Bamboo Solutions
Awakening SharePoint's True Potential

In the online collaboration landscape of the 21st century enterprise, the role of Microsoft SharePoint cannot be overstated. Using SharePoint alone, however, does not effectively meet all the needs of users within the enterprise. Bamboo Solutions, a Virginia-based company, is on a deterministic journey to develop a complete catalog of the innovative enhancements and solutions needed for SharePoint to reach its true potential. A trusted Microsoft Partner for the past 12 years, Bamboo enjoys a close working relationship with Microsoft, providing input and feedback during the development cycle of forthcoming sharePoint versions.

“The technologies we have developed enhance SharePoint while saving our customers significant time and money.Our evolving product portfolio—ranging from components and applications to solutions and suites—provides a broad range of enhanced capabilities that enable organizations to maximize their investment in SharePoint,” says Anders Johnsson, Chairman of the Board of the SharePoint solutions provider.

Bamboo is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Reston, Virginia, with a research and technology center located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and a European sales office based in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Providing software for the management of projects, processes, knowledge, data, users and communities on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, Bamboo takes pride in what
it believes to be the most highly qualified team of SharePoint experts in the world. “Our technology center includes a staff of over 100 experienced technical professionals, nearly all of whom have been certified by Microsoft in areas including design and development, configuration, administration, and more,” says Johnsson.

With a portfolio of over 70 products, Bamboo fulfills its single-source vendor role, as organizations using Microsoft’s SharePoint platform have the ability to enhance their environments with everything

from large applications to smaller, niche feature needs.

“Today’s enterprise and government customers are increasingly looking for a single-source vendor to handle all of their third-party software needs. In addition to the bundled savings that are possible when purchasing multiple solutions from a single company, having a single relationship can streamline operations and simplify otherwise complex support hannels,” explains Johnsson.

Bamboo Solutions has been selected as a key component for SharePoint deployment by more than 8,000 organizations from around 80 countries. The list includes worldwide brands such as BMW, Ferrari, DELL, Revlon, and Pfizer. Since 2009, Bamboo has been on the GSA Schedule, and has provided trusted technology services to the U.S. Federal Government, including NASA and the USDA.

Bamboo’s success story can be encapsulated with an example from the U.S. Army, which deployed SharePoint to manage secure information, collaborate, and administer sites and projects. To augment SharePoint, the Army chose the Bamboo Ultimate Suite, an exhaustive compilation of 50 administrative, project management, and business intelligence applications, solutions, and Web Parts. One particular crowd pleaser for the Army is Bamboo’s Calendar Plus. This Web Part has helped users consolidate long-range planning from calendars previously spread across in Outlook, Excel, and the 2003 SharePoint portal into a single, user-friendly entity. It provides Gantt View chart that helps users find overlapping areas, thereby reducing the stress of allocating resources to missions that are already engaged in another event. The U.S. Army finds its color-coding feature, used for highlighting different levels of importance, to be an added advantage.

Looking ahead, Bamboo Solutions is focused on adding depth to existing solutions, giving equal importance to large applications and to both related and standalone components. The company also plans to expand mobile app offerings, adding new features in support of hybrid environments (a combination of on-premises and cloud). Bamboo is also set to expand offerings to Office 365 via new features which are currently available on-premises in existing products.