Press Release
LOGICALIS TO OPEN COMPREHENSIVE HP DEMONSTRATION CENTER - REMOTE ACCESS ENABLES CUSTOMERS TO SEE HP TECHNOLOGY IN ACTIONCincinnati facility is first of planned nationwide demonstration centers highlighting Logicalis integration of HP Hardware and Software for the Mid-Range
Bloomfield Hills, MI - May 31, 2006 –Logicalis, Inc., a global provider of high-performance technology solutions, has built a Cincinnati-based demonstration center that allows HP customers across the nation to experiment with different HP server, storage, and software implementations. This is especially useful for mid-size customers who may lack facilities to otherwise pilot or test technologies.
Opening of the Cincinnati demo center marks the first phase in an ambitious partnership with HP to help returning and potential customers conduct proof of concept and migration testing on the latest HP midrange and SMB technology, especially the Integrity servers, the latest EVA (Enterprise Virtual Array) StorageWorks products, and the pioneering BladeSystem infrastructure.
Phases II and III of the partnership will see HP/Logicalis demonstration centers opened in Los Angeles and then Chicago, while in Phase IV, Logicalis will begin implementing Blade-server demonstration capabilities in its offices around the country, including Atlanta and Boston.
Live from Cincinnati
Potential customers don’t have to make a trip to the Cincinnati center or one of the future Logicalis demo sites to see what an HP solution can do for their businesses. The technical sales team in the Cincinnati center is already operating with full remote demonstration capabilities, so interested businesses can see the effects of different HP configurations on their business operations today.
“Our technical consultants and sales representatives can securely access the HP demo center and test compatibility, plan migrations, and conduct proof of performance testing in diverse real world environments,” said Brandon Harris, director of ISG Partner Development for Logicalis. “Customers can view live camera feeds of the demonstration center via an online conference. They get full-blown demonstrations that show them exactly how an upgrade to new HP technology will improve their operations.”
Designed for Skeptics
Customers these days are often skeptical about the benefits new technology supposedly delivers, so they like to see the upgrades in action in a configuration that duplicates their own business environment.
“We can talk all we want about how a business will improve operations by upgrading to an HP Integrity server, but until customers see the solution in action, they sometimes take an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ attitude,” said Harris. “When customers actually see their systems running on upgraded hardware, they understand its benefits.”
“For example, if a midsize factory runs its manufacturing operations with a system based on an Oracle database on a PA-RISC system, the IT folks know that technology is going away,” Harris explained. “We can load that application into an Integrity server in our demo center, bring it up, and show that it will not only migrate seamlessly and offer better performance but reduce the total cost of ownership.”
In addition to demonstrating customer systems on upgraded hardware, Logicalis consultants can also run it under three different operating systems simultaneously – HP/UX, Linux, and Windows – showing customers how their solutions will perform in all three environments.
Logicalis uses a broadband connection to set up remote demonstrations over Cisco’s MeetingPlace, a system Logicalis is intimately familiar with because it not only sells the product, but uses it internally, a practice Logicalis follows with as many of its vendors as possible. The camera and racks in the demo center are from APC, another Logicalis vendor partner.
And adjacent to the new demonstration center on Governors Hill Drive in Cincinnati is Logicalis’ Enterprise Business Operations Center (EBOC) for its growing managed services operations, allowing synergy between the HP specialists in the demo center and the technology specialists for other leading hardware and software vendors such as EMC, Cisco, and Microsoft.
“If customers want to see how a heterogeneous solution operates, we can usually arrange that as well,” said Harris.
Logicalis: We know IT, because we live IT™
Logicalis is a global provider of high-performance technology solutions. Logicalis and its affiliated companies employ 1,000 people worldwide, including highly-trained service specialists who specify, design, deploy and manage IT infrastructure to meet the needs of over 5,000 corporate and public sector customers. Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as HP, IBM, Cisco and EMC.
Logicalis is a part of Logicalis Group, a division of Datatec Limited (JSE: DTC), a $3 billion business listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. With its international headquarters in the UK, Logicalis Group has annualized global revenues of approximately $750 million from operations in the U.S., UK, Germany and South America. In North America, Logicalis’ annualized revenues amount to some $475 million with over 450 employees in the U.S. For more information, visit www.us.logicalis.com.
