Partner SucceSS

Zaphyr technologiesBringing enterprise technologies to SMBs in new York and new Jersey

Zaphyr Technologies (www.zaphyr.net) provides managed IT services to small and medium-sized businesses in New York City and New Jersey. All of its cus-tomers use Symantec™ Endpoint Protection, and three-fourths use Symantec Backup Exec™, because Symantec products make Zaphyr’s technicians 60 percent more efficient. Symantec Enterprise Vault™ and Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery are other growing offerings.

When Shawn Butt and three colleagues launched their information technology services company in 2003, they coined the name Zaphyr Technologies for their new venture. “It’s a spinoff of the word zephyr,” Butt explains—the name of the Greek god of the west wind. “It rhymes with sapphire and signifies the winds of change.”

Since then, Zaphyr has helped small and medium-sized businesses in New York City and New Jersey successfully navigate the winds of technology change. For Zaphyr’s SMB customers, many of which are in law enforcement and accounting sectors, that means leveraging technologies that not long ago were only available to large enterprises.

“Something as mainstream as managed services wasn’t available to the small and medium business masses five or ten years ago because it wasn’t financially feasible,” says Butt, who today is Zaphyr’s Chief IT Architect. “But today it is our core offering.”

Most of Zaphyr’s clients don’t have an IT staff. “We act as a trusted advisor, understanding their business and devising a technology solution,” Butt explains. “We like to say that we connect people to technology, not the other way around.” Symantec technologies are at the core of Zaphyr’s services.

Support and Insight

Zaphyr became a Symantec partner in 2005, and in the years since has added several certifications and expanded the Symantec product lines it offers. Butt says Symantec stepped up its outreach to the partner channel in 2008. “It’s really good when a vendor like Symantec starts to build its relationship with the channel,” he says.

Partner PrOFILe

Website: www.zaphyr.net

Headquarters: Whippany, New Jersey

Geographic area Served: New York, New Jersey Area

Serves company Size: Small Business and Mid-market

Status: Registered

Symantec Solution Focus: Endpoint Security, Archiving, and Data Protection

“For Zaphyr,

recommending

Symantec solutions to

our customers is just

really a no-brainer.”

Shawn Butt

Chief IT Architect

Zaphyr Technologies

Partner SucceSS ZaPHYr tecHnOLOGIeS

The relationship between Zaphyr and Symantec includes both engineering and sales support. “Most of our level 1 and level 2 support issues at client sites are comfort-ably handled by our technicians because they are certified with the products,” Butt explains. “We get level 3 support very easily; when we call Symantec and inform them who we are, they recognize us. We’re able to troubleshoot issues much faster compared to other vendors.” On the sales side, Zaphyr says Symantec offers valuable training and helps Zaphyr close deals.

Some of that communication happens through the Symantec Partner Program web-site, in which Zaphyr participates actively. “It gives us insight into products and services,” Butt says. “It gives us roadmaps on where Symantec is moving with the products, and it gives us ideas on how to prepare for new launches. This proactive education helps us pre-sell a lot of products.”

Take, for example, the deduplication function in Backup Exec 2010. “It’s a boon for a lot of our clients because some of them have huge amounts of data,” Butt says. “The dedupe feature can really save a lot of time and re-duce the amount of tapes and hard disk stor-age we need.” Zaphyr conveyed these benefits to several clients, who then ordered the soft-ware before it was released.

reducing the Workload

“Symantec products are at the core of any new client we acquire,” Butt continues. For example, every Zaphyr customer uses Symantec Endpoint Protection. “If a cus-tomer wants to use another software prod-uct, we just don’t work with that customer,” he says. “Our goal is to minimize the amount of effort our technicians have to put toward viruses, spyware, and malware. Symantec reduces our technical load by almost 60 per-cent.” Those are savings that Zaphyr can in-vest in acquiring more customers and provid-ing better service.

ZaPHYr tecHnOLOGIeS SucceSS SuMMarY

Specializations

Small and Medium Business

Key Industries

Financial,

Insurance

Real Estate

Public Administration

Services

Other

Services Provided

IT Consulting

IT Implementation

Training

Outsourcing

technical accreditations

STS Symantec Enterprise Vault 2007 (3 held)

authorizations

SMB Specialist

Authorized Product Partner - Windows Specialty

Enterprise Vault Authorized Partner

Symantec Products

Symantec Backup Exec™ for Windows® Servers

Symantec Backup Exec™ for Windows® Small Business Server

Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery Desktop Edition

Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery Server Edition

Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery Windows® Small Business Server Edition

Symantec™ Endpoint Protection

Symantec™ Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition

Symantec Enterprise Vault™

Symantec Ghost™ Solution Suite

Symantec™ Network Access Control Starter Edition

Symantec™ Protection Suite Enterprise Edition

Symantec™ Protection Suite Small Business Edition

For more information on Zaphyr Technologies and other success stories, please go to www.symantec.com/customersuccess.

“When we call Symantec and inform

them who we are, they recognize us.

We’re able to troubleshoot issues much

faster as compared to other vendors.”

Shawn Butt

Chief IT Architect

Zaphyr Technologies

Similarly, about 75 percent of Zaphyr cus-tomers use Backup Exec. “That is our second-highest selling product within the Symantec line,” Butt says. It’s widely adopted among Zaphyr clients because of its flexibility: some clients back up to tape, others to removable disks, and others to USB devices. “When we acquire a client, sometimes we have to grandfather some of their infrastructure in,” Butt explains. “Backup Exec is able to accommodate their infrastructure needs.”

Increasing numbers of Zaphyr clients are also adopting Symantec Enterprise Vault. “It was generally only adopted by Enterprise clients, but with the features such as the “Getting Started Wizard” in version 8.0, it is being much more widely adopted by our SMB customers.” Butt says. It’s particularly valu-able to customers that rely heavily on email and that have mobile workers. “We’re recom-mending Enterprise Vault to clients that have huge storage repositories,” Butt explains. “They don’t have to worry about the size of the PST files or the mailboxes growing exponentially and becoming corrupted.”

Zaphyr has found that the combination of Backup Exec and Enterprise Vault is a winner for some of its clients, and that Backup Exec System Recovery—both the desktop and server versions—have a useful place in the company’s toolkit. “It lifts up the whole op-erating system and the applications, then reloads them onto different hardware,” Butt explains. “It’s saved our skin, and our clients’ skin.”

The winds of IT change continue to blow. Cloud computing and virtualization will be the next enterprise-class technologies that Zaphyr expects to direct toward its SMB cus-tomers. “Within a year or two years’ time, I see a lot of movement toward virtualization,” Butt says. Zaphyr will deploy Symantec prod-ucts to protect those virtual environments. “As the customers move into production, we know that Symantec has a product that will back up all of the virtual machines, so we will not have to invest in new technology or another product,” Butt says.

“For Zaphyr, recommending Symantec solu-tions to our customers is just really a no-brainer,” Butt concludes. “We like the prod-ucts because they reduce our workload by half, at least.”

Copyright © 2010 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec logo, Enterprise Vault, Ghost, and Backup Exec, and are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Symantec document #21017700

Partner SucceSS ZaPHYr tecHnOLOGIeS

“Symantec products are at the core of

any new client we acquire. If a client

wants to use another software product

[than Symantec Endpoint Protection],

we just don’t acquire that client.”

Shawn Butt

Chief IT Architect

Zaphyr Technologies