Ernie Ball Company

Sun helps music legend create an open-source IT infrastructure, giving Microsoft the hook

The Ernie Ball Company was the first music store in the country to exclusively sell guitars. But founder Ernie Ball's influence on the music industry is far more profound, and his innovation—-the invention of the modern electric guitar string--is now the company's hallmark product. Today, Ernie Ball is the world leader in the manufacture of premium electric guitar and bass strings, endorsed by renowned musicians around the globe.

Customer Challenges

Provide easy-to-administer workstations for 400 employees
Eliminate need for licensing for desktop and related software
Improve operating efficiencies and data integrity by creating a centralized server and storage infrastructure
Enable high availability for business-critical processes and applications

Solution

Following a highly publicized lawsuit initiated by Microsoft, Sterling Ball, Ernie Ball Company's CEO, wanted to find open-source replacements for all of Microsoft products across the company. Sun's open-source operating system software, and flexible server, storage and desktop technology allowed the company to create a simple, powerful IT infrastructure to support the legendary company’s growing business.

Business Results

Eliminated potential risk of legal actions around desktop licenses
Significantly reduced administrative costs for IT, desktop and application support
Established redundant infrastructure to ensure application availability
Improved employee productivity through hot-desking capabilities
Reduced TCO through rapid deployment and inherent scalability

Products and Services

Story Details

According to company lore, the Ernie Ball Company, established in 1958 by founder Ernie Ball, began in Tarzana, California as the first "guitar-only" music store in America. Today, the company is the leading producer of electric guitar and bass strings in the world, and has products in more than 5,000 music stores in the United States and in 68 countries across the globe.

Sterling Ball, the founder's son, has been leading the company since his father's retirement in the 1980s. Under Ball's leadership, the company has successfully launched and developed more than 500 guitar- and bass-related products including the successful Music Man instrument line and the “Slinky Bass” string line, the company's current number-one selling electric bass strings.

" We wanted to find a company that was willing to work with us - not threaten us. Sun turned out to be that company. Sun brings tremendous value to us with its hardware and software products. "

— Sterling Ball, CEO, Ernie Ball Company

In 2000, the company's San Luis Obispo, California headquarters was raided and audited by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry trade group that aids major business software makers in enforcement of copyrights and licensing provisions. The company was found to be out of compliance by a mere eight percent for its Microsoft desktop products (and even that small figure was accidental non-compliance, resulting from PCs being passed down to administrative staff without first having the hard drives wiped clean). Rather than fight the accusations, the company elected to pay the $90,000 in fines and legal fees; but experience and resulting bad public relations angered Ball, who vowed to rid his company of all Microsoft products.

In search of open-source or flexible licensing options, Ball turned to Sun Microsystems for a solution. He found both a solution provider and a friend in then-Sun CEO Scott McNealy, who together with a Sun sales and consulting team, helped the Ernie Ball Company’s IT team build an end-to-end Sun infrastructure to support the growing company.

Today, all of the company's workstations are Sun Ray ultra thin clients. The company has replaced Microsoft desktop software with StarOffice software and the Sun Java Communication Suite, which provide all the same functionality at a fraction of the cost, and require no licensing fees. Redundant Sun Fire V20z servers provide high application availability, and the Sun StorageTek 5210 NAS Appliance is used to store the company's business-critical data.

The Ernie Ball Company is particularly happy with the Sun Ray workstations, which provide an interoperable desktop computing solution that requires no local operating system-as all applications are housed on a server rather than on individual hard drives. The easy-to-install and maintain solution requires no desktop administration, and unlike the company's previous Windows-based PCs, the Sun Ray thin clients do not need to be upgraded when new applications are introduced or more computing power is required. Instead, IT administrators need only update the applications on the server, which are then immediately accessible to all users. Using Sun Smart Cards that enable hot-desking, Ernie Ball employees enjoy full mobility-because they can have their "desktops" available wherever they go, to any client on the network. Single authentication capability provided by the Sun Java Enterprise System, which runs on a Sun Fire V40z server, means employees need only log on once regardless of their physical location, which improves their productivity and overall user experience. The company is also thrilled with the greatly simplified storage of the Sun NAS appliance, which minimizes administrative expenses and is easy to manage.

As a result of the end-to-end Sun solution, the company has substantially reduced administration costs. Moreover, the company is now protected against further software license worries, and enjoys both a lower total cost of ownership and increased end-user satisfaction.