13 November 2011
SAN JOSE and SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Oct. 12, 2011 – Cisco and Citrix Systems today announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance to develop and deliver solutions that help customers simplify and accelerate large-scale desktop virtualization deployments. Through this alliance, Cisco and Citrix will drive innovations that simplify the deployment of high-definition virtual desktops and applications and improve end-user experiences over a highly secure Citrix HDX™-enabled Cisco® network. The companies will also continue to enhance and build upon their data center solutions and cloud technologies to help accelerate deployment of cloud services.
As the industry transitions from the PC era to the cloud era where mobile work forces need to access media-rich applications from any device, anywhere, anytime, enterprises are turning to desktop virtualization to give them the benefits of the security, flexibility and cost-savings by delivering desktops and applications as a centralized service. Innovative solutions like Cisco Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) with Citrix XenDesktop® span desktop virtualization, networking, datacenter, multimedia and endpoint devices to support customers through this transition.
Delivering Virtual Desktops Services Anywhere, Anytime on Any Device
Combining Cisco leadership in networking, datacenter, endpoint devices and collaboration, with Citrix leadership in virtualization and the delivery of desktops, applications and data, this alliance is aimed at delivering solutions that help enterprises easily and cost effectively deploy virtual desktops to millions of PCs, Macs, tablets, smartphones and thin clients. This alliance will also deliver data center solutions that make it easier for organizations to deploy the infrastructure required to deliver IT as a service across multiple networks and geographies. Cisco and Citrix are committed to collaborating and exploring innovative new technology integrations in key areas such as:
- Enhancing Cisco networking products with full support for Citrix HDX Technology: The companies are committed to supporting Citrix HDX technology in targeted Cisco industry-leading networking solutions to deliver an enhanced high-definition experience for users of Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp™ solutions.
As the first result of the strategic alliance agreement, Cisco will deliver a new release of Cisco Wide Area Application Services™ (WAAS) optimized for Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix HDX technology in the fourth quarter of this year. Announced today as part of the next phase of Cisco’s VXI, an open, validated virtual workspace solution, WAAS will further enhance the performance of virtual desktops and applications over Cisco networking infrastructure (see related announcement).
- Enhanced device and integrated multimedia support: Cisco and Citrix will collaborate to deliver an optimized user experience for virtual desktops and applications for Cisco endpoint devices. This will include collaboration across Cisco rich media, voice, video and collaboration endpoint devices such as the Cisco VirtualExperience Clients (VXCs) and the Cisco Cius™ enterprise tablet – with the virtual desktop and application capabilities of Citrix XenDesktop, and the Citrix Receiver™ universal software client.
- Accelerating Datacenter Innovation with Cisco UCS, Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenServer: Over the past year, Cisco and Citrix have been bringing the reality of virtual desktop computing to our customers. With the Cisco Unified Computing System™ (Cisco UCS™) extended memory and Unified Fabric Cisco and Citrix virtual desktop solutions, the companies deliver the industry’s highest virtual desktop densities and best performance available on the market today. Building on this success, the companies will continue to extend the collaboration to drive further design validation and optimization enhancements with Cisco UCS and XenDesktop and Citrix XenServer®.
Joint Go-To-Market Investment
In addition, the two companies will invest in joint go-to-market activities that will focus on driving primary product and services demand in high growth market areas such as desktop virtualization and cloud markets.
During Citrix Synergy in Barcelona taking place on October25 – 27, Cisco will be showcasing the first deliverables of this strategic alliance and other VXI solutions at the Cisco stand # 204.
Joint Customer Success Fuels Expanded Collaboration
Early successes of the companies’ collaboration around desktop virtualization are evident with Seattle Children’s Hospital and University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
- The University of Tennessee at Knoxville selected Citrix XenDesktop running on Cisco
infrastructure to provide free, anytime access to desktops, applications, resources and personal files to more than 27,000 students. (Link to the announcement)
- To provide a faster, more mobile and fully transparent computing experience for its practitioners, Seattle Children’s Hospital recently selected hosted virtual desktops powered by Citrix XenDesktop and the Cisco Unified Computing System. Today, nearly 5,500 workstations have been transitioned throughout the hospital. (Link to case study)
Supporting Quotes
Phil Sherburne, vice president, Enterprise Systems and Architectures, Cisco
“Cisco is collaborating with Citrix on a broad range of virtualization technologies. Our first deliverables will be focused on giving end users a rich multimedia experience of voice, video and data on their virtual desktops and apps over the Cisco Intelligent Network, so that from any device from wherever they are, IT managers can deliver the same superior experience at a lower cost.”
Bob Schultz, group vice president and general manager, Enterprise Desktops and Apps group at Citrix
“Citrix and Cisco have completed the first year of a very successful collaboration in desktop virtualization that has helped to expand the market and accelerate the success of customers worldwide. This expanded agreement will lay the groundwork to deliver a wide range of market-leading, integrated solutions that allow customers to embrace consumerization and deliver IT services with unparalleled efficiency and impact.”
11 October 2011
EMC Awarded For Delivering Most Simple, Efficient and Affordable Unified Storage Designed for SMBs
HOPKINTON, Mass. – October 6, 2011
EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced that the EMC® VNXe® unified storage solution won CRN’s 2011 Tech Innovator award in the storage category. The award honors new products or solutions introduced within the last year that drive advances in technology to the channel. Companies on this exclusive list recently implemented innovative methods to bridge the gap between current challenges and solutions facing channel executives today.
The Tech Innovator recognition is the latest in a series of channel-related accolades EMC has received. In August 2011 CRN named EMC “Company of the Year” in three ARC award categories – SMB Network Storage, Enterprise Network Storage and Backup & Recovery Software. This was EMC’s first-ever inclusion and recognition in the SMB Network Storage category, a direct result of the VNXe launch in January and successful channel-centric go-to-market strategy for it. In February EMC’s Gregg Ambulos, Senior Vice President of Global Channel Sales, was named a Channel Chief by CRN for his leadership of EMC’s global go-to-market strategy for Velocity™ solution provider and distribution partners, including implementing several new programs that provide opportunities for partners to increase their profitability through more efficient and cost-effective training and the ability to deliver more value-added services.
CRN selected EMC VNXe, available only through EMC Velocity Solution Provider Program partners, as the most innovative storage technology for its ground-breaking design that delivers the world’s most simple, efficient and affordable unified storage for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) and the IT generalist. The VNXe is the result of a multi-year development effort to design a product that specifically meets the needs of customers who require a cost effective solution with robust features. With an entry price of less than $10,000 (USD), its small form factor, management simplicity, unified multi-protocol architecture, and application aware management deliver the ideal consolidation/virtualization storage solution for SMB environments and those in the mid-market and enterprise where IT generalists need solid storage solutions.
EMC VNXe provides customers with:
- Breakthrough Simplicity
- Powerful application-based provisioning wizards, including support for Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Hyper-V, and VMware vSphere. Provisioning storage for 500 mailboxes or 100 gigabytes of virtual server storage can be done in less than 10 clicks.
- 4X faster to provision and protect SharePoint versus standard tools for Microsoft administrators
- Increased Efficiency
- Compact 2U and 3U packaging fits almost any environment.
- Built-in data protection, including replication.
Advanced efficiency features including thin provisioning, file deduplication, and compression reduce disk space used by up-to 50 percent.
Supporting Quotes
“NORTHSTAR Trade Finance Inc. supports Canadian exporters by offering financing to credit worthy buyers of eligible Canadian goods and services, therefore our customer, transactional, and financial data is of critical importance to company operations. We recently replaced our HP storage with the EMC VNXe because we need a well-performing, easy to manage system that can keep pace with our ever-growing data storage requirements. It’s also more innovative and less expensive. We considered Dell, but their management interface isn’t as simple as the VNXe. Since implementing the VNXe we’re seeing almost four times better performance and we have the ability to do things that our previous system wouldn’t allow, such as configuring storage volumes quickly and running one VM per application with no downtime.”
“Not only has EMC made the VNXe unified storage simple, efficient, and affordable for the end user, they’ve put in a lot of consideration to ensure that solution providers are successful when it comes to learning and selling the technology. The VNXe approach is a clear differentiator for EMC as it is an easy to quote, sell, and configure channel-only product.”
“Since EMC delivered VNXe earlier this year, Avnet has seen an increase in the adoption rate by our partners and their end customers. It is a unique product that is affordable as well as easy to use. Avnet’s success with VNXe was also helped by enhancements EMC made to its Velocity Program. That made it easier for Avnet to incorporate Velocity into our own enablement program which supports our partners so they can sell the product with shorter ramp up time and lower investment cost.”
“We’re seeing a lot of demand from SMB companies for simple yet affordable unified storage systems. Whether large or small, organizations must keep up with the enormous amount of data they continue to generate and won’t settle for anything less than what the EMC’s VNXE can deliver. Its innovative features and proven reliability make it a top choice for our customers.”
- Kelley Damore, Vice President, Editorial Director for UBM Channel
“In today’s challenging business environment, it’s more important than ever to discover, nurture and reward new ideas. This year’s Tech Innovator Awards recognizes technology companies that have used original methods or technologies to deliver cutting-edge products and partner support. We congratulate EMC on their success, and applaud them for breaking away from traditional thinking to create completely new and unique channel opportunities.”
EMC Executive Quotes
- Rich Napolitano, President, Unified Storage Division, EMC Corporation
“We are truly honored that CRN has selected the EMC VNXe unified storage as the most innovative storage technology of 2011. Being recognized as a 2011 Tech Innovator is further proof of EMC’s ongoing commitment to providing our Velocity partners with the industry’s most simple, efficient, and affordable unified storage solutions in the market.”
CRN’s 2011 Tech Innovators were nominated by their individual companies, with final selections made by the editors of CRN and the CRN Test Center. More than 250 nominations were reviewed for 18 categories. The Tech Innovator awards were presented on October 5 at the 2011 NexTI Conference at the Doral Resort in Miami, FL.
Expanded coverage of the 2011 Tech Innovators will be featured in the December issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com.
Additional Resources
About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.
UBM plc (www.ubm.com)
UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world’s buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries is organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to www.ubm.com
Press Contacts
22 August 2011
LPS Integration announced today that it has earned the position of 996 on the 2011 Inc. 5000, Inc.’s annual ranking of fastest-growing private companies in America. LPS now shares this achievement with other notable alumni such as Intuit, Under Armour, Microsoft, Timberland and Oracle! We are proud of this accomplishment, says CTO Frank Pulliza, and we continue to strive to be the best we can be to serve our clients and community and if that means collecting a few awards along the way, then we are happy to accept them.
30 June 2011
LPS Integration Named Citrix U.S. Partner of the Year for 2010
NASHVILLE, TN–(Marketwire – Jun 13, 2011) – LPS Integration, Inc. today announced that it has been named Citrix U.S. Partner of the Year for 2010. The award was presented on May 24, 2011 at the annual Citrix Synergy Conference in San Francisco, at which LPS Integration was also recognized as Southeast Partner of the Year for the second year in a row. LPS Integration, an IT consulting firm based in Nashville, won the U.S. Partner of the Year award among a field of more than 1900 Citrix Solutions Advisors nationwide and more than 250 in the Southeast.
In the face of a highly competitive industry and fragile but recovering economy, LPS Integration made an impressive increase in Citrix sales with a staggering 694% growth over the previous year. This is in part due to the surge in virtualization technology in business today and because of LPS Integration’s level of expertise within this arena. “LPS Integration is the only Platinum Citrix® Solution Advisor in the state of Tennessee and we demand that our engineering team continuously train and recertify in order to maintain their leading edge,” stated Frank Pulliza, Vice President and COO at LPS. He and David Linzy, President and CEO of LPS both attended the five day conference, along with nine LPS employees and thirteen LPS clients.
“Today was a huge victory and testament to our company’s dedication and I am so proud to take this award back home to Nashville,” said David Linzy. He went on to say, “I am so pleased to have been recognized as the Citrix Partner of the Year, especially considering our market size and share on a national level. We will continue to strive for excellence and serve our clients with the same level of professionalism and excellence, but now with even more confidence and another outstanding award in our trophy case.”
“We are pleased to recognize the achievements of LPS Integration as a trusted advisor and award them as the 2010 U.S. Partner of the Year,” stated Fernando J. Campo, Vice President, Americas for Citrix. “LPS Integration has been an integral part of our team and this was demonstrated with their tremendous growth over the year before. Their impressive record, their commitment to maintaining a high level of technical expertise, and the variety of Citrix solutions they provide certainly influenced our decision to award them with the U.S. Partner of the Year and Southeast Partner of the Year.”
LPS Integration’s business is built around data center solutions and Citrix is a key ingredient in that mix. Having well-trained certified engineers who can assess, architect and implement these new technologies is the reason LPS Integration has experienced such a high growth rate in selling Citrix solutions. The shift to virtualization and cloud computing options has increased dramatically over the last few years as it allows companies greater flexibility and mobility for their work force. Citrix technologies offer tremendous options for businesses of all sizes and Citrix currently holds the number one ranking in market share, as touted by Citrix at last week’s conference.
About LPS Integration, Inc.
LPS Integration, Inc. is an IT engineering and consulting firm, specializing in data center solutions, including Virtualization, Networking and Storage. LPS Integration is headquartered in Nashville and covers the entire Southeastern region. LPS is also a founding member of M7 Global Partners, a consortium of like-minded businesses geographically disbursed throughout the US, providing an even greater reach to businesses with a single, local touch point.
LPS Integration is professional, cost-effective, and accessible around the clock to ensure the greatest productivity and success for our clients. Using our comprehensive assessment strategy, we work to improve and optimize our clients’ infrastructures, processes, and procedures while lowering their overall costs. For more information, visit us online at www.lpsintegration.com or call us toll free at 1 (866) 577-2902.
30 June 2011
MONTVALE, N.J., Jun 27, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Today, M7 Global Partners proudly announced it has won the 2011 Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Virtualization Partner of the Year Award. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.
M7 Global Partners is a consortium of seven of the United States’ leading IT consulting firms. Members include AEC Group, Entisys Solutions/Agile360, Gotham Technology Group, IntraSystems, IPM, LPS Integration, and Right! Systems. Since joining forces in 2010, these seven partners have successfully teamed up with Microsoft in delivering best-of-breed virtualization and cloud-based solutions to its clients.
M7 combines the knowledge and experience of more than 200 virtualization consultants and engineers across the United States to provide both national and international customers, system integrators, ISVs and partners with a deeper, more comprehensive skill set.
“M7 Global Partners is deeply honored to have been selected by Microsoft as its ‘Virtualization Partner of Year,’ for 2011,” said Mike Strohl, CEO, Entisys Solutions, Inc., a founding member of M7 Global Partners. “This is a distinction that further validates our commitment and ability to meet our client’s unique business requirements through the delivery of best-of-breed datacenter and desktop virtualization and cloud computing solutions. As an organization, we have set out to increase the value, credibility, depth and reach of the regional value added solution provider by developing a global organization that focuses on higher quality, more consistent, centralized deliverables and a deeper relationship and experience for vendors like Microsoft, system integrators and partners, and most importantly — our customers.” “I am proud of M7 Global Partners for its dedication to establishing and maintaining a reputation as the ‘go-to’ authority on the delivery of datacenter and desktop virtualization solutions, a designation which has ultimately earned us this accolade from Microsoft,” said Ira Silverman, CEO of Gotham Technology Group, a founding member of M7 Global Partners. “The partnership with Microsoft, coupled with key strategic partnerships like Citrix has put us in a position to bring unique value to our community.” Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 3,000 entrants worldwide. M7 Global Partners was recognized for providing outstanding solutions and services in Microsoft Virtualization Partner of the Year. The Virtualization Partner of the Year Award honors partners who have delivered desktop or server virtualization solutions that enable customers to save costs, increase availability, and improve the agility of an organization’s IT infrastructure. This award recognizes M7 Global Partners for dramatically transforming a customer’s IT infrastructure, resulting in lower operational costs, reduced capital expenditures, and improved overall service levels.
“M7 Global Partners’ unique approach to solving IT infrastructure challenges has helped its clients look beyond traditional virtualization techniques to expand their opportunities to lower operational costs while improving service levels and management efficiency,” said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Infrastructure and Server Marketing at Microsoft. “Based on Microsoft’s suite of Virtualization products, including Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, M7 Global Partners’ server virtualization solutions have allowed clients to quickly transition their infrastructure to virtual environments that have dramatically reduced capital expenditures. We are pleased to recognize M7 Global Partners as Virtualization Partner of the Year.” The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year. The press release from Microsoft announcing the finalists and winners of the 2011 Partner of the Year awards is available at http://digitalwpc.com/News/Details/130#fbid=cka-MOX-6Zs.
About M7 Global Partners Founded in 2010, M7 Global Partners is a national network of the country’s leading IT consultants dedicated to delivering datacenter and desktop solutions with an emphasis on virtual desktop solutions for mid tier and enterprise customers and government agencies.
The mission of M7 Global Partners is to increase the value, credibility, depth and reach of the regional value added solution provider by developing a global organization that focuses on higher quality, more consistent, centralized relationship and experience for our vendors, system integrators and partners, and most importantly — our customers. M7 Global Partners is committed to achieving the promise and efficiencies of desktop virtualization. M7 has assembled all the necessary components and competencies to achieve the value of desktop cloud computing structures today. Founding members of M7 Global Partners are AEC Group, Agile360 and Entisys Solutions; Gotham Technology Group; Intra Systems; IPM; LPS Integration; and, Right! Systems Inc.
M7 Global Partners corporate headquarters are located in Montvale, New Jersey.
For more information, visit www.M7GP.com.