Canon Business Solutions-Southeast Turns to Novell to Support Rapid Growth

Canon Business Solutions-Southeast, Inc., a subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., has engaged Novell for a solution that can keep up with the desktop management and support needs of the company's multiplatform network. That saves Canon Business Solutions money, allowing it to invest the savings in other strategic projects to boost the company's bottom line. Canon U.S.A. is a subsidiary of Canon Inc. (NYSE: CAJ).

A leading retailer of professional business and consumer imaging equipment and information systems, Canon Business Solutions is now using Novell® ZENworks® to manage its employees' workstation environments across multiple sites. Canon Business Solutions expects better workstation management from ZENworks to decrease the number of machines needing work each week by 80 percent, along with a 30 to 40 percent gain in overall administrative efficiency and a 200 percent return on investment in the first year.

"With ZENworks, our IT team can do more with less," said John Grabowski, IT manager for Canon Business Solutions. "Our savings in manpower can be reinvested in new equipment, and we also aren't preoccupied with as many day-to-day issues. That allows us to concentrate on our plans for the future."

Having experienced explosive growth the past two years, Canon Business Solutions decided to implement ZENworks for Desktops 4 to improve imaging and remote control of employee workstations, as well as boosting application, policy and inventory management. Without any IT staff in its remote locations, the company needed efficient management capabilities from a single point of administration.

Tom Gartland, manager of field services for Sintaks, Canon Business Solutions' IT subsidiary, said, "Canon Business Solutions was using a competitive product and wasn't getting the level of support they required. We analyzed their situation, then began the task of finding a more responsive vendor who offers software scalable enough to support their rapid growth. Novell's ZENworks provided the answer."

Many of Canon Business Solutions' employees share PCs. ZENworks configures desktops according to user identity, so users receive a personalized desktop each time they log in from any location or machine. Productivity improves when users experience a consistent desktop with each login while working from any PC in any office, and administrators can give support based on user identity and unique job requirements rather than the serial number of the machine.

"The integration of Novell eDirectory™ with ZENworks makes it easy for us to link applications to users no matter where they go, which we were unable to do with our previous vendor," said Eric Owren, network engineer at Canon Business Solutions. "We are now working to tie other applications to eDirectory to improve both the security and management of our entire network."

Novell ZENworks is a complete management solution that allows organizations to manage users' desktops and laptops wherever they are, whether in the office or on the road, in addition to managing servers and handhelds. Part of Novell Nterprise™ - a set of services that improve communication, simplify and automate network management, and allow workers to be productive regardless of location, device or platform - ZENworks works across all leading operating systems and integrates with existing networks as one Net, letting organizations use what they have more efficiently, rather than being forced into expensive infrastructure purchases. For more information, see http://www.novell.com/products/zenworks.