Technology Professionals Enjoy Productivity, Enhanced Security with System Upgrade
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Windows Vista Customer Solution Case Study Technology Professionals Enjoy Productivity, Enhanced Security with System Upgrade Customer: CDW “Our deployment of Windows Vista was one of the Web Site: www.cdw.com easiest such projects we have ever undertaken.” Customer Size: 6,300 employees Country or Region: United States Industry: Information technology Jaime Waterfield, Solutions Manager, Microsoft Team, CDW Customer Profile As a highly successful system integrator and solution provider to CDW is a U.S.$8.1 billion technology- solutions company that was founded in organizations of all sizes, CDW practices what it preaches by 1984 and today employs 6,300 people. ensuring that its own technology professionals have the most Software and Services advanced software available. To that end, CDW has deployed Windows Vista Enterprise Windows Vista® to coworkers on its Microsoft team, all of them Microsoft Office − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server mobile. As a result, those employees are enjoying significant 2007 improvements in productivity and security. Microsoft Server Product Portfolio − Windows Server 2003 Business Needs customers. By using such solutions − Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Named by Fortune magazine in 2008 as one internally, the CDW Microsoft team can − Microsoft System Center of America’s Most Admired Companies, demonstrate its technology leadership, and Configuration Manager 2007 Vernon Hills, Illinois–based CDW is a leading its coworkers can speak from experience provider of technology solutions for when recommending and implementing business, government, and education. With those solutions for customers. an employee base of 6,300, CDW serves customers across the United States, offering Solution expertise in the areas of unified communica- Because of its longtime commitment to tions, security, remote managed services, using Microsoft technologies and its need for virtualization, and desktop optimization. advanced productivity, security, and mobility at the client level, members of the CDW The CDW Microsoft team uses a broad Microsoft team became enthusiastic selection of Microsoft® server and client participants in the Microsoft Technology technologies. Like their counterparts Adoption Program for the Windows Vista® throughout the larger CDW enterprise, operating system. After the software’s formal For more information about other Microsoft Microsoft team managers are committed to release in January 2007, the group began a customer successes, please visit: running their own business on solutions that measured deployment to the engineers, www.microsoft.com/casestudies are as innovative as those they provide to consultants, and sales specialists who sell, design, develop, integrate, and implement the considering the voluminous data involved which sometimes took the mobile worker solutions that the CDW Microsoft team in implementing the kind of complex IT several hours to obtain. Because Windows provides to its customers. solutions that these professionals provide Vista supports the Key Management to customers.” Service for Windows Server 2003, the As Jaime Waterfield, Solutions Manager in coworker can expedite reinstallation by the Microsoft team at CDW, explains, Stronger security in the field. The mobile connecting to the Microsoft network and these coworkers constituted an ideal coworkers on the CDW Microsoft team activating on the spot. deployment target because their needs align have long needed powerful security tech- closely with the security and mobility nologies that do not interfere with getting Deployment cost savings. Waterfield and capabilities of Windows Vista. All these work done. Today, these workers are using other CDW managers look forward to individuals are in transit virtually 365 days a Windows Vista security capabilities such potential cost savings from streamlining year to service customers on-site in the as Windows BitLocker™ Drive Encryption, deployment with tools such as ImageX and planning, deploying, and support of advanced Windows Firewall, and Windows Defender Windows Imaging Format. With such tools, software solutions. to help them maintain system stability in CDW anticipates being able to rely on a their portable computers and to protect single deployment image—instead of 10 or To streamline deployment, Waterfield’s team vital customer data often stored on them. 15, as the group did before—to bring used the Microsoft Key Management Service Windows Vista and future operating for Windows Server® 2003, Microsoft Deploy- The same mobile coworkers frequently system updates to the coworkers who ment Toolkit 2008, and Microsoft System need to access the larger CDW network as need them. Center Configuration Manager 2007. The well as internal customer networks team also used the Microsoft Application wirelessly. To do this, they are taking “This means that a consultant can be up Compatibility Toolkit version 5.0, Windows® advantage of the integrated wireless client and running in a matter of minutes, rather User State Migration Tool, ImageX, and that is part of the Windows Vista Network than having to wait for a period that in Windows Imaging Format. The team com- and Sharing Center. This client supports some cases could take days,” Waterfield pleted deployment in mid-2007. settings management through the Active explains. “In turn, the consultant can start Directory® service in the Windows Server work on billable projects right away.” Benefits operating system. The CDW Microsoft team is enjoying a number Waterfield also is pleased at the efficiency of benefits as a result of this deployment, “Through the integrated wireless client in of her team’s own deployment experience. including higher productivity, enhanced Windows Vista, Microsoft Practice consul- “Our deployment of Windows Vista was security, simplified reinstallations, and a far tants can access corporate networks with one of the easiest such projects we have more cost-effective process for future greater security, which boosts the confi- ever undertaken,” she says. deployments. dence of our customers,” Waterfield says. “This is highly valuable, as establishing a Day-to-day productivity improvements. With strong relationship is central to building the help of Windows Vista Instant Search, and maintaining a loyal customer base.” metatags, and search folders, the CDW Microsoft coworkers are integrating the Easier reinstallations. Another common search functionalities of Windows Vista, challenge for the mobile workers of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and CDW Microsoft team is the need to Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. reinstall the operating system on their “As a result, users are organizing and portable or Tablet PC after they have used finding information far more easily than it for demonstrating or testing customer ever before,” Waterfield reports. “This solutions. In the past, such a reinstallation represents a significant advantage, required an authentication product key, This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published July 2008 .