Always Thinking Ahead

High Availability Services

Testimonial: 

Alderbrook Industries

In the fall of 1997, Alderbrook was faced with many of the typical 
challenges presented by an acquisition, not the least of which was 
suddenly outmoded information technology. 

Alderbrook, a privately owned manufacturer and distributor 
headquartered in Pickering, Ontario, supplies seasonal lights and 
decorations to major retailers across Canada and exports to the 
United States, South America and Asia. In many ways it was a 
perfect match when Noma Industries decided to divest its Christmas 
Products division located in nearby Toronto.

"When we completed the acquisition, the company instantly tripled 
in size," says Alderbrook's president, Charles Parker. "We had to 
increase our office staff dramatically, make major  changes in our 
headquarters facility to accommodate them, integrate a new 
manufacturing facility, and upgrade our systems and network."

"We needed to do things faster," Parker continues. "Essentially, 
we had three times the work to accomplish in the same amount of 
time - but our order entry system slowed down with the increase in 
users and transactions, and our new manufacturing facility wasn't 
tied into the network. We knew our technology was no longer 
adequate to support the business, but without an in-house IT 
staff, we needed to rely on someone who could tell us what had to 
be done and then proceed with implementation."

Alderbrook evaluated several vendors, but ultimately selected 
Compaq Customer Services to assess the situation, recommend a 
course of action, and implement the solution. "I wanted to be 
confident that everything would be done in a thorough, 
professional manner and that everything would be running smoothly 
as we entered our peak season in 1998," states Charles Parker. "We 
process and ship a large percentage of our orders between Labor 
Day and mid-November, and we couldn't afford to have any 
unresolved problems."

In June 1998, following the initial consulting engagement and 
Alderbrook's acceptance of the resulting plan, Compaq delivered 
the complete solution. A new server was installed and configured 
along with a 10/100 hub. A second server was installed at the 
newly acquired manufacturing plant, establishing a link with 
headquarters and electronic mail services between the two sites. 
The server operating system was upgraded to intraNetware 4.11, and 
all clients were migrated to Windows 95. Additionally, the office 
environment was optimized by fine-tuning the allocation of 
computing and printing resources. 

"I was especially pleased with the professionalism of the Compaq 
people and their spirit of cooperation," he concludes. "Compaq 
Services really went out of their way to accommodate our 
requirements."

"We are very happy with the results," Parker says. "The benefits 
to our business operations are apparent, and the work was top 
notch. There were no problems throughout our busy season this 
year."

"We are very happy with the results ... They really went out of 
their way to accommodate our requirements." 

"I wanted to be confident that everything would be done in a 
thorough, professional manner..."

©1999 Compaq Computer Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed in 
the U.S.A. EA-A9942-76 Rel.# 333/99 05 64 10.0