May 30, 2006

Inside Gateway's Professional Services - Personal Help from a PC Vendor

If you need help installing technology in your business you have three options:

1. Use your local (or some other) independent solution provider. Microsoft has an entire small business specialist program also many tech vendors such as HP, Lenovo, Sony and others have listed partners or resellers.

2. You can also use the services of Best Buy's Geek Squad or other franchise type services that deliver computer consulting services. This includes CDW as well.

3. The other solution is to use the technical services of a hardware vendor. This is different than my first suggestion.

For years, HP, Dell and Gateway have offered their customers installation services. These services are often not provided by these vendors directly to small businesses, but through 3rd party consultants working on behalf of the hardware vendor. I asked HP a little more about their program.

But I get into the Q&A with Gateway here's a bit more about the program:

Gateway will differentiate itself by offering customers a completely personalized approach, so that a medium-sized organization can have what used to be affordable to only larger companies [from Gateway] - a comprehensive IT solution tailored specifically to their environment at an affordable cost.

Gateway's Professional Services include three distinct phases; assessment, design and implementation. These phases can be bundled together or executed separately, depending on customer needs.

"Our unique service model allows us to augment our customer's IT staff with the specific expertise and level of support they require," said Josh Wood, director of service products for Gateway.

Gateway professional services offers a lot of services for small businesses although this particular offering is targeted at mid-sized businesses.

[Ramon] - The consultants who work with the customers - are they Gateway employees or 3rd party?

[Gateway] - Gateway uses 3rd party service sub-contractors, but we are completely responsible for the customer experience, delivery and overall satisfaction. So while we do not go out of the way to hide the fact we are using a service provider, from the customer¬?s and our perspective, it is a Gateway branded offering.

Is the serviceproviderr one company or several across the US?

There are several services partners, each with different areas of specialization/expertise. This allows us to use the right partner for the project.

Does the customer have a "profile" or record that Gateway keeps or does theintegraterr manage, "own" if you will the customer?

Gateway ¬?owns¬? and manages the entire account.

This is targeted to "mid-sized" businesses -what is the benchmark for being mid-sized?

Gateway defines a small business as 1 to 100 employees and a mid-sized business from 101 to 2000. There is a gray/overlapping area in the 101 to 499 employee range; technology needs and complexity will vary greatly depending on the type of business.

I suppose a smaller business could also hire Gateway Professional Services ¬? right?

Yes, we still offer a number of services that would more likely be deployed by a smaller business, such as setting up a wireless network, firewall and other security solutions; the installation of new PCs, servers and networking equipment; software application support; and training to name a few

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