MSI Systems Integrators: Press Releases

MSI Systems Integrators Certified to Deliver HP Adaptive Infrastructure Maturity Model

marketing@msiinet.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 06:00:00 +0100

Services Include Step-By-Step Roadmap

[OMAHA, NE - September 4, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive IT solution provider of hardware, software and services, today announced it has been certified to deliver the HP Adaptive Infrastructure Maturity Model (AIMM). HP AIMM is a review methodology pioneered by HP to help organizations move toward the next generation data center - a 24x7 lights-out environment based on standard building blocks and automated using modular software. HP business partners must complete a mandatory training program to deliver the HP AIMM assessment.

"The goal is to help MSI clients spend less and gain more from their IT operations by optimizing the use of their infrastructure," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "This assessment will give the client best of breed recommendations."

MSI will use this standard set of real-world metrics to provide a step-by-step roadmap for reaching its clients desired future state. Using benchmarks from 1,400 companies, MSI evaluates across four domains, including technology and architecture; management tools and processes; culture and staff; and demand, supply and IT governance. Those areas are then analyzed against five stages of maturity, ranging from a compartmentalized stage to an adaptive, shared infrastructure stage, to identify an actionable roadmap for the client organization.

The process includes data gathering, a review and analysis of information, and a workshop. A specific roadmap and recommendation report is provided by MSI and compares the current level of achievement to the average for other organizations.

About MSI Systems Integrators

MSI Systems Integrators helps companies make their businesses better by providing IT optimization, data center optimization, virtualization, security, business continuity and unified communication solutions. A leading provider of hardware, software and services, MSI has deep technical skills and partners with technology leaders such as IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Microsoft, NetApp, and VMware to provide world-class business solutions that help companies be more efficient, dynamic, and resilient. MSI is headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska with offices throughout the United States.

MSI Systems Integrators Recognized by Cisco as Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider

marketing@msiinet.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0100

MSI to Deploy and Support the Cisco Unified Computing System in the United States

[Omaha, NE - July 16, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators, Inc. (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software, and services, announced today that it has achieved Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider (ATP) status from Cisco. This designation recognizes MSI as having fulfilled the training and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support the Cisco Unified Computing System in the United States.

The Cisco Unified Computing System unites network, computational, storage access, and virtualization resources in a single energy-efficient system that can reduce the costs and complexity of information technology (IT) infrastructure, help extend capital assets, and improve business agility well into the future. A new computing model, the Cisco Unified Computing System uses integrated management and combines a "wire once" unified fabric with an industry-standard computing platform to optimize virtualization, reduce the data center's total overall cost, and provide dynamic resource provisioning for businesses that are becoming increasingly collaborative, mobile and distributed.

"Achieving Unified Computing ATP is a credit to the quality of the engineering and sales specialists that make up our Networking team," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "The specializations recognize the quality of work and experience that MSI brings to the table when assisting clients with any of their networking needs."

"Taking advantage of an architectural shift in the data center, Cisco's new computing model can help customers transform the data center into a dynamic IT environment with the power to increase productivity, improve efficiency and drive virtualization to an entirely new level," said John Growdon, director, Worldwide Channels Go-to-Market Group at Cisco. "As a Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider, MSI is a member of an elite ecosystem of industry leaders working with Cisco to stimulate technology innovation, augment service delivery, and accelerate the market adoption of unified computing."

To qualify as a Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Authorized Technology Provider, MSI had to meet a number of requirements. These included achieving the Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure Specialization and the Cisco Data Center Storage Networking Specialization as well as demonstrating mature competencies in server, storage and virtualization technologies.

Cisco's Authorized Technology Provider Program is part of a comprehensive go-to-market strategy for emerging and advanced technologies. The program helps Cisco to define the knowledge, skills and services that channel partners need to sell, deploy and support these technologies. As the market changes, an ATP status is often the precursor to a Cisco specialization.

About MSI Systems Integrators

MSI Systems Integrators Joins NetApp Partner Program at the Star Level

marketing@msiinet.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:00:00 +0100

MSI to Offer Expanded Range of Storage Solutions

[Omaha, NE - July 13, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software and services, announced today it has joined a select group of storage experts by being named a Star level reseller in the NetApp Partner Program. Through the program, MSI will be able to provide its clients with enterprise storage technologies and solutions that are more manageable, simple, and faster to deploy than traditional storage solutions. In addition, the solutions offer increased availability and require fewer IT resources.

At the highest level in the NetApp Partner Program, Star partners have the opportunity to grow their business and increase profits through enhanced technical support, marketing and selling programs. Offering industry-leading storage solutions from NetApp, Star-level partners are able to help their clients achieve improved profitability, faster time-to-market, and gain competitive advantage by exploiting untapped value within their IT infrastructures.

"MSI offers a broad range of value-added services and solutions that complement NetApp storage and data management solutions," said Todd Palmer, NetApp Vice President of Americas Channel. "We are pleased MSI has achieved Star status, the most advanced partner level in the NetApp Partner Program."

"This highest level of commitment with NetApp helps MSI provide storage solutions to address our unique clients' challenges in today's business climate, including building high-performance IT infrastructures, increasing cost efficiency and maximizing storage consolidation," said Jim Simpson, MSI president and CEO. "The benefits at the Star level represents a commitment to mutual collaboration by NetApp and enables MSI to better serve our storage clients."

IDC estimates the market opportunity for the software, servers, technologies and services to manage the world's converged IT and physical infrastructure to be $122 billion by 2012.

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IBM Recognizes MSI Systems Integrators for Outstanding Achievements in Business and Technology Excellence

marketing@msiinet.com — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0100

MSI Named Winner of the Outstanding Power of i Business Solution

[Omaha, Neb. - June 9, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software, and services, announced today it was named winner of the award for the Outstanding Power of i Business Solution category in the 2009 IBM Beacon Awards competition for delivering outstanding value and innovative approaches to helping clients address unique business challenges.

The IBM Beacon Awards are an integral part of IBM's PartnerWorld program, which provides industry recognition, increased visibility, and promotional opportunities to IBM global Business Partners. Members of IBM PartnerWorld benefit from global marketing and technical enablement initiatives to drive new revenue and market opportunities through the delivery of innovative business solutions.

"We are very proud to have won an IBM Beacon Award this year," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "The technology and the resources IBM provides allow us to further envision and architect efficient, customized solutions that address cost, risk, and cycle-time reduction for our clients."

MSI and its client, Perishable Distributors of Iowa, understood IBM's vision of where the system i and virtualization technology was heading and early-on saw the strengths, efficiency, and promise it could bring to their enterprise and enhance business operations. As a wholesale distributor that ships perishable food to 210 retail stores in a seven state area, welcome benefits of the technology solution included cost savings, time savings, footprint and energy consumption reduction, reliability, scalability, and ease-of-use.

The IBM Beacon Awards recognize excellence in the development and delivery of solutions and services that Business Partners deliver to clients around the world. More than 340 nominations were judged by a team of leading industry journalists, analysts and IBM executives, who selected winners and finalists in the 22 award categories.

"IBM is dedicated to helping our global Business Partners deliver innovative solutions that enable our joint clients transform their business operations," said Rich Hume, general manager, IBM Global Business Partner Organization. "MSI was recognized in the Outstanding Power of i Business Solution based on their technology leadership and commitment to delivering customer value. This award is a testament to their commitment to delivering on IBM's smarter planet vision."

For more information about the IBM Beacon Awards, including descriptions of the winning entries and details about the finalists, please visit http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/2009_awards.html.

To learn more about IBM PartnerWorld, a comprehensive program that offers marketing and sales resources, training, certification and technical support to help create new revenue and market opportunities for IBM Business Partners, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld.

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MSI Systems Integrators Becomes Google Enterprise Partner

marketing@msiinet.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0100

Google Search Appliance Now Available through MSI

[Omaha, NE - June 1, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software and services, announced today it has become a Google Enterprise Partner (GEP)™. The partnership allows MSI to offer the Google Search Appliance (GSA)™ to its clients. The GSA helps organizations more quickly find critical business information to better empower their employees.

The GSA is an integrated hardware and software appliance that has the search algorithms needed to search an organization's entire data stack. GSA allows employees a Google.com search experience to efficiently locate critical information within an organization's own data repositories. The GSA can pull information from intranets, web servers, portals, file shares, databases, content management systems, and real-time business applications. Users can also personalize their own search experience based on their job functions and type of information they routinely need to locate. This comprehensive search experience, known as "Universal Search for Business", allows employees to be more productive by decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information and increasing the amount of time they can use that information.

"Most organizations are struggling with the lack of flexibility to search within their highly-customized back-end system repositories," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO of MSI. "As the volume of data grows and the need for productivity rises, we are finding our clients need a comprehensive and easy solution like the Google Search Appliance."

With an ever-increasing amount of data being stored electronically within organizations, the ability to find the right information inside the enterprise, across formats, and repositories, is necessary now more than ever. According to a 2007 study by Butler Group research, as much as 10 percent of a company's salary costs are wasted on ineffective searches.

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MSI Systems Integrators Receives IBM Certification for Dynamic Infrastructure Skills

marketing@msiinet.com — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:00:00 +0100

Now Part of IBM's Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program

[Omaha, NE - April 29, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software and services, announced today it has gained certification in IBM's Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program in the areas of Business Resiliency Specialty Elite. Through the program, MSI will work with IBM to help clients build a new, more dynamic infrastructure that will bring greater intelligence, automation, integration, and efficiencies to the digital and physical worlds.

The program is designed to enable customers to use powerful computing systems to manage and gain insight from an increasing number of components in their physical infrastructure that are being instrumented with intelligent sensors. IDC estimates the market opportunity for the software, servers, technologies and services to manage the world's converged IT and physical infrastructure to be $122 billion by 2012.

"The need for IT professionals to build a dynamic infrastructure in order to fully benefit from their data center technologies is undeniable," said Mike Gerentine, IBM Global Vice President of Channels and Solution Marketing. "MSI's dedication to fueling the adoption of the dynamic infrastructure model only helps them deliver more powerful, intelligent and secure data center solutions to their customers."

MSI's participation in the Dynamic Infrastructure Specialty Program better positions them to assist businesses in managing challenges presented by today's globally integrated planet. MSI is able to deepen its skills in areas such as business resiliency, high availability, compliance and security and these enhanced skills will enable MSI to more accurately respond to their customers' multi-faceted IT challenges and help customers with the creation of dynamic infrastructures.

"The IBM Dynamic Infrastructure certification strengthens our ability to respond to client demands in developing solutions based on business needs," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "It enables us to help our clients enhance their competitive position by offering them solutions that mitigate risk and allow better service to their own customers and end users."

In order to achieve this certification, MSI has invested many hours in IBM training classes; achieved brand, system architecture and project management based certifications; and built new offerings to help customers evaluate their environments and implement robust solutions for their dynamic infrastructure environments.

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Portland General Electric and US-TAG Member MSI Systems Integrators Host US-Technical Advisory Group Spring Meeting

marketing@msiinet.com — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:00:00 +0100

Recommendations and Proposals to be Presented to International Body in India

[PORTLAND, Ore. - February 27, 2009] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive provider of hardware, software, and services, and Portland General Electric will host the United States Technical Advisory Group (US-TAG) this March in Portland. The spring meeting, held March 10-12 at the World Trade Center in downtown Portland, serves to review existing standards for currency and formulate recommendations and proposed changes to select ISO/IEC standards.

US-TAG formally advises the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) - the United States' national body member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) - on recommendations for development of various international standards. The resulting recommendations and proposed changes to ISO/IEC standards will be brought forward to the international body for ratification. The 2009 international meeting will take place in India later this year.

Representation within ISO/IEC JTC1-SC7 includes some of the top corporations, universities, standards, and professional organizations in the world, focused on IT-related standards. ISO is the world's largest developer of international standards. Made up of the national standards bodies of 157 countries, ISO forms a bridge between the public and private sector and is the foremost developer of standards in the world.

"Our participation will give MSI and our clients a voice in the development of international standards, technical reports, and official guidance on emerging standards in the IT services management and governance space," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO of MSI. "We have the ability to take what we see in our clients' environments, their concerns and challenges, and propose solutions at an international level."

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MSI Systems Integrators Achieves Four Solution Elite Partner Designations

marketing@msiinet.com — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:00:00 +0100

Achievements Include Virtualization, Open Source, Microsoft Unified Communications and Microsoft SQL

[OMAHA, NE - November 19, 2008] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive IT solution provider of hardware, software and services, today announced it has met the requirements to be approved by HP for the FY '09 Virtualization, Open Source, Microsoft Unified Communications, and Microsoft SQL Solution Elite designations. MSI attained approval for the designations by achieving stated criteria and revenue goals.

"The four Solution Elite designations represent the mutual commitment and technical focus of our teams," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "We will continue to diligently look forward to the additional growth and technical opportunities with HP."

In September, MSI achieved HP PartnerONE Gold status, and in June achieved HP PartnerONE Services Elite and BladeSystems Elite status, joining a select group of HP solution providers who have achieved the same designations.

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MSI Systems Integrators Achieves Tivoli AAA Deployment Accreditation for Tivoli Storage Manager and TotalStorage Productivity Center

marketing@msiinet.com — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:00:00 +0100

MSI is One of Two to Achieve Status for Both Products in North America

[Omaha, Neb. - October 13, 2008] - MSI Systems Integrators (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software, and services, and IBM Premier Business Partner, has received IBM Tivoli's AAA Deployment Accreditation for Tivoli Storage Manageer (TSM) and TotalStorage Productivity Center (TPC). MSI is one of only three business partners worldwide who have achieved AAA status for both products.

The AAA accreditation honors those who have achieved the highest standards in technical certifications for delivering Tivoli-based solutions. Each accreditation level requires deployment professionals and solution advisors to have in-depth knowledge either across a broad range of Tivoli solutions or around a single product. Each level reflects the number of dedicated professionals within the firm that have achieved the required skill competencies.

The AAA Deployment Accreditation demonstrates MSI's customer commitment with IBM to bring the highest level of expertise and support to its customer base.

"This demonstrates our continued commitment to our clients, implementing data management solutions that support their business needs," said Tony Regier, senior vice president, Storage, MSI. "The certification provides additional assurance that our clients are working with some of the top IT engineers and architects in the industry."

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MSI Systems Integrators Achieves Cisco Master Unified Communications and Cisco Master Security Specializations

marketing@msiinet.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:00:00 +0100

Designations recognize in-depth technical expertise and demonstrated customer success in selling, deploying, and providing services for more sophisticated Cisco solutions

[Omaha, Neb. - September 30, 2008] - MSI Systems Integrators, Inc. (MSI), a leading comprehensive solution provider of hardware, software, and services announced today that it has achieved both the Master Unified Communications Specialization and the Master Security Specialization from Cisco®. MSI is one of a small number of Cisco partners worldwide to hold both the Master Unified Communications and Security designations. These designations recognize MSI as having fulfilled the training requirements and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support highly sophisticated Cisco unified communications and security solutions.

"Achieving these specializations is a credit to the quality of the engineering and sales specialists that make up our Networking team," said Jim Simpson, president and CEO, MSI. "The specializations recognize the quality of work and experience that MSI brings to the table when assisting clients with any of their networking needs."

"As the network becomes the platform for driving communications and innovation, our customers are demanding an enhanced set of skills and capabilities from channel partners," said Edison Peres, senior vice president and chief go-to-market officer for worldwide channels at Cisco. "MSI's investment in Master Unified Communications and Master Security Specializations ranks them among the industry's elite."

To achieve the Master Unified Communications and Security Specializations, resale channel partners must first attain the Advanced Unified Communications and Security Specializations. Partners must then meet a series of stringent requirements in three categories: technology capabilities, sales expertise, and Cisco Lifecycle Services. Partners must possess a number of Cisco and industry-standard technical certification requirements, provide customer references that document Cisco-prescribed design and deployment capabilities, and show evidence that they have the infrastructure to support a full menu of Lifecycle Services offerings and capabilities.

More information regarding the Master Unified Communications Specialization can be found at:
http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/program/specializations/ucom/master/

More information about the Master Security Specialization can be found at:
http://www.cisco.com/web/partners/program/specializations/security/master/

The Cisco Resale Channel Program provides partners with the training required to build sales, technical and Cisco Lifecycle Services skills, and then validates their skills through a third-party audit. Cisco resale partner certifications-Select, Premier, Silver and Gold-represent an increasing breadth of skills across key technologies and a partner's ability to deliver integrated networking solutions. Cisco resale partner specializations-SMB, Express, Advanced and Master-reflect an increasing depth of sales, technical and service expertise in particular technologies. Cisco master specializations provide MSI access to comprehensive sales, technical, and lifecycle services training and support available from Cisco.

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