GreenPages Benefitting From Cloud Solutions Demand

GreenPages CEO Ron Dupler Monday said the $100 million national solution provider is seeing a turnaround as a result of its big bet on cloud computing.

"In 2010, the first half of the year, we see things rebounding significantly," said Dupler in a keynote address before 109 IT executives at the Kittery, Maine headquartered company's 14th annual Solutions Summit. "We have seen a lot of work right now with infinite market demand for skilled people who know how to deploy virtualization and cloud technologies. This (virtualization and cloud) trend is picking up. We are very bullish right now on the market and where we sit."

GreenPages is positioned well for the cloud solution wave, Dupler said, because of its status as one of the top virtualization and cloud technology advisers in the country. "We've watched those trends and proactively capitalized on them in the last few years," he said. "In 2010, we find ourselves with a great team of technologists. Make no mistake about it: our product is the smart people in the organization." About half of GreenPages' 170 employees are technologists, he said.

GreenPages technology summit this year at the Sheraton Harborside in Portsmouth, N.H. is focused squarely at helping customers make the move to the cloud with the theme: Brave New World Cloud Computing: From Definition To Delivery.

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GreenPages is widely regarded as one of virtualization leader VMware's top partners and has partnered closely with VMware, EMC and Cisco on their cloud alliance known as the Virtual Computing Environment coalition. GreenPages is, in fact, one of a select group of partners qualified to sell and support the coalitions Vblock infrastructure packages.

GreenPages' turnaround comes after what Dupler called a challenging time for all technology solution providers in the corresponding period one year ago. The turnaround began in the second half of 2009 with business up 20 percent compared with the first six months of the year, said Dupler.

GreenPages used the downturn to sharpen its cloud focus and beef up its professional services capabilities with the acquisition last November of the VAR division of Boston-based Managed Technology Partners (MTP), said Dupler. That deal added 40 top engineers to the GreenPages staff, as well as a comprehensive suite of managed services offerings.

Next: Crafting IT Strategies Without A Cloud View Is Foolhardy

Dupler said the MTP acquisition is a game changer that provides GreenPages with a strong managed services foundation to "leverage and innovate" by adding managed services around virtualized and cloud environments. "We're in the process of stabilizing that initiative, integrating it and driving it forward," he said.

Even with its cloud muscle, GreenPages is a company in transition continuing to maintain its technology procurement business as its moves to full fledged consulting/professional services organization advising customers on virtualization and cloud business strategies, said Dupler.

"We're continuing to evolve and become a more robust organization," he said. "An organization that customers look at as a professional services, consulting, integration organization that can assess IT environments and build out long-term IT strategies for the next three to five years."

Dupler said the cloud phenomenon is happening faster than anticipated and that IT organizations that craft strategies without a cloud view are being "foolhardy."

"It is going to happen," said Dupler. "There is no turning back at this point. Cloud computing is absolutely changing the status quo of computing. It is changing IT environments, policies and procedures and breaking down silos in operating units and organizations."

Dupler said GreenPages' aim is to cut through all of the manufacturer cloud hype to provide the guidance and technology skills to help IT executives come to grips with the challenges posed by the cloud revolution.

One of GreenPages' defining characteristics is that it is broadly cross certified in all of the major vendor offerings, said Dupler. "We can go in and assess an IT environment and don't have to recommend a single technology," he said.

Dupler said that on every project that GreenPages is working on it is looking at the "big picture" with a vision of moving customers to "100 percent virtualized environments and the cloud so that we are making sure you are building toward the future instead of perpetuating the past."