Insurity, a ChoicePoint company announced a multiyear strategic alliance with Microsoft to more closely align future software development, along with joint marketing and sales activities globally.

The collaboration will accelerate the pace of business-process innovation by combining Insurity's industry-leading Insurance Decisions solutions and services with the latest Microsoft technology, including the Microsoft .NET Framework and Windows Server System.

Insurers, third party administrators and managing general agencies will benefit from the alliance through the combination of Insurity's industry- technology expertise powered by a Microsoft platform that increases the strategic value of their existing IT investments, while reducing complexity and cost. About 100 Insurity customers - including many top-20 carriers - are expected to migrate to Insurity's Insurance Decisions platform, which is based on Microsoft .NET architecture, during the next two years.

"This is about increasing the value of our products and services for our customers," said David Pedersen, Insurity senior vice president. "By deepening the relationship between Insurity and Microsoft, we will be able to lead with solutions that combine the strength of our company's industry thought leadership and technology innovation with the latest Microsoft technologies."

"We are thrilled with the formation of this new multiyear strategic alliance," said Kevin S. Kelly, managing director of U.S. Insurance Industry at Microsoft Corp. "Insurity has assets that span the breadth of the value chain, and the company understands the necessity of interoperability. The combination of its thought leadership, technology innovation and commitment to the insurance industry make Insurity an ideal alliance partner."

Microsoft and Insurity software architects will collaborate on designing, building and testing new versions and functions of Insurity's Insurance Decision products. Microsoft will continue to refine its insurance architecture through joint development work with Insurity.

One key area of focus for the alliance will be Insurity's participation in the Microsoft Insurance Value Chain (IVC) initiative, which seeks to source third-party applications that are best-of-breed examples of insurance business processes, provide those partners with a framework for integrating their applications based on Web services and industry standards, and pair and pre- integrate these applications. All this helps reduce millions of dollars of post-purchase integration otherwise experienced by insurance customers.

"The use of .NET has expanded in the insurance industry as insurers realize its value in lowering total cost of ownership and enabling service- oriented architectures," said Matthew Josefowicz, manager of the insurance group at Celent, a leading insurance industry analyst firm. "This new relationship is more evidence of Microsoft's commitment to providing real business solutions to insurers and Insurity's commitment to be a technology leader in the space."