Lightning strikes for Elcom in Boston
Lightning strikes for Elcom in Boston
May 20, 2009:Sydney-based Elcom has signed a deal with US IT service provider CMIT Boston to supply the technology for a new website build at the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (BFIT).
The deal signifies the first distribution agreement for Elcom outside Australia, and holds promise for more deals to be brokered in the US and elsewhere around the world as Elcom expands its distribution network beyond our shores.
Says CMIT's President and Owner Dave Minker: "The decision to work with Elcom was less about US- or non-US-based, and strictly on the feature-set match between the product and price."
BFIT’s current website will be replaced with the new solution, which CMIT is designing and implementing with Elcom's CommunityManager.NET platform.
The new design will enable each department head or division manager at BFIT to have editorial control over content, which they could self-author and publish while maintaining the visual integrity and consistency of the site as designed and approved by the college's web committee.
"The way BFIT's current website is designed means that it can only be updated by someone with HTML coding experience," says Dave Minker, President and Owner of CMIT Solutions Boston. "Elcom’s modular approach made it easier for us to customise a solution that had just the core elements required by BFIT, and thus help keep the upfront cost in line with the budget. At the same time it gives us the tools we need to expand the website if and when the college requires."
"As a technical college, our website is one of our most important communication portals," says Kathleen Lynch, Dean of Partnerships and Institutional Advancement at BFIT. "The new content management system will enable us to provide accurate and timely information to prospective students and their parents, and improve communication with our current students, faculty, staff, and alumni. In a competitive economy, using the web effectively is critical for building enrolment and strengthening relationships within the campus community.
"CMIT's solution allows us to re-architect our website in a way that makes it both more visually appealing and easier to navigate. It also gives us a new document repository, with the ability to share content from different parts of the site, eliminating inconsistencies and increasing the accuracy of information we provide online."
CMIT is Elcom's first US-based partner. Elcom CEO John Anstey says the companies are looking at ways of working together on future projects.
"BFIT is an ideal showcase of our technology at work in the American market," says Anstey.
"In fact we're working with distributors in several other countries to demonstrate how easy and portable the CommunityManager.NET platform can be for any number of content management applications. Because the technology is based on recognised industry standards, we can adapt it to almost any project with an online component, and are actively seeking partners in Australia and around the world that we can train to sell and support the product as part of an extended solution set for their own customers."
CMIT's Minker adds: "We're interested in aligning with one single content management vendor that we can use for all future projects to minimise our learning curve and investment in training our engineers. We’re also a Microsoft Windows engineering shop, so the fact that CommunityManager.NET is IIS- and asp.net-certified means we have ample skills already in-house to setup, install, administer and enhance the product. The decision to work with Elcom was less about US- or non-US-based, and strictly on the feature-set match between the product and price."