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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

How to Buy Accellion's Secure File Transfer Appliance, Exactly?

Summary: You won’t find Accellion’s appliances in a retail store or an eCommerce website over the Internet. As an enterprise IT solution, you can buy the appliances directly from Accellion or from one of our knowledgeable partners around the world. Read more about the process and what it means for you.

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Someone pointed out to me recently that there is no Buy Now option on the Accellion website. She asked me, “How does a company buy your product?” Ah, indeed, a very good question because everyone should buy at least one of the Accellion Courier Secure File Transfer products!

The fact of the matter is, even though we call it an appliance, there is still a little bit of scoping work we need to do before you make your purchase. We want to understand how your company intends to use the appliance, such as how many and what kind of documents you will push through it, and how often. This helps us recommend the right model and configuration to meet your specific needs. That’s why you won’t find Accellion appliances in a retail store and you can't load it onto a virtual shopping cart on the Internet.

It’s like buying a whole-house air conditioning unit for your home. You don’t head down to the hardware store to just pick up a unit. Instead, you work through a reputable A/C dealer who will ask the dimensions of your home, and whether you will have multiple units in order to “zone” your home. Then the dealer can recommend the right products to appropriately handle the workload for your house. We do the same for your file transfer needs.

When you are ready to buy your Courier appliance(s), the place to start is at Accellion. Contact us and tell us a bit about your needs. You can buy your product directly from us, or you can choose to work with a value-added reseller, or VAR. We find that many of our customers prefer to work through a VAR they already know and trust. VARs are good because they are usually local to you and they already know your IT environment. Even if your VAR doesn’t currently sell Accellion products, let us know and we can get them to include Accellion as a solution in their portfolio.

If you don’t have a preferred VAR and still want to go though one, we can recommend one within the Accellion reseller network that meets your needs. Accellion channel partners are trained to scope your needs and install the right product for you. They can provide ongoing services and support as well. Many of our partners have specific industry or regional expertise. So, you can take advantage of their domain expertise.

By the way, there’s no price differential in buying direct from Accellion or from one of our authorized resellers. Accellion considers our partners as a strategic part of the business model, so we look for way to work with the partners instead of competing against them.

Whichever way you want to buy Accellion secure file transfer solutions, click on the link for – direct from Accellion, through your preferred VAR, or through an Accellion partner that we recommend to you. Give us some very basic information and we’ll promptly follow-up to scope your requirements and have the right resource take care of your business needs.

This is how you buy Accellion's Secure File Transfer Solutions.

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BTW, don't forget to Vote for Accellion!

Click here to see more details.


ACA Guy

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Make Your Vote Count; Spring Ahead "Correctly" with Your Secure File Transfer Solutions

Summary: Vote for Accellion!

This year's Daylights Saving Time is causing a stir because all systems with calendaring and scheduling functions need an update. Accellion, too, is providing an update for this reason. Find out what it means and who will be impacted as we "spring ahead."



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*Make your voice heard*

Accellion's secure file transfer appliance has been selected for inclusion in the Info Security Products Guide. Naturally, I think we are the best in the category. But, strangely, the editorial team at Info Security prefers to test my argument via a voting scheme.

So, cast your vote for Accellion. Click on this Info Security Products Guide voting link and select Accellion as the vendor. For the rest, follow the directions.

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**Returning to regularly scheduled program**

It’s March, and that means spring is just around the corner. And with Daylight Savings Time (DST) moving up by a few weeks this year, it will seem like spring is arriving earlier than usual.
BTW, don’t forget to set your clock ahead by an hour this weekend!

Accellion’s support line has been getting calls from anxious IT people who want to know if Courier Secure File Transfer appliances take into account the early change to DST. Yes, folks, it does, with a routine update of our software. Just go through the standard procedure of accepting the system update as it appears on your administrative console and there will be no problems with the time change, now or later in the year when DST comes to an end.

Why is DST even an issue for IT personnel? Well, many computer applications were not prepared for the earlier-than-usual change in time, which comes March 11 instead of April 1 in 2007. Without a patch to the software, an application could fail to recognize the time change and be “off” by an hour. This is a potentially critical issue for applications that involve calendaring or scheduling.

The Courier secure file transfer appliance does rely on a scheduling application. It is part of the life-cycle management for files stored on the appliance. Let’s say you send a file to someone and ask that it be held on the appliance for 30 days. Our scheduling tool holds the document for precisely 30 days – and not one hour less or more. This is why the DST patch is important to users of a Courier appliance.

Many Accellion customers integrate their secure file transfer appliance with their enterprise email system, such as Microsoft Exchange/Outlook or Lotus Domino/Notes. The DST patch is important for ensuring that time is synchronized between the email system and the file transfer appliance.

Applying the software update is an easy thing for the appliance administrator to do. It literally takes just a few minutes. Best of all, the end users don’t need to do a thing to effectuate the change. They can just keep doing what they are doing without a disruption to productivity.

Hope everyone springs ahead with ease.

ACA Guy