Gateway computers Case Study

IT professionals in large corporations and educational institutions are faced with a challenging task. How to choose the best PC supplier, while keeping costs at a minimum. In order to compete in this competitive market, PC vendors must exhibit their wares at trade shows and provide PC's to their potential clients to conduct extensive hands-on testing. This is an important part of the PC marketing process.

Gateway computer - PC manufacture uses RollBack Rx for trade show computers

“The features of RollBack Rx are so Impressive... It has instantly increased our IT productivity, by streamlining our PC restoration tasks”

Mike Trover, Trade Show Inventory Manager - Gateway Inc.

An Introduction to Gateway

Founded in 1985, Gateway has grown to become the third largest PC manufacturer in the United States and one of the top ten worldwide.

The company's Professional Sales Division sells PCs, servers and services to education, government and mid-enterprise markets. Gateway attends dozens of industry trade shows where potential IT decision makers can evaluate Gateway systems first hand. In addition, Gateway sends out thousands of computers as “Loaners” to prospective Customers.

Gateway’s Trade Show Program

Mike Trover, Gateway's Trade Show Inventory Manager, realized his dilemma. He had hundreds of systems that go out to thousands of locations (trade shows and clients) across North America. He needed a solution that allowed him to quickly restore PC's for the next event or client. The ideal solution needed to be both fast, efficient and easy-to-operate for any user. More importantly, the solution must not restrict the user from any computing functions.

Gateway needed an invisible layer of protection that could restore systems at the end of any user session (trade shows) or at the end of a system evaluation period.

Initially, Trover had to rely on Ghost from Symantec, which had the following disadvantages:

PC's had to be shipped back to Gateway to be restored
Every PC restore took 12 to 20 minutes of repetitive work.

The Ghost (re-imaging) solution had several issues, which have directly affected Gateway's productivity.

Re-imaging thousands of hard drives consumes substantial IT resources.

Unable to ship machines directly from show to show, as they would have to be shipped back to Gateway to be reset.

Additional PC's were required to compensate for the many PC's in transit to and from Gateway.

Extensive shipping increases potential for damage.

Trade Show systems were being used by potential users, and the trade show reps could not reset the systems immediately.

Loaner PC's are stress tested by users. If any software related conflicts occur, these PC would have to be shipped back to Gateway to be reset.

Solution

Gateway needed a fast, efficient and easy-to-use solution to restore hard drives to a pristine state.

After carefully analyzing various products on the market, Trover chose RollBack Rx as Gateway's optimum solution.

By installing Rollback Rx Pro on Gateways Trade Show and evaluation systems, Trover achieved the following results:

PC Restores in less than 30 seconds.

Show machines are configured to automatically reset between user sessions. Moreover, the Trade Show staff can change these settings in real-time.

Machines are restored by show staff on site and taken directly to the next event or client.

An “evaluation PC” that may have had a Virus attack or a botched software installation could be restored directly by the user during their PC testing process.

Gateway computers are always fully functional and optimally setup.

Benefits to Gateway

Reduced IT man-hours for other critical projects.

Reduced shipping costs, while improving shipping logistics

Reduced damage to PC's

A smaller number of systems are required for trade shows and evaluations.

Good computing experience makes prospective customers happier.

Potential clients, evaluating Gateways PC's, can easily restore to an earlier system configuration – and continue testing.

To see the Horizon DataSys RollBack Rx in action, visit any of the Gateway exhibits at industry leading trade shows and conventions. Also visit the Gateway website.

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