On Cloud Nine

“This is a testament to the Long View team working together to drive business solutions for our customers with Cisco technologies,” says Shawn Ambrose, Long View’s B.C. region director of sales.
 

Cisco is the global leader in networking and data centre infrastructure. Long View, which has offices across Canada and the U.S., is Cisco’s largest partner in Western Canada. 
 

As the landscape of technology solutions in the market has shifted, Long View has become a leading Hybrid IT cloud provider. “We integrate multiple cloud offerings, including Long View’s own cloud service,” says Ambrose.
 

Hybrid IT is described by vice president Phil Edgell as, “A unique blend of many different elements.” He goes on to add: “No two companies are the same, and neither are the IT solutions they require.” 
 

In its Canadian Public Infrastructure as a Service 2015 Vendor Assessment, IDC MarketScape wrote, “Long View has good people and deep relationships in the Canadian IT marketplace. With over 1,000 people, Long View has deep pockets of technical expertise. They have been successful in attracting new customers and driving their existing base to the cloud.”
 

And Gartner Inc., in its August 2015 Magic Quadrant for End-User Outsourcing Services, wrote, “In 2014, Long View made investments to leverage its capabilities to provide new centralized shared-service offerings in order to maintain competitiveness in the market. This will help clients that are satisfied with shared resources by providing higher skill sets at a lower cost.”
 

Edgell says, “We provide our clients with some of the best IT people available in areas including virtualization, storage, managed IT/outsourcing, networking, collaboration, cloud, user support and data centre.” 
 

Long View supports over 1,000 customers in such sectors as energy, health care, retail, financial, entertainment, forestry, transportation, mining, government, education and manufacturing and distribution. 
 

B.C. branch manager Keith Howe says Long View has 160 employees in B.C. and operates across the province, with an office in Victoria and operations in the Interior. “Our culture and our people are what drive business outcomes for our customers,” explains Howe.  “Since Long View was founded, integrity, competence, value and fun have been our core pillars. They motivate us as new technologies, such as the cloud, become common.” 
 

One of Long View’s B.C. customers is Kal Tire, Canada’s largest independent tire dealer. 
 

“Long View has been instrumental in providing the technological expertise, broad product portfolio and services to see us through a period of growth and transformation,” says Kal Tire’s vice president and chief information officer Clifford Smith.
 

Neil Mandleman, chief financial officer of Nature’s Path, says, “Long View’s team manages our day-to-day IT needs. As organic foods have become a global movement, we’ve needed a partner that can grow with us and support us across North America. As we’ve grown, Long View has continued to put in place technologies. For example, moving our IT infrastructure to the cloud, which has reduced energy consumption and increased our productivity. We know how to make great-tasting organic food and they know how to leverage technology to enable our business.”