Medium Size Business
Wallingford Computer Services Case Study-Dazel
Getting what you want.
Where does a technically savvy, highly demanding software company go to purchase its systems? For Dazel, an international developer of output management solutions, the answer turned out to be very close to home. Headquartered in Austin, Dazel sells integrated output management and delivery systems to major manufacturers and distributors all over the world. It's a company heavily staffed with engineers and developers-and when it comes to systems, they know exactly what they want. But when Systems Administrator Buddie Hall arrived, he realized they weren't getting what they wanted from their current vendor.
"When I started here three years ago, they were buying Micron," explains Hall. "We couldn't get what we needed from their support team. We were troubleshooting on a much higher level than many of their customers and it was almost impossible for them to send us out parts, even though we knew exactly what needed to be replaced." For Hall, the solution was simple: Make the move to a reliable local vendor. "I immediately started trying to push Micron out as a vendor," said Hall. "I showed them the hour-long hold times-we just couldn't get through. I immediately showed them the advantages of buying locally in terms of repair time turnarounds and minimizing downtime."
Making the smart choice.
When it came time to standardize on a local vendor for all of Dazel's systems, Hall knew exactly where to turn: Wallingford Computer Services. "About ten years ago I was buying parts from them as a small shop," explains Hall. "Over the years, I bought from them locally pretty much all the time and got them to solve a number of business critical problems that I had working for other companies." Not only was Wallingford Computer Services convenient and reliable, but their pricing was competitive. For a risk-free, local alternative to the support headaches they had experienced before, Wallingford Computer Services was a virtual no-brainer.
Wallingford also met the more stringent requirements of a software developer. "We're picky about what we order," says Hall. "Being engineers we know exactly what we want-we do all the research ourselves as well." For Dazel, it was vitally important that they get precisely the system they ordered and be able to obtain exact replacements in a timely fashion. Wallingford's service and support structure was well-equipped to handle these demands, providing a high level of support reliability and swift response for business-critical systems.
And so another successful Wallingford relationship began. Over the last two and a half years, Dazel has purchased over 150 systems and servers from Wallingford Computer Services-completely standardizing their corporate headquarters. "We use WE for all of our desktop clients and all of our servers," notes Hall. "We do buy a couple of other brands but for testing alone-they're in our test labs." Wallingford servers run SQL Server, Exchange Server, NT Domains, Lotus Notes and Domino Server as well as Dazel's own server products, and every desktop system is a Wallingford machine. "Every corporate function we have is completely run on Wallingford computers," Hall says.
For Hall and the developers and engineers at Dazel, switching to Wallingford has brought a welcome breath of stability to a rapidly changing high-tech environment. "We get exactly what we want-no hidden hardware upgrades that we don't know about," explains Hall. "They don't change the motherboards out every 90 days. It's a lot more reliable scenario for us." While other vendors revise configurations too quickly to keep up, Wallingford sticks with stable configurations. "It's tough to keep hardware the same," notes Hall. "Even the people making it change it every few months. We need to hold on to stable configurations as long as we possibly can."
Service and support that shines.
The true measure of a manufacturer's dedication is made after the sale, and Wallingford Computer Services service and support team prides itself on some of the best problem resolution time in the business. For Dazel, Wallingford's response has exceeded their expectations. "We get plenty of attention and somebody assigned to the problem that can usually resolve it," notes Hall. Best of all, Wallingford is able to dovetail comfortably with Dazel's high-end support needs. "I can call with a down problem and diagnose it and simply drive over there and have them replace my stock," says Hall. "I can almost guarantee 15 minute or less downtime unless it's hard drive failure. It's a big plus-you can't get other companies to do that."
Dazel plans on staying with Wallingford for the long term. "I do recommend Wallingford to just about everyone," says Hall. "We like Wallingford Computer Services better because they buy a better class of hardware, and stick with it longer. Buying the Microns and the Dells you seriously have new revisions every 30 days or so." And if it's that lack of stability and support that turned Dazel away from the low-price manufacturers to begin with, it's the reliability and top-notch support that keeps them buying Wallingford systems. "I'll put it this way," explains Hall. "We could buy cheaper from Dell, but we don't." We couldn't have said it better ourselves.
