Unisys Corp. has placed a lot of faith in the build-it-and-they-will-come model. Seeing a need for a facility where federal customers could learn about Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT in the enterprise, Unisys' Federal Systems Division opened a "center of excellence" in its suburban Washington, D.C., office in September and is hosting federal customers at the rate of about two per week.
About 20 Social Security Administration executives who visited the center in November were updated on the technology being deployed by Unisys and its key partners in the $280 million Intelligent Work-station/Local-Area Network contract awarded in 1996, said Irv Epstein, vice president of Windows NT enterprise for Unisys' Federal Systems Division. Through IWS/LAN, SSA is fielding Windows NT workstations on 50,000 desktops in field offices around the nation.
Shortly after a visit from another federal group, a task order for a database reporting system was issued through the Army Corporate Enterprise Solutions blanket purchase agreement, Epstein said.
The center, with its tall, etched-glass doors opening into a spacious room outfitted with curvy office furniture, is just the sort of '90s marketing ploy needed to help modernize the image of the company that sold the Census Bureau its first mainframe computer in 1951.
For demos of Windows NT and other Microsoft technologies, a cluster of four Unisys XR/6 NT servers with a total of 48 200 MHz Intel Corp. Pentium Pro processors and access to a terabyte of disk space stands at the ready. The adjacent presentation room holds 60 people.
The center is one of four that Unisys has opened to differentiate itself from other integrators and convince customers that the technology it "eats, sleeps and drinks" is not just mainframe technology, but largely Microsoft's.
"Our relationship with Microsoft is based on our enterprise-integration skills," said James F. McGuirk, president of Unisys Federal Systems. "We did a very poor job going down [from mainframe to desktop computing]. As we were coming down, the idea of [providing solutions for a] product was not as important as supplying it."
The federal market long ago, and earlier than the commercial market, overcame the perception of Unisys strictly as a big-iron company, Epstein said.
"We have many [indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity] customers [to whom] we don't supply any hardware," Epstein said. Services accounted for 75 percent of Unisys' federal division's more than $1 billion in revenue in 1998, and Windows NT will continue to provide opportunity.
Digg
De.licio.us
Slashdot
Technorati
