Escaping the Black-Box Jungle
Woodhouse says that LBM clients are finding that when they go to make a change in their software, that new software “takes more care and feeding. The way we talk about it is, you should be focusing on what you do best, and that’s not IT.
“Now customers are coming to us. To me, that’s a real shift. It is finally starting to sell itself.”
NFL Building Center in Summerdale, Ala., had those black boxes with the flashing lights until last year. “It was a metal box and wire jungle,” says Deborah Newberry, NFL’s chief financial officer. Newberry knew NFL needed to replace aging hardware, and she also wanted to make a switch from a Unix-based to a Windows-based operating system.
“Unless people are looking at making a software change, I don’t think they are aware of alternatives,” she says.
“When I found out about the hosted option, it made a lot of sense to me.” Newberry chose SpruceWare.NET software from Spruce Computer Systems and Rader Solutions to provide the hosted environment.
“We don’t have an on-site IT person, only a consultant, so it made sense to go with someone who is constantly monitoring the data,” she says. Newberry looked at a cost-benefit analysis of local versus off-site hosting and says the analysis revealed “it would take us seven years to pay for the server. In that period of time, the server would be antiquated.”
Newberry pays Rader Solutions a monthly fee to host NFL’s data, and says, “I’m assured of having the most up-to-date technology at my fingertips. Running the new software in the cloud, she says NFL can host all its corporate identities (the company also owns a truss facility and rental operation) on the same platform and run specialized software for each, enabling NFL to do a lot of things not possible on the old server.
Epicor Buys In
California-based Epicor estimates 60% of all LBM dealers use its software to manage their critical data, and most still opt for local hosting via an in-house server, dumb terminals, and a handful of PCs. Epicor already offers cloud computing to other business segments, but until recently, the LBM sector was not one of them, says Cary Anderson, the company’s head of product development. As Epicor began to field more inquiries into cloud computing from dealers, especially over the past six months, it decided to offer the service to LBM customers using its Catalyst software, and went live Aug. 1. Epicor manages the data on virtualized servers at its center in Austin, Texas.
Spruce has been offering its clients the option of cloud-based data management through its partners, like Rader Solutions, but now the company has decided to offer its own hosting service, which will go live this fall, says Spruce president Rob Fitzpatrick.
“We’re getting into this because there is a demand for it,” says John LaFave, Spruce’s director of marketing. Not only that, it will help the company generate revenue, hopefully keeping in-house SpruceWare.NET clients who want to operate in a cloud-based environment.
Steve Chambers, president of Harper Chambers Lumber in Tuscaloosa, Ala., thanks his lucky stars he was an early adopter of cloud-based data management. With his background in computer science, Chambers saw the handwriting on the wall and moved to the cloud six years ago. Because of that, the F4 tornado in April that literally tore Tuscaloosa apart, razed 5,700 buildings in the county, and and threw other businesses into chaos left Harper Chambers’ critical data untouched. Once the company was able to make a wireless connection–which happened in less than 24 hours–the yard was back in operation.
“That’s the great thing: You are not dependent on a physical box in your yard. That’s the reason we went to the cloud, that doomsday scenario,” he says. “We don’t have an IT person, but in the past, we hired people locally or somebody in the office would spend half a day fiddling with whatever needed to be done.
“We are one location, and there was no way I could justify having a safe room and keypad entry to keep my data safe on-site,” he says. “We have had no issues. When my business went down, well, I wasn’t using as much service and my costs went down. The cloud expands and contracts as you need.”
Chambers, who runs DMSi’s Agility software hosted by that company’s cloud service, says another company’s rep approached him three years ago, asking the dealer what it would take for him to go with them, back to using an on-site server. “I said, ‘If you gave me the hardware, I wouldn’t take it.'”
