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This situation has created the perfect opportunity for NCE Computer Group to flourish - stepping in where hardware companies no longer want to, and making themselves a very nice business model out of it to boot. UK MD of the company Andrew Genever comments: "Our core strength - and what underpins our service offering - is our deep engineering ability."

CRADLE TO GRAVE SUPPORT
A good example of the high regard in which the company is held by vendors is the fact that one of their technical pre-sales staff has been designated a Datacore Master Engineer, an accolade only awarded to 15 people throughout the UK. As Andrew Genever boasts: "This isn't something you can apply for, or sit an exam for - you are awarded it in recognition of your knowledge of their technology." As an example of their in-depth expertise, Genever cites a recent visit to a university client that had been trying with HP and Datacore representatives to resolve an issue for two weeks: "Our professional services guys went on site and they'd fixed the problem within twenty minutes of arriving, solving the technical fault in the software and making relevant adjustments to the hardware."

The ability to do this, insists Genever, comes from the fact that his staff are genuinely multi-skilled: hardware break/fix, software, and engineering: "We don't have one specialist, one product; they're all multi-talented. We have technical pre-sales, professional services people who go out and install and configure solutions, technical 'break/fix' staff, as well as technical support and parts supply. We think of it as covering our customers from cradle to grave."

EXTENDING LIFE
According to Genever, the company made a conscious shift around four years ago from being a 'repair company' to being a 'services company': "Maintenance is what we are predominantly, right now - that's our core business. We have the ability to sell solutions, we have the ability to do supply chain. We might be supporting a manufacturer with a technical help desk, RMA (return merchandise authorisation) handling, logistics and inventory management, warranty handling and repair. Then as a product reaches end-of-life, we might re-appropriate it and sell it on through the broker channel. We really do see a product through from the beginning of its useful life to the end."

In a timely example of this 'cradle to grave' approach, NCE is in the process of buying up the Neptune disk array product range from Dot Hill in exactly this way. The message to Dot Hill users will be that NCE will support this kit going forward, while NCE buys up all the remaining inventory, and continues to support installed devices in the field.

PREDICTING FUTURE FAILURES
As the range of products to be supported continues to expand over time, a business like NCE has to continually invest in expertise in additional technologies. Staff spend considerable time reverse engineering specific devices in order to be able to replicate - and often exceed - the knowledge of the original manufacturers. According to Genever when a given piece of technology is approaching around 3 years old, it is approaching its 'official' end of life in the eyes of the original vendor: "We put considerable time and effort into researching those devices in a bit more detail, reverse engineering them - hardware and software - so that we can be confident of being able to offer a full break/fix service on them in the field."

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