Skip to Content Sun and Oracle Channel Sun How to Buy Log In United States [Change] English

Datacenter Boom - WWT defies economic outlook selling Sun and services to target markets

Many businesses are trimming expenses to brace for stormy economic weather these days, but Executive partner World Wide Technology, Inc. (WWT) is making investments in key personnel to prepare for further growth in its already-impressive Sun Microsystems-based business.

Last year, WWT — with offices spread across the West, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast regions of the U.S. — booked $130 million in sales of Sun equipment, according to Tony Berg, director of WWT's datacenter practice. WWT recently began hiring to expand its highly trained cadre of Sun-certified technical professionals to build on this success. For example, the company plans to grow its Sun-focused, pre-sales support, design, and service team by 10 to 15 percent by year end.

Secret to Success in Tough Times

How does WWT manage such prosperity in this current climate of business uncertainty? While Berg avoided proposing a universal prescription for sure-fire success, he does suggest that WWT's strategy of offering a portfolio of targeted services and focusing on key markets has produced reliable performance and continuing growth for his company.

For WWT, this focus means providing services and applications running on Sun platforms that are targeted at sectors such as:

Federal Government: "The federal government market has been a big play for us for a long time," says Berg. "Government customers have been consolidating [their applications] on Sun, looking for reliable, open, high-end solutions. We are enjoying continued success here."
Telecommunications: WWT specializes in providing point applications to telecom service providers that recognize the need for more power than Intel-based servers can deliver. Sun servers, says Berg, are ideal for running the demanding, business-critical enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) implementations these organizations need to support in their datacenters.
Large Enterprise Customers: High-performance, Sun compute clusters in enterprise-scale datacenters constitute an important growth area for WWT. Energy companies, for example, benefit from this technology, according to Berg. One energy industry customer cited by Berg leverages its WWT-provided Sun servers to control its electrical grid and manage the distribution of power to direct customers and to other electric utilities.

Other strategic markets WWT serves include: state and local government, education, financial services, and healthcare.

Solution Focus

To complement its focus on strategic markets, WWT offers a complete range of enterprise-grade IT solutions. In addition to its $130-million Sun business, for example, WWT is one of the largest solution providers in the Cisco Systems partner network. WWT augments its IT solution offerings by delivering supply chain management applications and services, IT road map consulting, and a broad array of professional services.

The value-added supply chain management solutions and services provided by WWT constitute an important competitive advantage and revenue opportunity for the company. Not long ago, WWT optimized and streamlined the procurement and supply chain system of one of its customers, a high-tech manufacturer, so that the customer is better able to purchase, track, and plan for the acquisition of large amounts of Sun equipment that starts out as Avnet (formerly GE Access) inventory.

WWT's unique solution now provides dedicated inventory access, through master distributor Avnet, together with a web-based system that gives management real-time visibility into the disposition of Sun product as it moves through the supply chain. WWT's integrated supply chain offerings are supported by innovative e-business tools that encompass every part of the logistics process, including price quotes, product ordering, and delivery tracking. "WWT's complete electronic integration with [Avnet] and our internal management team," says the company's director of procurement, "has helped us streamline the procurement process, resulting in better supply chain visibility and improvement to our bottom line."

Sun Partner Advantage

Berg says that Sun is a strategic partner with a mutually valued relationship dating back to 1992. "To begin with, Sun is a big revenue generator and our customers have come to depend on us to be their Sun partner, and they have faith in our ability to integrate and deliver the reliable Sun products and solutions that solve their business problems," he says.

In addition, the Executive partner has the credentials to back up its solutions and provide thoroughgoing support to its customers. WWT possesses a full complement of Sun certifications, including datacenter Elite, StorEdge Elite, Software Elite, Solaris System Administrator, Solar Edge Elite, Cluster, Sun Fire, Netra, and Data Protection certifications.

On the Horizon

What's next for WWT? "Our goal is determine how to expand our Sun partnership and capture as much of the datacenter as we can," says Berg enthusiastically. "We don't just plan to sell more; our mission is to continue to use technology and innovation to help set our customers apart in their markets."