The upcoming sections describe some common scenarios, chosen from the hundreds of complete computer solutions delivered to CompuWave customers, illustrate the unique advantages of our offering:

Customer: A small smart-up company.

Business imperative: The company had started to experience growth, and found itself slowed down by a precarious network, which the company had grown from the ground up as needs had come. The customer understood that the only way to support future growth was to design and build a computing infrastructure backbone that had future expansion built into it. The company had no expertise in house that could guarantee a successful deployment plan.

Turning technology to value: CompuWave staff with expertise in turn-key delivery of network systems analyzed customer needs. Then, they designed, configured and installed a Network Server, 15 Workstations (with industry specific software loaded), provided 20 Cat 5 Cable runs terminating into a patch panel, 2 Network Printers, and GoldMine contact management system on the network.

CompuWave provided computer hardware and software: Servers, Workstations, Peripherals (Printers, Scanners, etc.), Wiring (Cat 5 cable runs, patch panels), Operating Systems (DOS, Windows 95/98/NT) and Application Software (Microsoft, Lotus, Corel, Seagate, Symantec, etc.)

The task involved many individual tasks that are not usually associated with acquiring technology, such as:

• Assessing existing and future needs, based on the companys business model and plans;
   
• Identifying the key components and data elements required for business continuity, and designing them into the new network;
   
• Custom-configuring and installing not only hardware components but also all the software needed for every day business operation;
   
• Transferring important data between applications, so that they can be delivered ready to run;
   
• Making sure that the configured system met service-ability objectives.

Customer: A medium sized law firm.

Business imperative: The customer understands the productivity and competitive edge derived from computer technology, but its adoption and use by individuals is mostly left to them: those with computer expertise lead by utilizing computers to their personal advantage, while the rest struggle to follow. Staff loses productivity trying to research, diagnose and utilize applications and hardware. The return on investment for computer infrastructure is hard to quantify, because lacking a common level of utilization eliminates the possibility of company-wide computer-based practices and routines. The company decides to call CompuWave.

Turning technology to value: The proposed solution is to bring company staff to a common level of computer utilization and understanding, and to eliminate productivity loss by providing fast service to their individual needs.

Analysis of the customer needs shows that, based on the company's core business and their business model, a fully staffed MIS group could not be justified.

CompuWave delivers a custom-designed mix of products and services:

• Help Desk Support for application and user questions: access to experienced resources dramatically streamlines the problem resolution cycle, releasing time for more productive endeavors;
   
• Weekly four-hour-long on-site maintenance visits eliminate time-consuming service runs to computer dealers, and avoids disruption by performing preventive maintenance;
   
• Hardware service and configuration (Compaq, HP, IBM, Apple, Toshiba, etc.): On-Site warranty repair and service/maintenance contracts eliminate costly downtime, improving over-all utilization;
   
• Periodically scheduled training sessions on Operating Systems training for customers on Windows 95/98/NT and applications (MS Office Suite, GoldMine Contact Management, access to Law Research Databases, Time management and billing systems). Differences in the levels of utilization between individuals start to shrink, and the company starts to put in place computer based practices and processes. Productivity boosts are significant.¥

Customer: A small marketing company.

Business imperative: As the number of remote offices increased, the companys business plan called for bringing the operation of those offices under the supervision of regional management. When the company went ahead with the change, management found that, because each remote office had been working as an independent unit, there was no common marketing systems, practices or processes. It came as no surprise that productivity of the remote offices under regional management dropped drastically, and effect exactly opposite to that pursued by the decision to regionalize the offices.

When the company came to CompuWave, the business objective was to optimize the existing infrastructure to create a common ground for corporate productivity.

Turning technology to value: CompuWave analyzed customer needs and discovered that many of the requirements for hardware and networking components were already satisfied by the infrastructure in place. The software situation,on the other hand, was more challenging:

• Three different contact management ssystems were in use, none of them suitable for distributed access and centralized updates: CompuWave recommended, installed and configured a common system across remote and local offices, as well as in field personnel laptops;
   
• There was no commonality amongst the data collection and maintenance of each region. CompuWave designed a common customer template database, implemented it on corporate servers, created filters to input and convert each of the remote databases, cleaned up the data and finally fed it into remote databases. The central database was handed of to corporate headquarters, together with data pipes and processes specially designed to input remote data and merge into the corporate store;
   
• CompuWave implemented common remote access applications and connectivity, and customized desktop applications (i.e., MS Office Suite) to better integrate them around company business model, and at the same time deliver a common company image and appearance.

Customer: A medium-size company competing in a global market.

Business imperative: The company needed to enable a new business strategy to take advantage of globalization. For that purpose, the customer needed to implement a fault-tolerant computing environment: absolutely guaranteed computing support 24 hours, 7 days a week was an imperative.

Turning technology to value: CompuWave analyzed customer needs, specified a redundant network based on the capacity and recovery needs of the customer, and delivered a complete network design as a result.

The design of the Fault-Tolerant Network was based on servers using Vinca software, which allows any part of one server (memory, hard disk, central processing unit) to stop working without losses, by utilizing a second redundant server that comes up instantaneously, as soon as the other becomes inoperative. Pre-configured servers (Firewall Servers, Network Fax Servers, MS Windows NT Network Server, etc.) were installed, tuned and delivered in turn-key condition.

Finally, CompuWave developed emergency procedures, recovery routines and backup strategies for the network, rehearsing a number of possible disaster scenarios with the customer.

The customer took advantage of CompuWave's experience at delivering state-of-the-art technology to address an urgent business imperative, without the need for costly false starts or the usual over-expenditures associated with this type of procurement. Further yet, the complete process was performed behind the `systems wall', without disrupting users or impacting productivity.