Washington Federal Savings Brings Email System into 21st Century Via LiveOffice Cloud

New Cloud-Based Email Solution Delivers Seamless Support for 1,200 Mailboxes in 150 Locations

TORRANCE, Calif., May 11, 2010 – LiveOffice, the number-one provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) email archiving, email compliance and email continuity solutions, today announced that Washington Federal Savings has deployed LiveOffice Hosted Exchange 2007, LiveOffice Personal Archive and LiveOffice Discovery Archive to improve email performance and significantly reduce IT management time, while also providing all the benefits of a seamless hosted email archiving solution.

Independently operated since its founding in 1917, Washington Federal, a public company that trades on NASDAQ under the symbol WFSL, provides mortgage and construction financing for single- and multi-family residential housing. As an institution that is still growing through new branch openings and acquisitions, the modernization of its technology quickly became a top priority. Washington Federal recently merged with several banks, resulting in 1,200 mailboxes in 150 different locations. All IT is managed from corporate headquarters in Seattle, so it was imperative to get everyone on the same system.

With LiveOffice’s fully hosted model, a unified email system became a reality. “It’s so much easier to manage all of our offices remotely [in the cloud] from the administrator console, instead of having to setup multiple servers in various locations,” said Marta Reed, senior project manager. “It also reduces the time required to setup email communications for our ongoing acquisitions. Plus, we benefit from not having to manage email in house.”

Washington Federal also came to appreciate the benefits of moving to a platform leveraging the software-as-a-service delivery model. “We were very hesitant to outsource Exchange, but the amount of time we have not had to manage it has been really good,” said Reed. “The automatic updates were a major deciding factor. LiveOffice stays up to date and takes care of everything, so we don’t have to dedicate an Exchange admin to run the system.”

In addition, Washington Federal also needed to implement a seamless email archiving solution — something the institution was lacking. “The LiveOffice archiving solution was the only one that truly looked like it worked,” said Reed. “Plus, LiveOffice offered a setup service that others were not providing to the same degree.”

Although e-discovery wasn’t a huge concern, Reed has found LiveOffice Discovery Archive is more than a “nice to have.” It has proven to be extremely helpful in the department’s day-to-day IT work. “The LiveOffice archiving solutions have proven to be very, very helpful,” she said. “We can go in and search mailboxes quickly and easily to find files and other data. It’s the smoothest and easiest way to search for information.”

Plus, end users are also discovering the power of LiveOffice Personal Archive. “I’ve had a few people distraught over lost email,” said Reed. “We showed them how to use Personal Archive to find it, and they were very excited to get their email back. The ability to keep a clean inbox and not have to create intricate filing systems for old emails is a big bonus.”

“Getting every location on one solution has made a real difference in how we allocate our resources – the time savings is invaluable,“ said Reed. ”Since implementing LiveOffice solutions, we have less downtime and better productivity for end users. The ability to securely access their email from locations outside of Washington Federal is a big win with our users. Everyone is pleased with the performance of the system.”

About LiveOffice

LiveOffice is the number-one provider of software-as-a-service email archiving, email compliance and email continuity solutions, with more than 10,000 clients and a 97-percent client-retention rate. Founded in 1998 and backed by leading private-equity firm Summit Partners, the company has more than 150 employees with deep experience in messaging, including executives and board members from Symantec, Microsoft, FrontBridge and Postini. For more information, call 800.374.2032 or visit www.liveoffice.com. Visit the LiveOffice Blog at http://blog.liveoffice.com or follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/liveoffice.

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