FlexITy Solutions Inc. No. 13 on CDN’s Top 100 Solution Providers list, has opened a new operations centre in Winnipeg that will feature a cloud and unified communications offering.
The unified communications offering is branded Collaboratory and is powered by Cisco technology centred on enterprise private and public sector organizations to test innovative voice, data and collaboration solutions in a simulated environment. Customers will also be able to test, prove out and experience cloud-based unified communications risk free.
This facility is part of the Richmond Hill, Ont.-based solution provider’s $11 million investment in its Western Canadian headquarters. Approximately 18 month ago, FlexITy expanded into Western Canada as well as announcing the City of Winnipeg would be using the solution provider’s unified communications-as-a-service offering called FlexTel.
David De Abreu, Cisco Canada channel chief, called FlexITy a premier partner that is exploring the potential of unified communications platforms to change their business.
Peter Stavropoulos, the CEO of FlexITy, said the company has made a significant investment in Cisco and as a result are a Canadian leader in terms of capabilities, certifications and delivery strength. The FlexITy team has proven experience deploying Cisco-based solutions and will continually invest to ensure that employees maintain the highest levels of certification on their products.
“This is particularly true for public sector organizations,” added Stavropoulos. “They often lack the resources or opportunity to experiment with new solutions in order to prove out the business case or to explore benefits and risks. The Collaboratory changes this. It provides an environment where we can work with our partners to help customers assess their requirements, develop solutions that meet those needs and experience the technology in action.”
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Stavropoulos also said that the Collaboratory can demonstrate:
- State of the art voice, data and collaboration solutions that can extend reach to constituents over a widely dispersed geographic area;
- Simplified billing and cost accounting structures that reduce the overall cost to taxpayers;
- Advanced automation and orchestration capabilities that can integrate other systems into a seamless management environment;
- Rapid deployment models including self-administered user provisioning options;
- End to end data encryption that ensures security and integrity; and,
- Strong Canadian based hosting models that secure public sector information assets in the country.
The data centre facility will also function as the primary sales and service delivery location for FlexITy customers in Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. It is one of a limited number of certified unified communications facilities in Canada.
According to Stavropoulos, FlexITy selected Winnipeg as the site of its Western Canadian operations for several reasons. They are:
- Manitoba provides a stable, secure economy to operate and deliver cloud-based services throughout Canada;
- There is access to highly skilled technology delivery and management personnel in Winnipeg;
- The city has strong accessibility to western Canada and central US markets; and,
- The central location is ideal to enable FlexITy’s overall technology infrastructure to meet stringent network reliability and redundancy requirements required by customers looking for a comprehensive communications and hosting solutions;
FlexITy has committed to establishing 20 engineering and management positions in Winnipeg as part of the initial phase of their business plan. In the end, the plan should have a cumulative impact of 120 person years of net new employment in the Province, the company said. It will also generate an estimated $4.5 million of new provincial and federal tax revenue over the same period.