The Challenge

Bill Wynne, Technical Support Supervisor at Valley Yellow Pages, needed to provide computing access to over 500 Account Executives working out of sales offices spread throughout California. Account Executives needed computing resources for general office and graphics applications, for Web access to e-mail, and for using in-house sales management software.

Sales teams were organized in groups of six to eight Account Executives reporting to a District Sales Manager. Each team shared just two PCs that could only be accessed one at a time. “This created bottlenecks, frustration, and a lot of administrative overhead for us in the Information Systems Department,” said Wynne.

Wynne and his staff considered purchasing PCs for each Account Executive but decided that PCs would be overkill. “The NComputing L100 provides full functionality and greatly lessens concerns about support, maintenance, hardware upgrades, network security, and more. Support would have been an enormous issue because our IS Department is at our corporate office in Fresno and the sales offices are scattered around California,” claimed Wynne.

Enabling their sales teams with guaranteed computing access would enhance Valley Yellow Pages’ competitiveness and operational efficiency. They turned to NComputing for a solution.

The Solution

Valley Yellow Pages deployed the NComputing L Series solution to give each salesperson access to computing at any time. NComputing is the world leader in efficiently harnessing the power of a single desktop PC so that multiple people can use it at the same time. While Valley Yellow Pages was already sharing PCs, they were limited to one user at a time even if the processor’s average utilization was less than 5%. NComputing harnesses the unused power of a PC to share it among multiple users and it does so at a fraction of the cost of individual PCs. In addition, this highly efficient system requires less electricity, less space, and less time to setup and manage, making it an ideal fit for the sales teams at Valley Yellow Pages.

Today, each District Sales Manager has a PC that simultaneously serves all users in his/her team of six to eight Account Executives. The PC (supplied by Dell) runs a 2.8 GHz processor with 4 GB RAM and is connected to NComputing L100 access terminals.

Referring to the peripherals used, Wynne stated, “The L100 has no USB ports, which is very attractive to us. We connect only a flat panel monitor, PS/2 keyboard and mouse. If an Account Executive needs to burn a CD or connect a camera then the District Sales Manager’s machine must be used. This gives us an acceptable level of control.”

The sales teams use the NComputing systems primarily to run applications developed in-house. These tools enable Account Executives to research accounts, prepare for sales calls, and report sales results. The team also uses graphics software via the L100 units to create advertisements for their customers. Standard office applications are used for web-access to e-mail and for other typical office tasks.

“Windows XP is the OS we’re currently using but we’re considering migrating to Linux.” The NComputing solution is independent of the operating system and supports many varieties of Linux. This ensures that Valley Yellow Pages can use their L100 terminals regardless of what operating system technology they choose.

How Does It Work?

With the NComputing solution, each user has a separate keyboard, monitor and mouse that connect to a small access terminal. The terminal is small, very low cost,and easy to manage. It connects to the host PC via standard Ethernet.

NComputing terminal services software, installed on the host PC, enables each user to connect to their own individual session from their L100. The entire solution is compatible with standard PC applications and Ethernet networking so IT staff and end users do not require special training. The following diagram shows how the L100 connects back to the host PC over Ethernet.

The Results

The NComputing solution helped Valley Yellow Pages give computing access to each Account Executive. This ensured that they could continue to provide a differentiated and competitive directory.

While the challenges of deploying individual PCs to each Account Executive would have been substantial, “the L100 access terminals negated most of these problems,” said Wynne.

With 16 offices ranging from 16 users to 48 users each spread throughout California, Valley Yellow Pages found that the NComputing solution kept computer management simple. Since the L100s have no moving parts and no local operating system, Wynne has found them to be “more reliable than PCs.” Summing up the benefits to his team, Wynne said, “The NComputing L100 terminals are affordable, reliable, easy to deploy and add very little administrative overhead.”

NComputing is pleased to have brought the simplicity, affordability, and reliability of their solution to Valley Yellow Pages. NComputing solutions have been deployed all over the world by businesses in publishing, manufacturing, hospitality, and other areas. To learn more about how NComputing can help your organization, please visit: www.ncomputing.com

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