"It was time to launch. We got up and running fast
with Windows 2000 because we didn't have to spend a lot of
time configuring machines on the back end. It was just plug and play."
— Patrick Husting, chief technology officer and co-founder of
eHome
Company Profile
An e-commerce startup headquartered in Campbell, California,
eHome offers home sellers and buyers an innovative combination of
real estate agent services, Internet technology, and the most
effective real estate tools and resources available. eHome has 40
workstations and 20 servers. With 85 percent of systems migrated
to Windows® 2000, the company plans to migrate the remaining systems
and the .com Web site at a later stage.
Situation
When your company is an Internet startup, money is short and
time is precious. Everything happens fast, as eHome learned earlier
this year when it was down to the wire on launching its e-commerce
real estate business.
Business Solution
eHome got up and running in record time with Windows®
2000 because of the system's plug-and-play capabilities and
overall stability. And the faster the time to market, the sooner
the revenues come in.
An Internet Start-Up with a Very Short Time to Market
eHome's time crunch is typical for Internet start-ups, says
Husting. "Our hub was built at the last minute because the
office space did not become available as quickly as anticipated,"
he says. "We couldn't get the computers in
there." Delaying launch was out of the question.
"Everything to support the launch had to be in place,"
says Husting. "We basically had one week to set up 12
workstations for agents to use in the hub."
A Plug-and-Play Operating System
eHome got up and running fast. "We didn't have to spend a lot
of time configuring machines on the backend. It was just plug
and play," says Husting. The company uses Dell systems, whose compatibility made Windows 2000 rollout easier. "We paid a lot of attention to the hardware compatibility list. If you buy hardware from the list and plug it in, it just works."
This quick rollout freed up eHome for more pressing matters.
"We want a simple environment where we can just plug in a
Web server and run," says Husting. "Windows 2000 lets
us focus on our applications and our business more than on
configuring servers or laptops. Windows 2000 allows us to do it
once. For us, that lowers our total cost of ownership quite a
bit."
Stability
Husting feels that Windows 2000 offers great stability.
"As hard as we push it with all the applications we use,
it just keeps running." Stability is critical during start-up
mode, when the need for quick IT changes is to be expected.
"If you make a network change, it needs to be easy. When we
switched our internal domain name, we just changed it and logged
back in."
Easy Operating System + Stability = Faster Time to Market
Spending less time configuring and rebooting systems has helped
eHome get to market quickly. eHome signed up three customers the
same day it launched its Web site. "Which is incredible when
you think about it," Husting says, "because we had no
advertising until several weeks later."
What Internet start-up doesn't need to save time and money
and get to market fast? Windows 2000 makes it all possible.
Software and Services
Exchange
Internet Explorer 5.0
Office 2000 Premium
Microsoft SQL ServerTM
Enterprise 7.0
Visual SourceSafeTM
Visual Studio® Enterprise
Windows 2000 Professional and Server
For More Information
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