VeriSource Provides Value Through Virtual Applications

VeriSource Inc. is going virtual.

The 10-year-old Rogers-based company specializing in information systems management is expanding its business through the latest trends in unified communications and virtual servers and storage.

On Dec. 8, it hosted representatives from Dell and Cisco at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale to showcase products that can provide a host of value-adding services to businesses.

A combination of VMware — a virtual server — and Dell EqualLogic — virtual storage — offers a number of advantages, said chief operations officer Dan Goff.

“With virtualization and consolidation, you get the ‘green’ aspect of computers,” said Goff, a founding partner in the company along with chief financial officer Terry Johnson and CEO Chris Maddox.

“You run more virtual servers on less hardware, thus generating less heat and consuming less power. You also get better administration running everything off a single platform.

“All these virtual servers are running on top of virtual storage and that gives us the ability to bring in business continuity and disaster recovery very easily and for not much more than the cost of doing virtualization in the first place.”

Unified communications through Cisco feature “one-number” reach that makes call forwarding a thing of the past. Instead, an employee may set one number to ring multiple locations simultaneously.

“It’s not a chase-around,” said vice president of sales Tim Melton.

“As mobile as we are today, especially if you have an outbound sales force or consultants or when you have a help desk, there is software they can use to move those calls most efficiently to the best expert available at the time.”

Johnson said the tightening economy has made partnerships with companies like VeriSource very appealing to Dell and Cisco.

“Suddenly our new best friends appear to be people like the Dells and Ciscos that are looking for somebody like us — we’re unique in that we’re not just a box-pusher,” Johnson said.

“We can write all the applications, hook it all up together and network it, so manufactures are now saying, ‘So what if VeriSource does well? So what if we give them a bunch of our leads? If we work through them, we may get to close more systems.’

“For the next year or two, we’re in a really good position to lock in with some of these nice accounts we may not have gotten before.”

Events like the Dec. 8 one at Arvest Ballpark are part of the marketing requirements to become a premier Cisco partner, and they also give VeriSource major exposure to not only large companies in Northwest Arkansas, but nationally and globally as well.

“Putting the event together was getting the word out that there is some new direction to our company in addition to our application development, which we’re most known for,” Melton said.

VeriSource has found a wide reach for its custom software, Maddox said.

Locally, Maddox said many Northwest Arkansas entrepreneurs find creative ways to run their businesses that don’t fit standard, off-the-shelf software programs.

Other businesses simply outgrow the applications they’ve created on Microsoft Access. VeriSource has written applications for the MediaCart, a shopping cart featuring an onboard computer/video system that helps customers navigate the store, keep up with their total and find deals.

The company has written applications for the Whirlpool factory in Fort Smith to provide the best sequence for parts on the assembly line as well as software in use by thousands of banks around the country.

Goff said many businesses must comply with federal regulations such as HIPPA (medical confidentiality) or have business continuity or disaster recovery plans in place, which makes for sales opportunities even in a downturn.

Others are simply trying to stretch their tech budget further, and virtualization is one way to do that, Maddox said.

“The greatest part of virtualization,” he said, “is that instead of rip-and-replace mentality of the past, we can use what you have and build on it as you go.”