Cdw (NASDAQ:CDWC)
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CDW Corporation (NASDAQ:CDWC), a leading provider of technology products
and services to business, government and education, today demonstrated
the business value of consolidating and simplifying an organization’s
telecommunications infrastructure. CDW provided design assistance to
implement simplified, converged audio, video and data network solutions
for Summer Bay Resorts, Pentax Medical and The Riverside Company,
unlocking the solutions’ business value and
encouraging profitable revenue growth for the customers.
CDW works with a broad set of telecommunications partners, including
Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC), a leading global provider of
telecommunications solutions, to provide services and products that meet
customers’ business and technology
requirements alike. Global Crossing’s
portfolio of fully managed, converged IP services includes Voice over
Internet Protocol (VoIP), IP VPN, Remote VPN access, Internet Access and
IP Video designed to meet the exacting performance and reliability needs
of customers’ mission-critical
communications. These services are supported by a comprehensive suite of
managed solutions, simplifying the management and maintenance and
improving the security and reliability of the converged IP solution.
“Organic and acquisition-driven growth can
create a tangle of telecommunications contracts and systems that
constrain a company’s growth and sap valuable
resources from new initiatives,” said Ian
Kieninger, manager of CDW’s Voice and Data
Specialist Team. “Working with
telecommunications providers such as Global Crossing, CDW can cut
through that tangle to consolidate, simplify and reduce the cost of
telecommunications. The net result is fewer resources spent on
maintenance and more resources available for business investment.”
Summer Bay Resorts: A cool SIP for open source fans
Summer Bay Resorts, a rapidly growing vacation ownership company with
timeshare developments in Tennessee, Florida, Nevada and Missouri, also
operates more than 500 operator seats at call centers Florida and
Missouri. Running 24 hours a day, in 2006 the call centers handled 7.1
million phone calls supporting Summer Bay’s
marketing and customer service operations.
Summer Bay IT Director Dave Kurz had tried without success to locate a
single service provider that could deliver a Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP) over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution that supported
the company’s Asterisk open-source VoIP
infrastructure at all four of the company’s
locations. As well as preferring a single carrier to ease management of
the system, he wanted consistent reliability and quality of service.
Kurz turned to CDW, whose technology specialists worked with him and
Summer Bay Network Administrator Jason Brown to understand their
requirements, identify all practical options and provide a comprehensive
comparison of them.
“When we speak directly with service
providers, each presents itself as the best, of course,”
said Kurz. “But since CDW represents so many
providers, they do a great job of comparing the options openly and
fairly, without pushing us toward any particular one.”
Global Crossing’s SIP-enabled enterprise VoIP
solutions matched Summer Bay Resorts’ needs
and now enable Kurz to manage all four locations and call centers with
ease while reducing the company’s annual
telecommunications expense by more than 50 percent.
Pentax Medical Company: Frame-breaking technology and stellar
service
Pentax Medical Company, a manufacturer of life care systems, imaging
systems and optical component products, operates ten widely dispersed
locations across the United States, including sales and distribution
centers. Director of IT Vito Micciolo and Infrastructure Manager Luis
Collado were seeking a single provider that could serve all locations
with Pentax’s voice, data and Internet
services with improved availability and maximized cost savings. They
also wanted to simplify management of their system through consolidated
billing services that had not been available from previous providers.
Over a three-month period, CDW and the Pentax team reviewed a range of
options and planned to upgrade the firm’s
aging frame-relay system to a new multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)
wide-area network WAN. Pentax selected Global Crossing as its new
service provider, and CDW facilitated additional details such as
Web-based and audio collaboration services, calling cards and conference
bridges. Beyond the benefit of the MPLS WAN for improved Internet
service, Pentax valued its improved voice connectivity and the
advantages it presented for disaster preparedness.
“Our experience with Global Crossing has been
excellent. We’ve had several sites at 100
percent availability, with most at better than 99.8 percent, and on the
rare occasion when there is an outage in the system, they call us before
we have time to call them,” adds Collado. “Plus,
we have reduced our total service bill by about $22,000 per month –
more than half of what we had been paying with the former provider.”
The Riverside Company: Big-company benefits for small-company
bottom lines
The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm with headquarters
in New York, New York. Director of Strategic Analysis and Sourcing
Jonathan D. Kinney and his team saw voice/data services as one area
where all 48 Riverside portfolio companies based in the U.S. and another
11 in Europe could potentially economize and improve their operations by
contracting with a common service provider. CDW had provided core
technologies to Riverside for several years, so Kinney turned to CDW in
search of telecommunications service options that would leverage
Riverside’s buying power for all of their
holdings.
CDW and Global Crossing finalized their agreement with Riverside in
August 2006 and so far have completed installations at 19 of Riverside’s
portfolio companies. Participation in Riverside’s
strategic sourcing programs is optional for the portfolio companies, but
the CDW / Global Crossing program has gained great momentum and
participation continues to grow.
“Most providers we spoke with were inflexible
about allowing Riverside to leverage our combined buying power to
benefit our portfolio companies, but to CDW’s
and Global Crossing’s credit, they saw the
business advantage of doing so,” Kinney said. “Our
properties now have access to an offering of WAN services, conferencing,
local calling, international long distance and all of our special
services.”
About CDW
CDW®, ranked No. 342 on the FORTUNE 500, is a
leading provider of technology solutions for business, government and
education. CDW is a principal source of technology products and services
including top name brands such as APC, Acer, Adobe, Apple, Cisco,
Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Panasonic, Quantum, Samsung, Sony,
Symantec and ViewSonic. CDW's direct model offers customers one-on-one
relationships with knowledgeable account managers and access to more
than 820 on-staff engineers and advanced technology specialists who
customize solutions for customers’ complex
technology needs. CDW also provides same-day product shipping and
post-sales technical support.
CDW was founded in 1984 and employs approximately 5,640 coworkers. In
2006, the company generated sales of $6.8 billion. For more information,
visit CDW.com.
Where You Can Find Additional Information
In connection with the proposed merger between CDW and Madison Dearborn
Partners LLC, CDW filed a preliminary proxy statement with the SEC on
July 2, 2007. CDW will also file with the SEC, and furnish to its
shareholders, a definitive proxy statement soliciting proxies for the
meeting of its shareholders to be called with respect to the Merger. CDW
SHAREHOLDERS ARE ADVISED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT WHEN IT IS
FINALIZED AND DISTRIBUTED TO THEM BECAUSE IT WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT
INFORMATION. CDW shareholders and other interested parties will be able
to obtain, without charge, a copy of the proxy statement (when
available) and other relevant documents filed with the SEC from the SEC’s
website at http://www.sec.gov. CDW
shareholders and other interested parties will also be able to obtain,
without charge, a copy of the proxy statement (when available) and other
relevant documents by directing a request by mail or telephone to CDW
Corporation, 200 N. Milwaukee Ave., Vernon Hills, Illinois 60061,
Attention: Corporate Secretary, telephone: (847) 465-6000, or from CDW’s
website, http://www.cdw.com.
CDW and certain of its directors, executive officers and other members
of management and employees may, under SEC rules, be deemed to be “participants”
in the solicitation of proxies from shareholders of CDW with respect to
the proposed transaction. Information regarding the persons who may be
considered “participants”
in the solicitation of proxies is set forth in the preliminary proxy
statement described above.
Statements about the expected timing, completion and effects of the
proposed merger between CDW and Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC, and all
other statements in this filing other than historical facts, constitute
forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor
provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, each of which is qualified in its entirety
by reference to the following cautionary statements. Forward-looking
statements speak only as of the date hereof and are based on current
expectations and involve a number of assumptions, risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those projected in the forward-looking statements. CDW may not be able
to complete the proposed merger because of a number of factors,
including, among other things, the failure to obtain shareholder
approval, the failure of financing or the failure to satisfy other
closing conditions. Other risks and uncertainties that may affect
forward-looking statements are described in the reports filed by CDW
with the SEC under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended,
including without limitation CDW’s Annual
Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006.