News & Events

imason in the news with Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Launch Event

Stephen Kearns — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:13:00 GMT

Jeff Dunmall, co-CEO and Stephen Kearns, Principal Consultant recently participated as Partners in the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview Launch Event.

First a little terminology – the Technical Preview is an “engineering milestone” indicating that product development has been substantially completed such that Microsoft is ready to start showing it off and generating excitement about the new product. However, it’s not showing up in a shrink-wrapped package just yet.

Jeff, participating from the World-Wide Partner Conference in New Orleans was quoted in IT Business:

“Customers are coming to us and telling us they want to get involved with Office 2010. That's unusual. We normally enter a proactive sales approach with new releases. We have to talk to customers about the benefits and differentiators and that gets the customers engaged. With Office 2010, they're already excited about it,” Dunmall said.
This wasn't the case for Office 2007, Dunmall said. Customers hesitated on Office 2007, but for Office 2010 it has turned into enthusiasm.” [1]

Stephen, participating in Toronto at the Microsoft Canada launch event was quoted in IT World Canada and IT Business respectively:

Microsoft partners at the event said extending the ribbon interface marks a commitment to continuing to include the context-sensitive GUI in future versions of Office. In the words of Stephen Kearns of imason Inc., "It's not going away." [2]

Office has long been the predominant productivity suite for enterprise and home-based users but the release of a collaborative platform is a "game changer," according to Stephen Kearns of iMason Inc. [4]

Curious to see what some of the new features look like? Check out the gallery hosted by Microsoft [3]. Interested in finding out more about how Office 2010 can help you and your organization improve team productivity? Contact us directly at info@imason.com or (416) 597-3256.

[1] http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=53868&PageMem=2

[2] http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/f83346b9-5007-43c5-b3f0-cd10ccd5b45d.html

[3] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/2010office/imageGallery.aspx

[4] http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/Home/News.asp?id=53871

Celebrating 10 Years Building Web Technology That Works

Kerri McKenna — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:59:00 GMT

May 1st marks the start of 10 years in business for Toronto-based imason inc. Starting out in a humble office (i.e. basement) in Etobicoke, imason’s first paid project was for writing an article for Microsoft’s MIND magazine titled, “Make Your Legacy Apps Work on the Internet”. Since then we’ve grown to 40 people in a renovated space in the Entertainment District working on projects with many of Canada’s top companies. There have been numerous accomplishments worth noting over the years – awards, customer wins, technology firsts, and recognition from many sources. And all the while we’ve been teaching and helping our clients, and learning from them too.

Founders Jeff Dunmall and Scott Howlett sought to create ‘the best place to work’ in 1999, and have succeeded in attracting top talent who exemplify imason’s original mantra: experience, focus and passion. Although we’re a diverse team of skilled professionals who have many interests outside of imason, we’re bound by an enthusiasm for learning. We’re voracious consumers of information and we love solving the tough problems related to business IT strategy, programming, infrastructure and user experience.

We’ve got a lot to be proud of as a team, and you can bet that we’re heartily celebrating reaching the 10 year mark with Jeff and Scott. Every single person at imason helped us get here, and contributes to accomplishments that enable us to celebrate our core purpose: To revel in dramatically impacting our customers, our company, and each other. But we also wouldn’t be here without our valued customers, some of whom we’ve worked with for many years and others who we’re just getting to know on new projects. The relationships we’ve formed with you, and the challenges you’ve trusted us to solve, are two other important reasons we look forward to getting out of bed and coming to work every morning.

Cheers to our customers, our company, and each other!

Torys LLP New Website Offers Powerful In House Capabilities and a Unique User Experience

Scott Howlett — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Toronto, Ontario. March 23, 2009 — Last year’s relaunch of the Torys LLP website enabled the international business law firm to display its expertise and put faces – and voices – to the people who provide the knowledge and experience of this well-respected firm. Working closely with a team of technology consultants from imason, Torys was able to define and execute a web strategy that reflects its values and culture, as well as its reputation for creativity.

Recognizing the importance of enduring relationships, Torys introduced an alumni site to keep alumni in touch with each other and with Torys. And by providing podcasts with first-hand personal accounts by former students, the updated pages in the student section demonstrate Torys’ commitment to people, progress and innovation.

"We hired imason because they were forward looking, talked about the flexibility to build in the future, and were the most technically sharp," said Stuart Wood, Chief Marketing Officer, Torys LLP. "We have been very impressed with imason's communication, project management, training, dedication and instances in which they went above the call of duty."

In selecting Microsoft SharePoint as the technology platform, Torys was able to focus on its immediate communication needs, without sacrificing future flexibility and growth. Inherent features to Sharepoint, such as search and content management, guaranteed improvements to both the user experience and the website administration.

Torys.com provides direct access to current and archived publications, lawyer profiles, firm news and upcoming events. With SharePoint as the foundation, the potential exists to introduce user-generated content, blogging, newsletters, RSS feeds and automated alerts on the new site.

Visibility into traffic patterns and user activity, enables administrators to see which pages and what type of content best resonate with visitors to the site. With this data, Torys can ensure that the website evolves according to user demands, and remains a crucial communication vehicle between the firm and its clients, alumni and students.

"In this project our goal was threefold: marry technological capabilities with Torys" business objectives; provide the marketing department with powerful tools to manage its online presence; and improve the user experience with easier access to information,” said Scott Howlett, Principal and co-founder at imason.

About imason: imason is a technology consulting firm that architects and develops leading-edge web solutions for enterprise customers. Targeted at employee or customer audiences, imason solutions utilize the latest technologies from Microsoft and drive lasting business value. For more information, please visit www.imason.com.

About Torys: Torys is a highly respected international business law firm with over 300 legal professionals in its Toronto and New York offices. Torys is recognized internationally as an innovative law firm and is frequently recommended in a large number of practice areas. Its Toronto and New York lawyers work together to offer seamless cross-border services to clients on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border and globally. For more information, please visit www.torys.com.

Media contact:
Sacha DeGroot
SmackDab PR & Marketing
sacha@smackdabpr.com
519-208-2831

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owner.

Announcing FAST Partnership

Jeff Dunmall — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:57:00 GMT

As of September 2008, imason is part of the Microsoft Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) X-10 partner program. We are one of the first Canadian Microsoft Gold partners to sign up for the program, and as part of it imason now has access to exclusive training material, content, and software.

Jeff Dunmall, co-CEO of imason and search subject matter expert, explains. “The FAST partnership is important to us. We have proven ourselves as leaders in the Enterprise Search space. With Microsoft’s acquisition of FAST, we need to start ramping up now on the technological and business advantages the suite offers. We feel that this capability will dramatically impact our ability to service our customers, and we are looking forward to bringing that knowledge in-house.”

Look for more news from imason as we expand our offerings in this area.

in the press Workopolis Nets itself a winning Web site

Scott Howlett — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:02:00 GMT

imason's work with Workopolis was recently profiled in IT Business. The full article can be found here. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Our mistake was to move forward a bit too quickly, without planning appropriately," Sullivan says. "We tried to go down the path alone and it wasn't working for us."

In the summer of 2007, Workopolis attempted to launch a site to support three million monthly visitors. But the results weren't good – the site was slow and unresponsive – it was time to call in some expert help, Sullivan says.

So Workopolis turned to imason Inc., a Toronto-based IT consulting firm. The Microsoft Gold Partner provided a team of experts that worked alongside Workopolis staff to train them on .Net development for the Web-facing component.