Information Builders Benefits From Surgient Virtual Training Labs

Information Builders Benefits From Surgient Virtual Training Labs

Enterprise Business Intelligence Leader Uses Surgient's Virtual Training Management System to Streamline Classroom Training and Reduce Delivery Costs

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Surgient, a leading provider of on- demand applications for test and training lab automation, today announced that Information Builders has deployed Surgient's Virtual Training Management System (VTMS) to deliver hands-on training for its award-winning WebFOCUS software.

Information Builders provides instructor-led classes at their training centers and on-site at customer locations. These classes include hands-on labs that enable students to exercise the WebFOCUS software to develop and reinforce their skills. However, Information Builders faced mounting delivery costs providing labs for their students.

"Our team was spending too much time managing, provisioning, shipping, and tracking training lab resources," said Kristin Devlin, Director of Customer Education for Information Builders. "This not only increased delivery costs, but reduced productivity -- especially for our instructors. We simply had to find a better and more cost-effective way to deliver hands-on labs."

Today, Information Builders uses Surgient's VTMS to automate lab setup, configuration, and teardown on a scheduled and on-demand basis. Labs are now centrally managed and dynamically deployed enabling instructors and students to interact with WebFOCUS software from any location worldwide using a web browser.

"VTMS enables leading companies like Information Builders to deliver effective, hands-on training to anyone, anywhere, at anytime," said Erik Josowitz, Surgient Vice President of Marketing. "This approach allows Information Builders to reach and train more students, while reducing hardware and IT costs and increasing instructor productivity."

"As with most leading companies, training plays a critical role in Information Builders' business because it enables our customers to be more successful with our products," said Gerry Cohen, CEO of Information Builders. "Surgient's VTMS not only enables us to deliver training more cost-effectively to our customers, but more successfully to their benefit."

About VTMS

VTMS is an enterprise application that enables companies to cost- effectively provide hands-on, fully-immersive training labs on-demand regardless of software complexity or the delivery method. With VTMS, customers, partners, and employees experience the full benefits of interacting with real software labs for both live and self-paced courses.

About Surgient

Surgient is a leading provider of self-service applications for software demo, test and training lab automation. Customers, including Adobe, EMC/Documentum, Microsoft, National Instruments, Siebel, Starwood Hotels, Symantec and VERITAS, use Surgient's applications to automate the provisioning of lab environments that enable the use of distributed enterprise applications by an unlimited number of users, on-demand, from anywhere at anytime. Surgient partners with leading technology companies including VMware, Microsoft, Mercury, Centra and WebEx. An Austin-based company, Surgient is backed by a prestigious group of investors, including Austin Ventures, BlueStream Ventures, Seaport Capital, Sternhill Partners, and MFI Austin. For more information, visit www.surgient.com .

Media Contacts:

Susannah Kirksey - Surgient
Office: 512-241-4670
Mobile: 512-750-1721
skirksey@surgient.com

Source: Surgient

CONTACT: Susannah Kirksey of Surgient, +1-512-241-4670, or mobile,
+1-512-750-1721, or skirksey@surgient.com

Web site: http://www.surgient.com/

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