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Case Studies
CASE STUDY: OneDoc Limited
Last Updated on Saturday, 21 February 2009 10:33 Written by Angus Fox Thursday, 05 February 2009 09:56
Professionally hosted Infrastructure allowing complete location independence
OneDoc is a privately, British owned software company that provides collaboration and compliance software. Its technology is based on the Microsoft software platform, and makes multi-user editing and sharing of Microsoft Word and other documents safe and effortless whilst providing a brilliantly simple compliance solution. The software cleverly tracks the changes to multiple Word documents by multiple users – and allows easy electronic collaboration for document review and editing.
OneDoc has been in development for a number of years and is run by a talented team who has helped build a number of great technology companies often at the forefront of a new market sector. Although the business is based in Reading, the team are dispersed around the UK and its become a requirement to be location independent in everything that OneDoc does.
Multizone partners with OneDoc to provide specialist product management and marketing services, and has done since it began in 2003. Our role has been to drive the creation of product requirements that match the opportunity for our first product, the market for which is in the enterprise collaboration space using Microsoft Office, while also making sure we have a technology foundation that can be expanded into adjacent market segments as we prove the value of the proposition.
Multizone also run the Microsoft Partner program for OneDoc, and attend Microsoft Events working on behalf of OneDoc. OneDoc became a Microsoft Bizspark partner as well as taking advantage of the MAPS programme and the Empower program which enable it to access Microsoft product, collateral and resources.
Recently with the launch of trials of OneDoc release 2.0, there was an opportunity to consolidate most of OneDoc's technology infrastructure so that it could be centrally located on the Internet, such that everybody inside the company could access it as if it were local, and such that the system could be staged for testing and quality assurance before trials at production level could begin.
David Grundy, Executive Chairman of OneDoc said "We needed high compute density, and networking connectivity in a single rack unit, hosted securely and with plenty of bandwidth to run complex server based applications and let our remote workers access it as if it were local to them. Multizone provided strategic and tactical support to make this happen seamlessly."
Multizone helped OneDoc join the Sun Startup Essentials program and choose the Sun Fire X4150 server, powered by Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors, because it provided the best price performance in a 1U form factor. Sun's unique design principles ensured that the Sun Fire X4150 server beat the HP Proliant DL360 G5 server in terms of flexibility, performance, expandability, and energy efficiency. Crucially the X4150 is a supported system for VMware, the chosen host operating system, and Multizone designed and built and tested a Microsoft virtual machine infratructure consisting of domain controller, internal infrastructure servers including SQL Server and terminal server, two QA servers, two customer facing trial servers, and several QA desktop client images. This Windows Server based infrastructure was chosen because OneDoc is developing software based upon end-to-end Microsoft technology from SharePoint through SQL Server to .NET and Microsoft Office.
Grundy added - "Everyone at OneDoc relies upon Sun x64 technology. Virtualisation is the ideal solution to delivering the Microsoft based infrastructure we required for development, QA and trial of a software product. Sun startup essentials made it possible for us to realise a tangible, credible environment for development and deployment - with complete confidence in its security"
Applicable Limited secured, and remotely manage OneDoc's X4150 server in a data centre at the heart of the Internet. They manage DNS, IP addressing, Internet access and power. Multizone manage patching and system updates. The system has been live 24x7 since installation with only scheduled planned maintenance windows of downtime in the single digit minutes since then.
Bottom-line results
- Effective product management process was introduced to ensure OneDoc was released to trial customers with a known set of functionality and capability
- Significant savings were made on server hardware retail pricing through the Sun Startup Essentials program
- Production use software for startups was sourced from Microsofts software programs saving tens of thousands of pounds compared with retail licences.
- VMware was chosen for virtualisation of the Microsoft environment and licenced for production use cost effectively because it was fully supported on the chosen Sun server hardware
- OneDoc’s trial system is professionally hosted and available 24 hours a day 7 days a week with resilient bandwidth and secure management.
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PRESS RELEASE: Epiq Systems Expands London Office with Acquisition of Pinpoint Global, Ltd.
Last Updated on Saturday, 21 February 2009 10:33 Written by Angus Fox Monday, 07 April 2008 00:00
Epiq Systems Expands London Office with Acquisition of Pinpoint Global, Ltd.
Kansas City, KS (April 7, 2008) – Epiq Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: EPIQ), a leading provider of technology solutions for the legal profession, today announced further expansion of its London office with the acquisition of Pinpoint Global, Ltd., an emerging provider of proprietary electronic discovery / electronic disclosure solutions.
Epiq Systems is developing its international e-discovery business aggressively with significant organic growth augmented by select strategic investments. Epiq recently introduced DocuMatrix 12.0, the international version of our document review software, that supports 60+ foreign languages. In March, Epiq announced self-certification to the U.S. Department of Commerce “Safe Harbor” privacy principles for superior support of international engagements, and in February, the staff of Effective Case Management Ltd. (ECM), a UK professional services company specialising in document management for the UK legal profession since 1999, joined Epiq Systems’ U.K. organization.
Pinpoint Global Ltd. has developed advanced proprietary software for electronic disclosure that has been used as “software as a service” to “Magic Circle” law firms. The Pinpoint founding shareholders have significant experience in electronic disclosure and will join Epiq’s U.K. organization in senior positions. Pro forma 2007 revenue for Pinpoint’s business approximated £1.1mm.
Tom W. Olofson, chairman and CEO, and Christopher E. Olofson, president and COO of Epiq Systems stated, “The international dimension of our electronic discovery business represents an attractive opportunity for additional growth and market leadership. Increasingly, our major corporate and law firm clients require sophisticated support for cross-border, multi-lingual engagements that operate under high scrutiny and tight timeframes. We are delighted to welcome the clients and staff of Pinpoint to Epiq Systems.”
About Epiq Systems
Epiq Systems is a leading provider of integrated technology solutions for the legal profession, enabling clients to streamline the administration of bankruptcy, litigation, financial transactions and regulatory compliance matters. It offers innovative technology solutions for electronic discovery, document review, legal notification, claims administration and controlled disbursement. Epiq’s clients include leading law firms, corporate legal departments, bankruptcy trustees and other professional advisors who require innovative technology, responsive service and deep subject-matter expertise.
For more information:
Mary Ellen Berthold, Epiq Systems, Inc., telephone: 913-621-9500, email:
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CASE STUDY: From Intuwave to Mercury
Last Updated on Saturday, 21 February 2009 10:33 Written by Angus Fox Sunday, 31 December 2006 00:00
From a drawing on a whiteboard to the acquisition of a product and its team - by Angus Fox, Director, Multizone Limited
Intuwave Limited, a 3i backed UK based startup produced a useful mobile middleware technology, which was difficult to position in the market since it sat uneasily in the Symbian OS through an OEM licencing arrangement and yet clearly had much more capability. 
Intuwave searched for market extensions that the technology could be repurposed for and one of the most promising was that of mobile handset testing. We felt that the technology could be positined and sold in a new market at a much higher price, dragging services revenue in its wake.
We formed a product team at Intuwave of engineering, sales, and marketing and produced a competitive analysis of the requirements necessary to be successful in mobile testing.
Intuwave did not have the resources or the skill set to be the provider of a test automation tool, although what the technology could do was to extend use of such tools into a new market area.
So, to contain and clarify the market requirements we made it a requirement that our technology be used with a third party tool. Its one of the most difficult yet most important things to do in product management - narrowing down the market requirements such that a product can be built in a timely fashion that meets the requirements and gets considered for purchase.
We then set about identifying with whom to partner and quickly narrowed down to IBM, Mercury Interactive, or Compuware.
We built a fantastic prototype and took it to see everyone of interest including the potential partners, the potential customers, consulting partners we could expect to achieve service revenues, and indeed back to Symbian and Microsoft Mobile division themselves.
After convincing their CTO in Sunnyvale, CA and their CEO in Tel Aviv, we signed a partner agreement with Mercury Interactive, and using their consulting partners, built a proof of concept trial with Nokia in Finland.
We created our first product and for the first time an “add-in” to QuickTest Pro was released which was priced higher than QuickTest Pro itself.
We sold Intuwave’s first ever application software licence that was not part of an OEM deal for a six figure Euro sum for the deployment. 
We worked openly with our partners on the product strategy and planning to bring about further sales success and services revenue.
Ultimately, after this initial success Mercury Interactive bought the product from Intuwave and sought to create a wireless division and integrate the technology into all products. The product was fully integrated with QuickTest Professional in a special mobile phone enabled version of Mercury’s flagship functional testing product.
We had taken an idea from a white board in a startup to production in a multi national and my job was done.
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