CEA Solution Provider of the Year

Tech Data’s Frank Haid presented the 2008 Solution Provider of the Year award to Calgary’s Long View Systems.

Long View is a nine-year-old IT solutions and services company that has grown to $150 million in revenue and 600 employees concentrated mainly in North America, focusing on infrastructure solutions and services. Long View was also number 13 in CDN’s Top 100 solution providers for 2008.

Tech Data’s Frank Haid lists all of Long View’s major accomplishments during the year.

Their client had a mandate to be the top company in North America in its vertical by 2010. To get there, they needed a flexible IT infrastructure to handle both organic growth and growth by acquisition.

Also, the company has a North American presence, so the growth could come near head office or a ways away. That’s where Long View came in.

Long View Systems vice-presidents Kent MacDonald and Phil Edgell come up on stage to receive their awards.

“We’re very excited,” said Phil, Long View’s director of business development, about the win. “It’s always an honour to be recognized in front of your peers, and certainly being a Western regional player, knowing there are so many strong national VARs, it’s an honour to be recognized.

More than 200 solution providers from across Canada joined in to applaud Long View’s triumph as Solution Provider of the Year.

LongView’s client set four priorities: improve their competitive position, reduce costs by adopting virtualization technologies, protect their business with a business continuity strategy and implement a computing environment capable of growing with the business. Long View used VMware virtualization technology to give them a more flexible infrastructure with servers from HP and storage from NetApp, and a disaster recovery system that’s easy and cost effective.

Long View’s Kent MacDonald and Phil Edgell are greeted back stage by CDN Editor Paolo Del Nibletto.

Asked for his thoughts, Edgell offered the following advice for his solution provider peers. “Look to solve business problems, listen closely to your clients’ needs, and make sure you’re testing against those needs in the solutions you’re providing,” said Edgell. “In doing it that way, you’re proving value to your clients.”

The Best Small Business Solution Gold award was won by Dave Sherry and Adriana Grella of Unity Telecom.

The Newmarket, Ont.-based solution provider provided Westhill Community Services with an IP-based, multi-site Unified Communications solution. The original requirement was to provide a communications platform that would create a single image environment across multiple locations, with centralized administration, while allowing for dramatic growth in the near future without adding significant cost when expanding.

In second place with the Silver award in Best Small Business Solution is Tim Grimes of Team SFA.

They developed with a solution that provides full control for field sales, inventory, routes and sales, while also providing full control for office administration to manage mobilized data from Accpac ERP ledgers. The flow and automation of the data and sales transactions are posted into the Accpac ERP ledgers and tables in an instant.

Coming in third with the Bronze award is Peter Heider of ITnorth.ca Network and Consulting Services Ltd for its Microsoft SBS server solution for Tumbler Ridge, a town challenged by outdated technology. A quaint, isolated town in British Columbia, Tumbler Ridge needed a vendor who could deliver a computer and network system that connected the town to the rest of the province, offered reliable equipment, and deliver fast, responsive customer service. ITnorth.ca’s solution provided a solution that relieves the town council of the worries of slow network performance and lax security.