Z-Axis improves its communications systems reliability with IceWarp

Z-Axis, a division of Video Display Corporation (NASDAQ:VIDE), had a serious communications systems stability issue when its Zimbra-powered mail server would crash unexpectedly, wreaking havoc throughout the company.

"Once we had a crash that we were unable to recover from," said Valerie Schafer, IT Director at Z-Axis. "Zimbra did not have a capability of doing a backup, and it took the mail server down. It was taking 23 hours to do the backup, and we were having trouble finding this time slot. It was a bad situation." Z-Axis, which provides quality design, prototyping and manufacturing services for complex electronic products and electromechanical assemblies, couldn't afford another work disruption like that and made a strategic decision to look for another solution.

The company's technology team left nothing to chance and evaluated several products from the leading as well as emerging vendors. "We considered Exchange and a few other smaller companies, and it really came down to MS Exchange and IceWarp," recalls Schafer. "What prevented us from going with Exchange was complexity. Another reason was the tight schedule we were on to do the migration. We did not feel it would be possible to implement Exchange in the same amount of time as we were able to deploy IceWarp. And, of course, the cost - not the main factor, but still a contributing one."

According to Schafer, ease of installation and use, along with superior customer service, were other decision-making factors. The ability to migrate the data was also a crucial feature.

"It was extremely important to be able to migrate the data from Zimbra," said Schafer. "Without that capability we would have had to choose a different product. The migration took about 32 hours. It wasn't as simple as one would like, but all in all it worked okay."

IceWarp's tech support level made the migration process much less painful, she said. "I understand that with so many different email programs it is difficult to have a perfect migration solution for all of them."

The support received from IceWarp differentiated the company from its competition, she noted. The transition did not require any additional infrastructure investments: Z-Axis technology group deployed it on the existing Microsoft Server 2008R2.

Z-Axis discovered that IceWarp was easily deployed and didn't disrupt normal workflow. Z-Axis's IT team was very happy as it did not have to deal with a lot of unhappy users resisting change. The company received fewer requests to assist with the product and the administration side turned out not to be taxing either.

"The interface is very easy to use and to make changes," she said. Z-Axis technology group is now thinking about expanding the use of IceWarp. "With the ease of use and capabilities of IceWarp, we will consider using it with mobile devices," noted Schafer.

According to Schafer’s rough estimates, IceWarp's return on investment (ROI) was both fast and substantial. "It paid for itself just through the amount of time it saved us and the quality of the product. And it is reasonably priced. Also, the fact that the support has been so good has saved us time and money upfront. The solution paid for itself within a month."