News

Atlanta, GA November 23, 2007 -- Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT), the leading provider of worldwide comprehensive IT warranty and support services, announced that it has won a $35 million contract with the Social Security Administration. PPT will service over 46,000 pieces of equipment in more than 1,500 Social Security Administration offices throughout the United States and be responsible for relocating Government-owned Ethernet local area networks (LAN) and associated peripheral equipment when offices move. The contract is for five years – one year with four renewable option years.

“We are extremely proud that the Social Security Administration chose us to provide relocation, diagnostic and On-site services,” said Cliff King, Founder and CEO of Prism Pointe Technologies. “By leveraging our infrastructure, we will provide timely service to help the SSA serve its constituents more efficiently and reliably. This is a significant agreement for PPT and we are especially proud of our track record which demonstrates our commitment to providing world-class service to all our customers.”

About Prism Pointe Technologies

Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT) is the only company that provides total global 24/7 comprehensive warranty service to its customers and partners. PPT provides on-site technical IT support services to Fortune 1000 companies; Federal, State and Local agencies as well as Education institutions, Integrators; OEMs; and resellers. The Company has rapidly become the IT industry’s global service partner of choice in both the public and private sector.

Founded in 2002, PPT is a veteran-owned small business that has grown exponentially over the last five years. In 2007, the Inc. 5000 listed PPT among the top 100 IT service companies nationwide and in the top 1000 of the Inc. 5000. Headquartered outside of Atlanta, GA, PPT has offices in Herndon, VA, Jackson, MS, East Brunswick, N.J. and Dallas, TX and employs nearly 300 professional and support staff. Please see www.prismpointe.com for more information.

Atlanta, GA- December 4, 2007 -- Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT), the leading provider of worldwide comprehensive IT warranty and support services, announced that it was named to the first ever list of the Inc. 5000. The Inc. 5000 is a list of the fastest growing companies in America. The publication, known for its Inc. 500 list, expanded the list for the first time this year to accommodate the rapidly growing private sector. Of the Inc. 5000, the magazine writes, “These companies are the elite--a mere sliver of the seven million or so companies in the U.S. that have employees.”

Qualifying the first year it was eligible, Prism Pointe Technologies ranked in the top 1000 but more importantly, in the top 100 among IT services companies nationwide.

“We are thrilled to be included as high on the list as we are,” said Cliff King, Founder and CEO of Prism Pointe Technologies. “Our growth is attributable to Prism Pointe’s many dedicated employees whose skill and efforts make the company as viable as it is today. We have nearly 300 service and support professionals who we deployed around the clock, 365 days a year to provide our customers with timely service so they in turn, can serve their constituencies. This rating is a significant honor for PPT, especially in the service category where our five-year track record demonstrates our commitment to providing world-class service to all our customers.”

Inc. Magazine included additional facts about the Inc. 5000, including, ”The 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. produced $194 billion in 2006 revenue, about 1.5 percent of the national gross domestic product, and employed more than 900,000 people, about 0.6 percent of the jobs in the U.S.”

About Prism Pointe Technologies

Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT) is the only company that provides total global 24/7 comprehensive warranty service to its customers and partners. PPT provides on-site technical IT support services to Fortune 1000 companies; Federal, State and Local agencies as well as Education institutions, Integrators; OEMs; and resellers. The Company has rapidly become the IT industry’s global service partner of choice in both the public and private sector.

Founded in 2002, PPT is a veteran-owned small business that has grown exponentially over the last five years. In 2007, the Inc. 5000 listed PPT among the top 100 IT service companies nationwide and in the top 1000 of the Inc. 5000. Headquartered outside of Atlanta, GA, PPT has offices in Herndon, VA, Jackson, MS, East Brunswick, N.J. and Dallas, TX and employs nearly 300 professional and support staff. Please see www.prismpointe.com for more information.

Herndon, VA, January 31, 2007 -- Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT), the leading provider of worldwide comprehensive IT warranty and support services, announced that the company has received a one-year contract from the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DoDDS) to provide on-site service for approximately 15,000 Dell desktops at 123 schools in 10 countries.

DoDDS system runs schools in virtually every major military installation throughout the world. PPT has been a major service provider to DoDDS for many years either as a prime contractor or as a subcontractor to companies that provide computer technology to DoDDS.

“With an infrastructure in place to support the entire DoDDS system, we are extremely pleased to have won this contract,” said Cliff King, Founder and CEO of Prism Pointe Technologies. “We believe our past performance demonstrated our commitment to providing world-wide first class service. We have designed our business to support world-wide organizations such as DoDDS through our 24/7 help desk with certified field engineers proficient in a number of languages, and field personal that can be deployed rapidly.”

About Prism Pointe Technologies

Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT) is the only company that provides total global 24/7 comprehensive warranty service to its customers and partners. Regardless of where the warranty was purchased, PPT provides highly escalated, on site services that go beyond the standard next day response and return to service. With an outstanding reputation for performance, PPT has become the global service partner of choice throughout the IT industry. A veteran-owned small business, PPT is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with its Federal Sales and Operations Center in Herndon, VA, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Founded in 2002, PPT has grown rapidly, doubling its income year over year and increasing its staff by 300 percent since 2003. PPT provides on-site technical IT support services to Fortune 1000 companies; Federal, State and Local agencies as well as Education institutions, Integrators; OEMs; and resellers. Please see www.prismpointe.com for more information.

Herndon, VA, January 8, 2007 -- Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT), the leading provider of worldwide comprehensive IT warranty and support services, announced that the company will support seven of the nine Army Desktop and Mobile Computing 2 (ADMC-2) awardees. The awardees, are all premiere Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Systems Integrators in the Federal IT industry, that the Army selected to provide desktops and mobile computing equipment on its ADMC-2 10-year, IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity), contract. The contract is estimated to be worth $5 billion over the 10-year period if all options are exercised. PPT estimates that the contract will be worth approximately $40 million over the term of the contract.

“We are very proud that seven of the nine winners on this contract chose us to provide global services to the Army customers who will depend upon them,” said Cliff King, Founder and CEO of Prism Pointe Technologies. “We are particularly pleased to be providing service on one of the Army’s key hardware procurement vehicles. We know how important it is for the men and women who depend upon their equipment to have a reliable provider to service their equipment quickly and efficiently.

“We are known as the company that provides world-class, on-site, escalated services to our partners and customers,” said William Weithman, PPT’s Senior Vice President. “For over four years, we have earned the reputation as a company that delivers world class services that most often have exceeded the standard warranty. We are proud of that distinction and have made a significant investment in experienced personnel to maintain all current OEM warranty service authorizations, including technical support. As an example, we maintain our own help desk, 24/7, staffing it with certified field engineers proficient in a number of languages, he emphasized. “It is this ability that has allowed us to grow over 300% during the past four years.”

About Prism Pointe Technologies

Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT) is the only company that provides total global 24/7 comprehensive warranty service to its customers and partners. Regardless of where the warranty was purchased, PPT provides highly escalated, on site services that go beyond the standard next day response and return to service. With an outstanding reputation for performance, PPT has become the global service partner of choice throughout the IT industry. A veteran-owned small business, PPT is headquartered in Atlanta, GA, with its Federal Sales and Operations Center in Herndon, VA, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Founded in 2002, PPT has grown rapidly, doubling its income year over year and increasing its staff by 300 percent since 2003. PPT provides on-site technical IT support services to Fortune 1000 companies; Federal, State and Local agencies as well as Education institutions, Integrators; OEMs; and resellers. Please see www.prismpointe.com for more information.

GTSI said it has partnered with Gateway and Prism Pointe Technologies (PPT) to fulfill the needs of DODDS-Europe students, faculty members and school officials. Gateway is supplying the laptop, tablet and desktop computers. GTSI recently teamed with the company to provide computing solutions to cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

PPT, a veteran-owned small business, has provided round-the-clock on-site technical IT support services in a subcontractor role to GTSI for many years, the integrator said in the announcement.

IT relocation projects face an array of obstacles, but with detailed planning you can ensure success.

By Melissa Solomon

How to handle payments for and delivery of IT services proved a challenge for the Army's data center consolidation, the service's Robert Ringdahl says. There's no such thing as downtime at the Federal Aviation Administration's Logistics Center. More than 45,000 air traffic control facilities around the world count on it for emergency equipment and support.

So when the center had to move its systems management hub from one building to another on the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center campus in Oklahoma City, the stakes were high.

Business relocations are always complex, but coordinating the logistics behind a move involving information technology — especially when it comes to mission-critical equipment — can be daunting. It's not an impossible task, however. Seasoned veterans of IT moves by agencies point to chief success factors: taking time to do adequate planning before a single system comes offline and then allocating resources accordingly; making smart use of contractors; and setting contingency plans to deal with worst-case scenarios that might arise.

But even if all the prep work is done to perfection, the most experienced team leader can't anticipate every obstacle that might crop up.

For FAA Project Manager Steven Gregus, the unthinkable took the form of Hurricane Katrina, which battered the Gulf Coast less than two weeks before the scheduled move. Because the FAA Logistics Center was providing mission-critical support in Louisiana, some equipment had to be moved Friday night and come back online by Saturday morning. If that wasn't enough, the vendor coordinating the move, Prism Pointe Technologies, was in Jackson, Miss., smack-dab in the path of destruction.

"A lot of things were thrown in the mix," says CDW Government Account Manager Tom Alex, who helped manage the project with Gregus and Prism Pointe's Joe Williams.

To deal with the weather challenges, FAA rescheduled the move from Sept. 9 to Sept. 16, but Gregus couldn't delay it any further. "We pushed it out a week, but we had a hard target date," he says, explaining that construction crews were already lined up to renovate the old building. "We had to have it done before the end of the month. There was a domino effect here."

Despite the hurdles, the move — which included servers, storage equipment and a tape library that support 600 employees at the logistics center — went smoothly, and Gregus credits its success to the flexibility and close communications among project team members. The varied experience of the team members at FAA, Prism Pointe and CDW•G also proved invaluable, he says.

"We formed a partnership, we had a common goal, and we worked together," Gregus says. "That was key." As a result, he adds, "It was a quick weekend — in and out."

In the Beginning

The Army is planning to consolidate its IT operations by moving local services to centralized processing centers. The goals include simplifying network management, boosting security, providing greater agility to respond quickly to global missions and reducing the total cost of IT ownership, says Robert Ringdahl, director of strategic concepts and integration for the Army.

Lowering real estate costs, consolidating equipment and boosting operational efficiencies can all be good reasons for moving IT equipment, but, warns the Government Accountability Office's David Powner, such moves can be expensive and the savings don't always add up.

Powner, GAO's director for IT management issues, advises agencies to analyze potential costs and returns and to treat IT relocation projects like any other project competing for limited agency resources. "I think the key is to approach this from an investment point of view," he says.

A big expense that must be factored in is staffing, he points out. Will the agency have to pay to move employees or hire and train new ones? Will it need to hire contractors? Agencies also need to gauge equipment cost and setup and, in some cases, data transition or conversion, which can suck up time and money.

There are other factors to consider, too. If a relocation makes sense, an agency should read the fine print of its moving insurance to ensure that damaged equipment will be replaced in kind, advises John Long, a facilities relocation consultant with Robbins-Gioia of Alexandria, Va. He has helped coordinate major IT relocations at the Veterans Benefits Administration and within the military.

Another cost is what will be spent on vendors hired to plan and coordinate the move. Even if agencies have IT relocation expertise in-house, they may need additional help from their vendors to keep warranties intact, says CDW•G's Alex. Some manufacturers' warranties require that equipment be packed a certain way or moved by certified professionals or the agreements are voided.

Hiring contractors may also be the only way an agency can meet a challenging deadline. "If you've got to get it done and you don't have the resources to meet the deadline, you go outside," FAA's Gregus says.

One of the biggest costs of any IT relocation is the business interruption.

The FAA weekend move was an extraordinary exception. Most agencies need to factor in some degree of rolling downtime, running anywhere from two weeks to six months for a large IT center, warns Robbins-Gioia relocation consultant John La Jeunesse, who worked with Long on the move by the Veterans Benefits Administration.

"When you are moving computers, you are moving your whole database and your customer base," he says. "You need to pack up the equipment, transport it, unpack it, reassemble the cables and get everything back online. You can't just put it on a dolly and move it next door."

IT network and security systems consist of tightly integrated elements, and moving them around can be risky. Will the new facility accommodate the Internet Protocol addresses of all its new tenants? Will the equipment, especially aging legacy systems, communicate with state-of-the-art firewalls in the new facility?

And the plans must go way beyond the systems themselves. For its area processing centers, the Army will need uninterruptible power, communications, heating and cooling, and raised floor space, Ringdahl says.

Are electrical systems isolated so air conditioners don't drain power from mission-critical systems? Will the fire-suppression system sprinkle water on costly servers? Agencies moving IT operations must map out these issues and detail the plans and backup plans for every contingency, Le Jeunesse says.

The FAA Logistics Center's relocation is a case in point. While the actual move took place over a weekend, the work that went into planning it took several months, Gregus says. From July until September, the team outlined and coordinated network connectivity needs, power requirements and security issues.

"We looked at every scenario so we were able to anticipate problems ahead of time," Gregus says.

A successful IT relocation starts with a realistic schedule, one that anticipates obstacles, La Jeunesse says. Fan motors for heating systems need to be back-ordered, for instance, because a move inevitably leads to dust build-up that requires twice-daily sweepings. Be prepared for inspectors to turn up unexpected problems that stall the move — for a few hours or a few days. The schedule needs to build in contingencies and "be extremely detailed," he says.

Phase at a Time

La Jeunesse suggests dividing project schedules into phases. Phase one is the contracting phase. Next comes the planning and design phase in which all team members — in-house and contract staff — must participate. That's followed by the construction phase, which includes the prep work on permits and inspections.

In addition to planning the physical move, the team needs to anticipate any procedural changes that must take place because of the move. For instance, one of the most significant challenges for the Army project was changing the way the centers handle the payments for and delivery of IT services, Ringdahl says. Because most of the resources for services are divvied up locally, the Army needs to develop a new strategy for delivering IT services in a consolidated environment.

Despite what seems like a lot of hurdles, Ringdahl says that in the end his advice to other agencies about moving IT is simple and straightforward: "Employ good people. Set well-defined and realizable goals. Ensure you have the right skill set. And monitor progress."

Do Your Math
• Take an investment approach to all decisions regarding the move; calculate the ROI and keep a running tally of the costs.
• Calculate the cost of all possible staffing additions for the move, from contract systems help and bringing systems down and back up to the folks who actually move the equipment.
• Check to make sure that your moving insurance covers in-kind replacement of your IT gear.
• Review your IT equipment warranties — sometimes a move invalidates them, and you will need to work out arrangements with your vendors.
• Figure in the possible cost of work interruptions that might ensue.

Do Your Planning
• Set realistic parameters: Remember that an IT relocation is essentially a move coupled with a systems installation.
• Determine the packing logistics for each system and detail any special requirements for pricey or extremely sensitive gear.
• Take into account any service hookups for your systems that you will require and schedule them well in advance.
• Figure out if there are will be integration issues for legacy systems because moves often involve adding new systems and services.
• Make arrangements with vendors for any spare parts or support services that might be necessary.

• Networking Infrastructure
• Advanced Infrastructure with Active Directory Specialization
• Identity Management Specialization

"We are extremely proud that we have completed this rigorous certification program," said Cliff King, Founder and CEO of Prism Pointe Technologies. "These certifications reaffirm our commitment to continually developing and enhancing our existing capabilities to better serve our customers. With service requirements all over the world and a Microsoft platform which is common to almost all of our customers, we see an ever-increasing demand for performance and security."

PPT currently serves customers in over 30 countries around the world, including Afghanistan and Iraq. PPT provides on-site IT managed services including O/S upgrades, nationwide and global deployments, complex and high volume Active Directory migrations as well as configuration and integration services. The Company is rapidly becoming the number one teaming partner for leading systems integrators, VAR's and other companies who provide IT solutions within the U.S. or globally.