easily store and share
customer project files, such as Web sites
and print advertisements, in a central
system. “Our biggest challenge was our
lack of a centralized data storage system,
and this solution solved that problem,”
says Rosenquist.
Benefits
With Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation,
Chemistry Advertising has an easy-tomanage system that improves employees’
ability to organize files. The agency
expects to reduce the time it spends on
projects by half and to better handle new
business.

Eases management. Windows Server
2008 R2 Foundation gives Chemistry
Advertising a new operating system that
is simple to manage. “We don't have an
IT person here, and none of us are
technical people, so we needed
something that we could manage easily.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation
gives us that,” says Rosenquist. “It's very
reliable, so we don’t even have to worry
about the system going down and
losing files. It is exactly what we were
searching for.”

Improves efficiency. The solution
greatly improves the company’s ability

Saves time, increases business agility.
With a better-organized working
environment, Chemistry Advertising is
able to save time previously spent on
inefficient processes and technical
problems. “We’re going to save
probably 5–10 hours every week,
because we can collaborate better as a
team with this solution,” Rosenquist
states. “If we can complete our projects
in half the time it used to take, that
means we can accomplish twice as much
work.” Ultimately, having more time will
lead to more business for the agency.
Rosenquist says, “We are experiencing
major growth right now, with more
customers and work to contend with,
and we’re counting on Windows Server
2008 R2 Foundation to help us handle
that growth effectively.”
Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation
Proven and reliable technology that
provides a foundation to run the most
popular business applications, Windows
Server Foundation is easy on customer
budgets while providing a core portfolio of
IT resources, including file and print sharing,
remote access, and security. Acting as the
heart of a true local area network, Windows
Server Foundation increases employee
productivity and helps secure day-to-day
data exchange by reducing Internet
dependency. It also helps you manage your
employees through an easy-to-use and
familiar Windows experience. Windows
Server Foundation can grow along with
your business, making it easy to upgrade to
versions of Windows Server with more
capabilities when you need them. Readily
available skilled IT talent, compatibility with
most hardware devices, and the peace of
mind gained from running a genuine
Windows Server operating system help you
achieve the highest return on investment.
For more information, go to:
www.microsoft.com/windowsserverfoundati
on
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2009