Staples Launches Thrive Networks®
New Offering Gives Small- and Mid-sized Businesses Access to World-class Comprehensive IT Services
“Making it easy for businesses to meet their office needs is in our DNA; however there isn’t anything easy about making the right decision about your IT environment,” said Candy Murphy, vice president of Staples’ Contract Technology Solutions. “With the launch of Thrive Networks, we allow people to focus on their business while we make sure their technology infrastructure is there to support them, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.”
The company will initially offer three distinct services: Thrive Protect, Thrive Onsite and Thrive Online Backup. Thrive Protect offers organizations everything they need to keep their IT infrastructure safe and operational, including:
- Anti-spam service, to filter out unwanted e-mail messages and maintain a manageable volume of e-mail;
- Anti-virus protection, to ensure workstations and servers are inoculated against potential threats;
- Anti-spyware technology, to protect PCs from dangerous malware;
- Patch management, to keep all systems up-to-date and in sync;
- Systems and network monitoring, to ensure maximum availability and quickly detect and resolve any potential issues;
- Remote support, to answer users’ routine questions and provide helpdesk support; and
- Cross platform and open source support of Windows, Apple (MacOS X and MacOS X Server), and Linux solutions, providing seamless integration across disparate computing platforms.
Thrive Onsite extends the ThriveProtect service by providing organizations with their own dedicated team of IT engineers who, on a regular basis, work on-site to perform services that can not be done remotely, and to provide in-person support to end-users. Thrive Onsite will initially be available in the Boston and Atlanta areas, with support in other major metropolitan areas to follow.
Thrive Online Backup, as detailed in the accompanying press release (“Staples Launches Thrive Online Backup®; Provides Businesses with Automatic Data Protection”) gives SMBs enterprise-class data protection services by backing up their systems, applications, and digital information to a secure remote facility, automatically and in real time. In doing so, businesses get strong protection against all forms of data loss, including hard drive crashes, accidental deletion, natural disaster, theft and vandalism.
“In our business, having an IT system working at peak performance is critical to our productivity,” commented Chris Daniels, director of administration at RE/MAX of New England. “That’s why it was so important for us to find a partner to help us realize that potential – and Thrive Networks has surpassed our expectations. Working with their best-in-class engineering team, we’ve found the best solutions to meet our specific business needs and have identified and fixed minor glitches before they manifested themselves as larger problems that would disrupt our business.”
Jim Lippie, president of Staples Networks Services by Thrive, added, “We’re in the business of providing great customer service and with more than 300 clients, we understand what our clients want. They want us to take ownership of all the headaches, mysteries, and risk associated with maintaining a company’s IT infrastructure, and make it so they never have to think about them again. In a nutshell, they want us to make their IT problems go away, and that’s exactly what we do.”
About Staples
Staples, the world’s largest office products company, is committed to making it easy for customers to buy a wide range of office products, including supplies, technology, furniture, and business services. With $27 billion in sales, Staples serves businesses of all sizes and consumers in 27 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. In July 2008, Staples acquired Corporate Express, one of the world’s leading suppliers of office products to businesses and institutions. Staples invented the office superstore concept in 1986 and is headquartered outside Boston. More information about Staples (Nasdaq: SPLS) is available at www.staples.com.