So what’s happened over the last 10 years? The large place that we moved in to has, over time, become not so large. The huge warehouse, that once housed some staff cars is bursting at the seams, and gone is that area that we could break away from our desks, for it has organically grown desks itself. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, after all, we did build it back then as part of our 10 year plan.

Right now, all the emotions of 2001 are flooding back to me as we prepare the final stages of our next new building, 144 Bluestone Circuit. Once again, a place considerably larger than our existing one, in fact, about 4 times the size. A warehouse so large that the entire building of 41 Sudbury Street could fit into it with some room to spare, and yes, once again a break out area away from our desks that visitors and staff can relax in as well as conducting informal meetings. This break out area is much different than the last, with couches, TV, pool table and a full commercial kitchen. We even have a gym and not 1 shower, but 6 (separate and private cubicles of course!). This building is designed to house 100+ staff.

It’s not all about the staff niceties though. Our purpose built facility does have a specifically designed staging and services area. This section is temperature controlled with anti-static flooring, 3 Phase 50amp, 30amp, 15amp, 10 amp power, backed up by a generator and room to kick a footy, truth be known, although far be it for me to infer that! Today, it’s the area where we configure IBM System i, System p and z, load OS’s, load SOE’s, setup SAN partitioning, monitor customers’ hardware, just to mention some of our regular and fast growing service offerings.

Our separate, secure, data centre with raised floor and more blue cable than you can poke a stick at takes care of our own production IBM System i, LTO tape drive and IBM xSeries servers, not to mention all the comms and the phone system. They are proudly on display to all as you enter through reception. It’ll be hard to miss all the flashing lights through the clear glass wall.

And as for that poor little old 41 Sudbury Street? Well, it certainly stood us in good stead over the last 10 years. It’s a building that served us well – 40 people can’t be wrong. We are currently looking for a tenant. So if any of you reading this know of a business looking for a quality building just outside of Brisbane, with office and warehouse facilities, contact us on 1800 777 111, we’d love to hear from you.

I look forward to writing the 2021 version of this article.

Mark Loparow
Director

They needed to ship an iSeries 520 server from their South African office to their office in Sydney, so they engaged our expertise to arrange this.

Computer Merchants were very happy to oblige since we ship equipment all over the world on a day to day basis. Our customer required this equipment within a short time frame, which meant there was approximately a week to have this server shipped, cleared and delivered.

The service we offered included onsite packing and crating of the server. Once the equipment had been shipped, our logistics team continuously tracked the server and kept our customer updated. By working with our customer, our logistics team was able to coordinate the customs clearance procedures to ensure that the server was cleared quickly, enabling the server to be safely delivered on-time.

We are happy to offer this service to any of our customers, and if you have any other needs or requirements similar to this, please let us know – 1800 777 111.

Q: How many engineers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Well, there are so many aspects that need to be considered when changing a light bulb. We must firstly take into account the amount of light that is required by the light bulb, which of course will depend on the tasks that need to be performed under said light bulb. And then we must factor in…

Q: Anyone Got A Torch!!!!

Change can sometimes be a painful experience. And where it will impact on a business, it is important that all factors be taken into consideration.

At Computer Merchants we pride ourselves on making your job as easy as we can - from providing fast responses to your questions to negotiating with our suppliers to help you achieve your price objectives. We know that we can take some of the pain out of your ICT changes, so give us a call on 1800 777 111!

Success Story

We had one such experience recently where a customer had been so fed up with slow responses to questions, and long turn around of quotes that they tried us to see if we could help them. They were pleasantly surprised with our efforts, product knowledge and responsiveness. When we were able to take the pain out of their ongoing maintenance by bundling in a service maintenance contract, they signed the deal.

Yet another customer “happy with the end result“!

Mainframe vendors are few and far between, and very few of them would have 30 years of experience in dealing with mainframe systems.

Since 1979, Computer Merchants has been dealing with large systems.

We can help you with many of your mainframe requirements:

• Our systems come complete with IBM Maintenance Service Qualification (MSQ) which takes the worry out of moving a machine from one site to another.
• We can offer support for your mainframe environment, either through IBM or if you so desire, through a third party service provider.
• We can help you with upgrades to your existing environment, whether it’s an additional channel card or a complete processor book.

We can assist you if you need a short term rental, or a long term purchase – be it for a data centre transition or a DR requirement. Call us on 1800 777 111.

Our office will be staffed as usual during normal work hours to assist with any requirements that you may have. We will be closed on the public holidays though.

Thank you for all your support and business this year

We look forward to catching up with you and being of service in 2009. All of us here at Computer Merchants wish you and your families a
safe and enjoyable festive season.

Danielle, Katie and Sandie monitor your orders on a daily basis to ensure the efficient progression of each order. At every stage we can provide you with accurate and detailed information on the status of your order.

The Logistics role comprises of many responsibilities and one aspect is our customer service follow up calls. These calls are made to ensure that you are kept informed every step of the way and are happy with the service received from Computer Merchants.

The nature of these calls can be anything from:

• delivery of equipment,
• confirming addresses and contact details for equipment to be shipped to and from,
• installation dates, and
• completed installations by both IBM and Interactive Maintenance Services,
• as well as any other special requirements you may have.

We pride ourselves on putting our customers first through exceptional customer service, being efficient, understanding your needs and adding that personal touch to ensure that your expectations as our customer are met – and more importantly - exceeded.

Danielle, Katie and Sandie are only too happy to assist with any of your queries or questions that you may have. Call them on 1800 777 111 or email them directly.

Some of the services we provide that you may not be aware of are:

• Consultancy on solutions upgrades and consolidations
• Relocations of data centres with shut down and restore
• Software platform and data migrations
• Performance monitoring
• De-installation, decommissioning and removal of hardware
• Green disposal
• Retaining software licensing for companies off redundant hardware
• Consolidate all hardware / software maintenance contracts to 1 anniversary date
• Pre loading of software and setup of partitions for equipment being shipped to remote locations

Along with more common services such as:

• VMware installations
• Tivoli Storage Manager
• High availability products and installations
• Logical partitioning
• Data Migrations
• Upgrades and Patches
• RPG Programming
• Blade set-up and installation
• Storage set-up and configuration

So if you have a situation or uncommon circumstance, please give us a call on 1800 777 111 to see how we can help.

But Tivoli is so much more than just management of storage. Tivoli is a suite of products that IBM offers including:

• Storage Management,
• Security Management,
• Assets Management, and
• Systems Management.

As part of our ongoing development, our sales team have now completed sales certification in the Tivoli product set. So speak to your sales rep to discuss your business pain points.

Our team will be able to help you find a solution to your problems and we have the resources available to help you find a solution with presales advice and support right through to installation and implementation.

As Tivoli is such a large software portfolio, keep an eye out for further articles in our newsletter about the various products that make up the suite.

Everywhere we go it seems that the news is rather bleak with regard to the global economy. Most of the commentary is reporting on past events (the majority being about losses instead of gains) and very little being able to provide help or insights into the future.

Our business relationships are much like our personal relationships

For example, when things are good we always seem to have a lot of friends. It’s when times are tough that you realise who your friends really are. With this analogy I am clearly reminded and comforted of how mature and experienced our customers, partners and staff are.

All of us have experienced challenging times in the past, learnt a lot, implemented improved processes and procedures and we have come out the other side better for it. Here at Computer Merchants our sights are clearly set on the future and we have you in that picture.

Just as we want to grow our business, we want to help you grow your business

Some of you know us very well, others not as well. For those that are not across all the things we offer, I thought it pertinent to bring to your attention some of the ways we can help you and the bottom line of your business in these challenging times.

How we can help you improve your bottom line:

1. Buy your old equipment – If you have redundant equipment we would like to know what you have and hopefully we can purchase it from you. This includes servers, networking equipment and devices. It is very satisfying being able to have customers become suppliers and pay you money. Trading back your old hardware can help offset the cost of the upgrade that you need to undertake.
2. Experience – Computer Merchants turns 30 years old in 2009. Our sales team is experienced with an average tenure of over 7 years per person, something we are very proud of. They are very apt at providing fast, accurate, friendly and helpful information around your ICT budgeting and planning needs.
3. New and Used – Not only can we help you move your business forward taking advantage of the latest technologies we can also help you with your end of life systems that require that upgrade until you do your next infrastructure refresh.
4. Rental - As projects can be delayed sometimes you need to prop up existing infrastructure while you wait to implement your new systems which are either outside your budget or perhaps you have a project where it suits to do it outside the balance sheet. We can offer short to long term rental solutions.
5. Leasing – With available credit freezing up we have partners like IBM Global Finance that are ramping up the funds available to help you get your projects through.
6. Guarantee you are happy with the end result – As per our “Plain English Sale Conditions” we guarantee you are happy with the end result. What this means is we don’t expect payment until you have received the goods and confirmed that what you ordered is what you have received and that it is in good working order. Besides giving you peace of mind it also helps your cash flow.
7. Customer Service – Our customer service team is extremely experienced in getting your equipment to you and installed. Our friendly service is backed up by systems and processes to ensure important things happen, like keeping you informed, using the right packaging materials and quality assurance. We want to make sure the experience is one you will want to come back for as well as saving you time and money.
8. Technical Help – We field many questions from customers who have a technical query, many times we are able to provide the help you need from one of our engineers. If we don’t have the answer we have always been able to point you in the right direction or find the answer for you.
9. FREE CALL – 1800 777 111. We even pay for the phone call.

I wish you and your business all the success for the remainder of 2008 and onwards into 2009. If there is anything I can do to help please feel free to call me personally on 1800 777 111 or 0447 777 111.

Norm Jefferies
Managing Director

Last year, Q400 rated us the 213th largest privately owned business in Queensland. The 2008 rankings are out and we have just been notified that we are now the 166th largest privately owned business.

We would like to thank our staff, customers and suppliers for all your loyal support. We thoroughly enjoy the partnerships with you all, some extending over twenty years.

Browse through our September newsletter to see what certain companies are doing in order to head towards a cleaner and greener future. There are also some aspects as to how individual consumers can reduce their energy levels in order to lower the impact on the environment and also the cost to them.

Certain parts of the world have started to introduce taxes that force businesses to pay if they go over a certain amount of carbon emissions. In doing this, countries are hoping that the offsets will dramatically be reduced. Currently this isn’t in place in Australia however it is wise to start reducing carbon emissions immediately so that as a nation we are heading towards a cleaner future.

This month we discuss national greenhouse and energy reporting in Australia. It outlines who needs to report and what information must be provided. It will be the first sort of information in Australia that shows greenhouse and energy performance.

However, no matter what decision the government makes about what will be done, it is crucial that all of Australia starts to make the necessary improvements so that future generations have a clean and green environment.

Here’s some information from one of our suppliers on its commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its products and services throughout their lifecycle.

In 1992, HP launched its “Design for Environment” (DfE) program

Its aim was to reduce its impact on the environment by addressing all stages of the HP product lifecycle. This includes:

• designing energy efficient products,
• selecting the right materials,
• reducing parts and
• enabling recyclability.

HP has established a manufacturing process that will reduce its environmental impact. A goal to reduce combined energy consumption of its operations and products to 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2010 has been set by HP.

Since 1993, HP has saved 5.25 million tons of CO2 emissions through increases in HP LaserJet Instant-On Technology energy efficiency. This is equal to a year’s emissions for approximately 1.1 million cars.

And for a feather in Computer Merchants cap, HP promotes an Asset Recovery Services program that enables customers to return their products for refurbishment and recycling. HP diverted more than 1.7 million kilograms of IT equipment from Australian landfill through its Asset Recovery Services Programme in 2006 alone.

In 1981, HP was among one of the first technology companies to begin a hardware remarketing program (and Computer Merchants has been doing it since 1979!).

Many businesses are taking the opportunity to reduce costs through consolidating multiple servers into fewer, more powerful systems with server virtualisation, or creating multiple virtual servers on a single physical server. By streamlining the management of your computing environment and reducing maintenance and support costs, your infrastructure will be consolidated.

There are many different and unique System Management Tools such as IBM Systems Director platform management family supported across IBM Systems. It offers a comprehensive, flexible and consistent approach to managing both physical and virtual resources, enabling you to provide higher availability of the infrastructure and lower total cost of ownership.

Note: IBM Sytems Director 6.1 will be available in Q4 2008.

Computer Merchants offer a service to help assess, design and implement virtualized server resources

This service helps clients focus on optimizing capacity, cost, availability and security of their data centres and distributed environments. Call us on 1800 777 111, or email us directly.

These services can help you:

• Secure a future-state server environment
• Provide a more flexible and responsive IT infrastructure
• Improve operational efficiencies and response times
• Enhance and simplify systems management
• Improve application performance and availability
• Increase security
• Increase access to critical business information and processes
• Increase automation
• Support lower software license fees
• Reduce maintenance fees
• Reduce total cost of ownership, potentially by as much as 20 percent.

Talk to us

We can analyse your situation and work with you on a solution that suits your particular needs.

Call us on 1800 777 111.

Virtualise this, virtualise that!

The term has been passed around like a hot potato and many of you may just be secretly hoping it doesn’t land in your lap.

Sure, virtualisation may be fine in theory but what does it really mean for your company’s infrastructure? Don’t worry, there’s no chance of getting burned – as certified VMware resellers we will help manage the project for you!

So what does that mean?

Let’s go through some of the basics of what we can do:

• Hardware sizing and procurement where we spec appropriate servers from your existing server footprint while providing for expected future requirements and growth.
• VMware licensing and ongoing support to fit your virtualisation needs
• Ensuring all hardware has the latest firmware updates
• Bare metal installation of VMware clients
• P2V (Physical to Virtual) migrations where your existing servers are transferred into their respective VMs.

We will even set you up with VMware training courses whether it’s basic administration or specific areas you want to focus your abilities on.

Yes, we manage it to the point where your previous server sprawl is migrated and running on new hardware with VMware so you can sit back and start to see the savings roll in.

Call us on 1800 777 111 to get the ball rolling on virtualisation.

Highlights of December 2005

• IBM iSeries Technical Update 2005
• Hardware Management Consoles – A One Minute Guide
• IBM Support Line
• How To Reset The Dedicated Service Tools Password 
• Buying Hardware From Computer Merchants
• How We Streamline Getting Your Hardware Through Customs
• ROLTP, rPerf, CPW, SPEC – Which Performance Chart? 
• IBM 2074 Console Support Controller 
• IBM RS/6000 Servers Are Renowned For Their Reliability

And don’t forget, you can check out our past and present newsletters on the Archive page.

This month, we added our newsletter from July 2006. Even though these articles are 2 years old, there is still quite a lot of information that is just as relevant as ever.

Highlights of July 2006

• 15 Point Checklist To Keep Your IT House In Order
• Important Dates For IBM OS/400 V4 And V5 Support
• How We Prepare Your IBM iSeries For Delivery To You
• Issues When Upgrading From System 36 Mode To OS/400
• *noMAX sentry Saving Your Orphan Data
• Checking And Resetting Battery Age On Sun StorEdge Arrays
• Comparing IBM System i And System p
• Restriction Of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
• You’ll Get Genuine Manufacturers Parts In Your Refurbished Equipment
• Keeping Up With IBM Server Brands

And don’t forget, you can check out our past and present newsletters on the Archive page.

The award is based on a number of criteria including:

• our financial target set by IBM,
• our growth in System p,
• as well as how easy we are to work with.

We were exceptionally proud of the fact that IBM thought that we were the type of company they enjoy working with.

Relationships are the most important part of our business

While we are proud of the fact that we’ve developed a great relationship with IBM and have been acknowledged for it, more importantly we’re proud of the strong, long term relationships that we have built with many of you. We’d like to thank all of you for your support which helped us to achieve such a great result.

Our System p team has grown from strength to strength over recent years

We can now boast an average tenure of more than 5 years across our System p team as well as technical expertise that is second to none.

The IBM award was very encouraging for our team, especially given that we have recently announced we now provide a High Availability solution for System p hardware. We are very excited about the interest expressed so far around our IBM System p High Availability offering.

See the article “EchoStream and EchoCluster, High Availability for AIX” and let us know if we can help you with your High Availability solution.

Thank you again for your support.

As many of you would know, virtualisation is a very hot topic at the moment!

Just recently, five members of the Computer Merchants Sales team attended the VMware Sales Professional (VSP) training course. The course was structured to educate a business partner on how to provide a virtualisation solution based around a company’s current infrastructure.

Following the training, Warwick, Richard, Tyrel, Ben and Matt all sat and passed six exams. The VMware training course introduced the Computer Merchants staff to VMware‘s infrastructure solutions which allow companies to:

• consolidate servers,
• provide business continuity, and
• allow for better desktop management.

Products from the VMware range also improve IT service delivery by streamlining software testing and decreasing provisioning time.

The Computer Merchants team is already seeing the benefits of the training.

Success Story

Recently we were able to help a customer decide on a VMware package appropriate to their needs. They chose VMware Foundation – a bundle that gives them Virtual Centre Manager Foundation software and licenses to run three virtual servers/nodes.

The Foundation package is a good entry point into the virtualisation world and can be easily upgraded to a package that gives High Availability and Virtual Development capabilities.

If you are interested in how virtualisation can benefit your business, why not call Computer Merchants on 1800 777 111 to talk to one of the team.