Curvature Empowers CIOs to Challenge Status Quo with Game-Changing Approach to Managing IT Infrastructure & Operations

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Curvature, an innovative IT infrastructure services provider, today announced its approach for transforming the delivery of multi-vendor, global technical support services. Formerly known as Network Hardware Resale, the company has unveiled a new name to better identify its evolution in becoming a global provider of independent IT infrastructure services.

Since its founding in 1986, NHR has become a strategic partner to more than 10,000 customers worldwide, spanning Global 1000 enterprises, small and mid-sized businesses, telecommunications service providers, financial institutions, government entities, educational institutions, and healthcare organizations. In the last 28 years, the company has partnered with clients to consistently offer the best IT solutions to meet business needs, this has resulted in the transformation from a basic reseller of pre-owned Cisco equipment-to a leading, independent supplier of vendor-agnostic IT infrastructure and operations services. Curvature is uniquely positioned to help CIOs regain control of how they procure, maintain and upgrade multi-vendor IT infrastructure.

According to Mike Sheldon, President and CEO of Curvature, the new name reinforces a long-standing commitment to offering customers choices and solutions that allow them to excel in meeting ever-increasing business and technology demands. "We firmly believe that our customers need to be in charge of their own IT destiny and not feel forced to depend solely on OEMs to guide crucial lifecycle management decisions. We chose the name Curvature because it represents a change in direction from the norm. The cornerstone of our approach has always been in allowing our customers to dictate their own terms in their IT purchases. However, in doing so, our value and services offering had long surpassed our former name-Network Hardware Resale."

Debunking the Five-Year Equipment Refresh Myth

Curvature's approach to services and equipment offerings is an essential proof point in debunking the myth that customers should upgrade their equipment every three-to-five years. With Curvature's NetSure services, the company gives customers an opportunity to extract more value from their IT infrastructures by extending timelines for equipment upgrades and IT refreshes.

In a recent commissioned Forrester Consulting study, entitled "Challenging the Status Quo on Maintenance Contracts and Refresh Cycles to Lower Costs,"¹ research revealed that businesses miss an opportunity for significant cost savings when they buy into accelerated refresh cycles guided by OEMs.

Key findings of this survey include:

• Up to 79 percent of those polled reported refreshing their wired networking infrastructure every five years, based on industry averages guided by OEMs;
• 81 percent of the respondents bought maintenance from their OEM, yet cited little value; responses around the biggest challenges with their existing services were motivated by misrepresentation of cost savings, new fees and inflexible pricing schedules; and
• 80 percent of survey respondents would look to third-party maintenance options.

Delivering Greater Value with Hybrid Support Services

According to Forrester, the total economic impact of acquiring new network hardware, pre-owned network hardware, and maintenance contracts from Curvature can yield hardware, maintenance and warranty cost savings; improve service efficiency; reduce network downtime and provide asset recovery revenue.² Curvature's NetSure customers can deploy hybrid network services to augment and/or replace OEM maintenance at up to 50-to-90 percent cost savings.

In "Challenging the Status Quo on Maintenance Contracts and Refresh Cycles" Forrester Consulting indicated, "In today's economic conditions, businesses highly prioritize expense management, placing continual pressure on departments to maintain or reduce operating budgets….After surveying 304 IT decision makers, Forrester found that even though IT budgets are under constant scrutiny, businesses have defaulted to vendor influence, which has blinded them to the rewards of extending hardware life cycles and third-party maintenance solutions."

For a leading financial services firm, maintaining aggressive support with stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs), hot spares, and field support in remote locations are key to ensuring the highest levels of network redundancy. In order to safeguard equipment that is no longer covered under SMARTnet as well as support gear slated for removal or upgrade during its contracted maintenance period, the company added Curvature's NetSure™ technical services to complement their existing SMARTnet support. The resulting hybrid services model has produced a multitude of benefits, thanks to Curvature's responsive customer service, investment in quality processes, speed of equipment delivery and cost-effective field support.

About Curvature

Curvature is transforming how companies procure, maintain and upgrade equipment and support for multi-vendor network and data center environments. Founded in 1986, the company, formerly known as Network Hardware Resale, has become a trusted strategic partner for more than 10,000 organizations globally, including some of the largest telecommunications carriers, top financial services firms and Global 1000 organizations. Based in Santa Barbara, Calif., the company specializes in delivering 24X7 global technical support, advanced hardware replacement, and complete lifecycle management of networking and data center equipment from corporate locations in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit www.curvature.com.

Additional Resources

• Forrester Consulting : "Challenging the Status Quo on Maintenance Contracts and Refresh Cycles to Lower Costs," https://www.curvature.com/Forrester-TLP a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Network Hardware Resale (NHR), May 2013
• Forrester Consulting, "The Total Economic Impact of Network Hardware Resale, a Case Study Focused on Third-Party Hardware Resale and Maintenance https://www.curvature.com/Forrester-TEI a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Network Hardware Resale, August 2013

¹ Forrester, "Challenging the Status Quo on Maintenance Contracts and Refresh Cycles to Lower Costs," a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Curvature, May 2013.

² Forrester, "The Total Economic Impact of Network Hardware Resale," a case study focused on third-party hardware resale and maintenance, commissioned by Network Hardware Resale and conducted by Forrester Consulting, August 2013.

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SOURCE Curvature