VAR500: CSC Debuts Best-Of-Breed Cloud Solution, HP Wins Federal Data Center Contract

VAR500 Solution Providers In the News

Want to streamline the migration of client's apps to the cloud? This week, CSC unveiled a cloud solution aimed at doing just that. Looking to expand your offerings? CDW's recent data found that unified communication solutions were gaining mightily in popularity.

Other VAR500 solutions providers, including Accenture, CIBER and HP Enterprise Services also made headlines.

CSC Intros Cloud Solution

CSC debuted its ACE Suite of transformational services to accelerate the migration of applications to cloud solutions. Through ACE, CSC combines best-of-breed technologies from VMware and VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company, with standard processes from CSC to speed up and streamline application migration. The ACE Factory, the first of those services, is a highly-industrialized automated managed service that assesses, treats and tests an enterprise’s legacy custom and mainframe business applications for cloud deployment.

CDW: Unified Communication Solutions On The Rise

Implementations of unified communication solutions have doubled from 2010 to 2011, with 16 percent of organizations fully implemented today, according to CDW's recent Unified Communications Tracking Poll. Meanwhile, 76 percent of organizations that have fully implemented UC and track return on investment say that ROI has met or exceeded their expectations -- up 5 percent since 2010.

"Across industries, organizations are embracing 'anytime, anyplace' access to information to boost productivity. They also continue to look for opportunities to use budget dollars more effectively," said Christine Holloway, vice president of converged infrastructure solutions at CDW. ’Unified communications delivers on both of those objectives."

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Accenture Wi-Fi Solution Breaks New Ground

Marathon Petroleum is deploying a first-of-its-kind Wi-Fi solution across its Robinson, Ill. refinery. The wireless-based Accenture Life Safety Solution integrates Wi-Fi and location-based technologies with multi-gas detectors, allowing companies to remotely monitor incidents in locations previously not suited for wireless networks.

The Accenture Life Safety Solution breaks new ground by using Wi-Fi technology in plant environments to alert central controllers of incidents and of workers’ locations. It is designed for working environments such as refineries, chemical plants and other locations where dense steel infrastructure can make wireless safety solutions difficult to introduce.

CIBER Receives Microsoft Award

CIBER has earned Gold competency in the U.S. for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the Microsoft Partner Network. Microsoft changed its North America partner program in late 2010 to let partners achieve accreditation in specific areas of expertise. The Gold competency for CRM is given to those partners that demonstrate leadership and success with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and have references to testify to their capabilities. CIBER has also earned Gold competency for CRM in the U.K. and Sweden.

HP Earns Government Data Center Contract

HP Enterprise Services has been awarded a four-year, $68.1 million data center services contract by the U.S. Special Operations Command. The services will support special operations warfighters in accomplishing their worldwide missions. Under the terms of the contract, HP will provide enterprise-wide data center management support services for the U.S. Special Operations Command's global enterprise information technology server and storage computing environment.