Faced with the task of dealing with a serious communications systems stability issue, one company turned to a cutting-edge platform for peace of mind and flexibility.
Times are uncertain for American factories: volatile economic situation drives them into cutting production and relying on stockpiles to meet demand. The last thing the industry needs is the same uncertainty for internal infrastructure fraught with costly work interruptions and unpredictable expenses.
This was the challenge facing Z-AXIS Inc., a division of Video Display Corporation (NASDAQ:VIDE). The company that provides quality design, prototyping, and manufacturing services for complex electronic products and electromechanical assemblies, had a serious communications systems stability issue. Its Zimbra-powered mail server was prone to unexpected crashes, wreaking havoc throughout the company.
“Once we had a crash that we were unable to recover from,” explains Ms. Valerie Schafer, IT Director at Z-AXIS. “Zimbra did not have a capability of doing a backup, and it took the mail server down. It was taking 23 hours to do the backup, and we were having trouble finding this time slot. It was a bad situation.”
Z-AXIS couldn’t afford another work disruption like that and made a strategic decision to look for another solution.
The quest for the viable way out began. Z-AXIS technology team left nothing to chances and evaluated several products from the leading as well as emerging vendors.“We considered Exchange and a few other smaller companies, and it really came down to MS Exchange and IceWarp,” recalls Ms. Schafer. “What prevented us from going with Exchange was complexity. Another reason was the tight schedule we were on to do the migration. We did not feel it would be possible to implement Exchange in the same amount of time as we were able to deploy IceWarp. And, of course, the cost – was not the main factor, but still a contributing one.”
According to Ms. Schafer, ease of installation and use, along with superior customer service, were other decision-making factors. The ability to migrate the data was also a crucial feature.
“It was extremely important to be able to migrate the data from Zimbra to IceWarp,” says Ms. Schafer. “Without that capability we would have had to choose a different product. The migration took about 32 hours. It wasn’t as simple as one would like, but all in all it worked okay.”
Ms. Schafer notes that IceWarp tech support level made the migration process much less painful.
“I understand that with so many different email programs it is difficult to have a perfect migration solution for all of them,” says Ms. Schafer.
“The support I received from IceWarp is excellent. That is the major difference between IceWarp and your competition. I am very happy that we selected IceWarp because of the communication I have had with your team. The support is something that really sets you apart from all others. We did this project on a very tight schedule and were successful.”
The transition did not require any additional infrastructure investments: Z-AXIS technology group deployed IceWarp on the existing Microsoft Server 2008R2.
The initial results were encouraging.Z-AXIS discovered that IceWarp is easily deployed and doesn’t disrupt normal workflow.
“The product is intuitive and works very well,” says Ms. Schafer. “And the support has been awesome! It’s been very quickly adopted by our users. This made the IT group very happy, because we did not have to deal with a lot of unhappy users resisting change.I am receiving fewer requests to assist with the product and that helps our schedule out.
The administration side turned out not to be taxing either.“The interface is very easy to use and to make changes,” says Ms. Schafer. “One of the biggest benefits is the ability to get backups every single day, whereas with Zimbra it was a challenge to find time when I could get a backup. It was lengthy and difficult to do. Now, I do not need to take the mail server downto do the backup, because backups are provided automatically without server operation interruption.”
While the return on investment was not the main decision-making factor, the company was pleasantly surprised. According to Ms. Schafer’s rough estimates, IceWarp ROI was both fast and substantial.
“It paid for itself just through the amount of time it saved us and the quality of the product,” says Ms. Schafer. “And it is reasonably priced. Also, the fact that the support has been so good,has saved us time and money upfront. The solution paid for itself within a month.”
Ms. Schafer says she would absolutely recommend IceWarp to other organizations in the industry. “I would recommend it to anyone who would ask me about e-mail solutions,” concludes Ms. Schafer.
In IceWarp experience, Z-AXIS case is pretty typical.
“Messaging platforms are often perceived as a commodity – after all, corporate email applications have been around for decades,” explains Ladislav Goc, IceWarp President.
“But in fact they are not. Availability, scalability, and ease of deployment challenges have not been eliminated. They have become so important, that vendors now can clearly differentiate themselves just on these parameters. I’m not even talking about the ability to support mobile workforce, armed with a host of different gadgets.”
According to Mr. Goc, these issues are now even overshadowing the promise of unified communications. ‘IceWarp allows companies to communicate through any platform, be it e-mail, mobile synchronization, chat, SMS, voice or video,” explains Mr. Goc. “But this is not what we are leading with. First and foremost, our customers demand reliable, cost-effective messaging. Only after this need is satisfied, they start thinking about additional bells and whistles supported by the product.”
This concept of complexity as a bottleneck to Unified Communications deployment is not unique to Z-AXIS. “The Aberdeen Group conducted a study of over 100 organizations and found that over a third of organizations found the complexity of systems to be a top challenge in implementing Unified Communications,” notes Hyoun Park, Research Analyst at the Aberdeen Group. “This challenge was especially apparent among companies that were most challenged with meeting uptime and service level agreements.”
After addressing the most pressing communications needs, Z-AXIS technology group is now thinking about expanding the use of IceWarp.
“With ease of use and capabilities of IceWarp we will consider using it with mobile devices,” notes Ms. Schafer.
This was the road taken by another IceWarp customer in a different industry- Power Home Remodeling Group, one of Pennsylvania’s largest and most recognized home improvement contractors.Initially, Power selected IceWarp as a reliable Exchange alternative, but then realized that the solution also can fit the needs of the company’s dispersed workforce.
“We have nine remote locations now and we are adding more sites all the time,” says Jeffrey B. Levine, Director of Information Technology at Power Home Remodeling Group. “There are about 400 people in the field with notebook computers and cell phones. And everybody is on IceWarp, using ActiveSync, mobile chat, groupware, shared calendars and global address lists.”
Changes and updates can now be implemented from a central console and there is no need to physically touch endpoint devices.
“If you have a mobile workforce, IceWarp is easier than Exchange from a user and management perspective,” says Mr. Levine. “We just ship notebook computers to users in the field and they start using the IceWarp web interface right away. We don’t install a client on their machines; they are just using the browser. When we have to make changes, we make them on the server and don’t have to worry about it.”"It's about flexibility," agrees John Cooper, Director of North American Sales for IceWarp."There are a wide range of channels that can make a huge impact on an organization - instant messaging, multi-media conferencing, and collaborative workspaces are just a few examples. The issue is that not all companies need them all, but would like the flexibility to deploy them on demand and without allot of complexity.
Taking an integrated approach to these solutions - along with other key and critical systems like your company email - makes this possible. Let the organization define what unified communications means to them, not the other way around where you try and stuff them in a vendor specific box. This is where I think we get it right - freedom of choice on what to deploy and when to do it."
Aberdeen group believes these decisions reflect the industry trends.
“Mobility has provided greater value to Unified Communications as consumers and employees have learned how to handle the multi-faceted functionalities of iPhones, Android-based mobile devices, and other smartphones,” Mr. Park noticed. “39% of Aberdeen’s respondents considered the need to extend enterprise communications to mobile devices as a key strategic action for their unified communications. Mobility is quickly becoming part of the core enterprise communications infrastructure and companies must have a strategic path to integrate mobility into their businesses.”
Learn more about Z-AXIS: https://www.zaxis.net/
Learn more about Power Home Remodeling Group at: https://powerhrg.com/
Learn more about IceWarp at: https://www.icewarp.com/
