Computacenter has demonstrated its ability to add incremental value to its customers by incorporating Sun into their core offering, commented Steve Raby, Director of Channels for Sun. They have built a highly scalable business with Sun, through the provision of products and services on Sun’s technology that has categorically set them apart from the rest.
The award recognises Computacenters’ investment in developing its enterprise services as Simon Walsh, Director of Computacenter’s Enterprise division confirms, Computacenter recently created a dedicated end-to-end enterprise division that focuses on the consolidation and integration of customers’distributed IT systems. A key constituent of this is being able to help design and implement e-business solutions, so it was logical to invest in developing our Sun knowledge as the leading e-business hardware vendor.
Computacenter and Sun ran a series of day and weekend long courses for the company’s entire account management staff that familiarised them not only with the Sun product offerings, but set these in context with the dramatic growth of infrastructures around e-business. The events, run under the title ‘The Dot.Com Academy’ were supported by the most senior Sun Managers, who saw this as a major partner project.
Prior to this initiative, Sun products were the preserve of a dedicated group within the company. Computacenter wanted to change that, comments Nigel Seddon, Partner Marketing Manager at Sun. The Dot.Com Academy was designed to broaden the Computacenter account teams’ understanding of the growing role of e-business and how Sun is developing new technologies around this. The results of this programme have been dramatic. Today we find that Computacenter is generating and supporting enterprise-class business across the entire breadth of its customer base.
Simon Walsh believes that the award gives Computacenter an enviable mark of prestige that customers will value. An award like this is a visible testament to our ability to help enterprises design and implement solutions that leverage the best of technology to deliver competitive advantage. Sun is the world-leader by a long margin in e-business server technology. Our Sun business has developed from specialised supply and installation to the full range of project design, implementation and support services.
We are delighted to have won this award and look forward to building upon this achievement.
Computacenter PLC Trading Update(11/01/01)
Computacenter will today be holding a briefing for analysts to update them on its trading performance prior to entering the closed period. The Group will announce its preliminary results for the year ending 31 December 2000 on 14 March of this year.
The second half of the year saw a progressive improvement in market conditions. The Group continued to experience some post-millennium effect in the third quarter, but the fourth quarter saw satisfactory trading with continued revenue growth in Unix and Networking systems, Managed Services and improved Professional Services utilisation. The Group also secured some very significant Windows 2000 projects. Overall performance in the second half was as anticipated and the likely outcome for the full year remains in line with our expectations.
It is very early to comment on prospects for 2001. It is prudent to remain cautious on both general market conditions and the possibility of increasing margin pressure. However the Group enjoys a strong competitive position, which has been particularly beneficial during the recent challenging market conditions and management is confident of the soundness of the Group’s overall strategic direction. We believe that the growth prospects for the Group, now the post-millennium period is behind us, are positive.
