IBM Flex Systems help Proginov promote innovative use of cloud services within mid market businesses

PARIS, Jan. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Proginov, a leading French managed services provider (MSP), has chosen IBM PureSystems to upgrade its IT infrastructure and enhance its growing "Software as a Service" (SaaS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) activities. In a market dominated by many of the world's biggest cloud providers, Proginov is differentiating itself by being one of the first MSPs in France to use IBM Flex System technology to provide a high range of cloud services to help clients drive their strategic activities.

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Proginov is one of the main ERP providers providing SaaS for small and medium size companies in France. The company also offers hosting services for clients with high availability application requirements.

As a result of steady business growth, Proginov needed to extend their infrastructure, without increasing the associated risk costs or complexity of the systems and their management. To meet these requirements, Proginov chose to deploy an IBM Flex System Enterprise system. The system was acquired with a flexible finance arrangement from IBM Global Financing, which allowed them align payments with the ramp-up of revenues generated by their SaaS offerings.

The new system will enable the organization to offer their clients - especially in the retailing and industry sectors - an efficient infrastructure that is secure and continuously available.  

"The stability of production provided by IBM enables us to minimize the regular maintenance and to significantly reduce services interruptions for our clients," said Philippe Plantive, CEO at Proginov.

In addition, the IBM solution will provide investment protection for Proginov's existing IT infrastructure, allowing a seamless and uninterrupted transition for their clients as new services are deployed on the new systems.  

"Supporting small and medium businesses remains a top priority for both Proginov and IBM," said Alain Henry, VP System and Technology Group. "The Flex System solution will allow Proginov to meet its goals and will enable them to respond to the increasing demand from their ERP clients deployed on the SaaS model."

IBM Flex System Manager: built-in expertise to support the integrated resources

The integrated IBM Flex System Manager appliance node offers clients such as Proginov a unique, single management view for their entire IT infrastructure, including the servers, storage and networking. Dynamic allocation of resources, adapted to the different types of workload, allows this software to optimize the resources used. It frees IT administrators from recurring tasks, enabling them to focus on improving the quality of services and efficiency of the IT infrastructure. This capability allows Proginov to continually adapt to significant workload changes while offering a high availability service 24 hours a day.

The IBM Flex System goes beyond competitor's blade configurations and provides the building-block elements for IBM PureSystems.  IBM Flex Systems are built-to-order offerings for clients who want to custom build and tune configurations to their specific requirements. This allows them to select the specific compute, systems networking and optional storage and management required to support their specific workloads.

The IBM PureSystems family offers clients an alternative to current enterprise computing models, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain.

The true value of PureSystems is the fully integrated and pre-tuned platforms.  The PureFlex System enables organizations to more efficiently create and manage an infrastructure. PureApplication System helps organizations reduce the cost and complexity of rapidly deploying and managing applications. PureData System is tuned for cloud computing and can consolidate more than 100 databases on a single system. In addition to the common web application patterns supported by PureApplication System, the combination of both PureData and PureApplication Systems can be used for end to end transaction workloads.

For IBM Business Partners, PureSystems creates a new services opportunity to help clients solve the complexity of enterprise IT, reduce costs and encourage innovation. From resellers to distributors and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), more than 2500 Business Partners have received PureSystems certifications. PureSystems currently run tens of thousands of existing ISV applications across four operating environments including Windows, Linux, AIX, and IBM i operating system. Additionally, Business Partners have created more than 250 new solutions and applications that are optimized to run on PureSystems. These patterns of expertise, which span 20 industries, can be accessed through the IBM PureSystems Centre. They include leading solutions from some of the world's largest ISVs, including ERP systems and applications for the banking, marketing, healthcare and energy industries. Partners are able to perform many of the configuration and deployment services that previously came only from IBM and are optional and optionally available to be performed by qualified business partners.

For more information on IBM PureSystems visit: www.ibm.com/press/pure

Founded in 1996, Proginov is located in La Chevroliere, south of Nantes and employs around 150 workers. Proginov specializes in providing Enterprise Resources Planning solutions for small and medium size companies. Its product family is based on Commerce and Production Management, Accounting and Finance, Human Resources and Pay. Each release is an opportunity for Proginov to add new modules and complementary applications in response to client's businesses such as: Trade, Industry, Distribution and Logistics, Building, Wood industry and Joinery, Textile and Automotive industries, Quarries and Sandpits, Point-of-sales and e-commerce. The result is that today, 750 small and mid-market firms both in France and outside France are using PROGINOV ERP.

In 2001, Proginov became the first ERP publisher in France to start providing hosted solutions, giving a real added value to the company and allowing Proginov to become one of the three main French editors of business management software today, and ensuring the leading position on the French ERP Cloud Computing market.  One of the keys to Proginov's social and financial health is its commitment to financial independence. Directors and employees hold 100 percent of the 3,200,000 € capital and more than 85 percent of the workers are shareholders. Proginov also owns its IT infrastructure and 4000 square meters of office space.

For more information on Proginov visit: www.proginov.com

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Media Contact(s)

Gaelle Dussutour
IBM Media Relations France
+33-1-58-75-17-96
[email protected]

Chris Rubsamen     
IBM Global Communications
IBM Systems and Technology Group
(914) 766-4280
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM