The Tax Services subsidiary of Countrywide Financial Corporation was adding more than 100,000 new mortgage-customer tax records to its database every month-and stressing its AS/400 system capacity. A new AS/400 would be a prohibitive expense and still leave the unit without the flexibility and reliability it wanted. The company chose a solution based on Microsoft® Windows Server SystemTM, including the Microsoft .NET Framework. The company achieved first-year savings of U.S.$1.7 million-more than 50 percent-and expects annual savings on maintenance of $500,000. The development team got up to speed in one-third the time it would have taken on competitor systems, and continuing development is up to 50 percent faster. As the company takes increasing advantage of Microsoft technologies.