VMware Partner comdivision Helps Customers Successfully Work From Anywhere

VMware Partners with comdivision to Deliver Transformative Digital Technology Solutions

With the ability to work from anywhere and everywhere, even after the pandemic ends, organizations will be able to hire employees who live almost anywhere in the world, and prospective employees will be able to search for jobs across a much wider geographic area. Businesses will be able to reduce costs, and more employees will be able to live wherever they want. Before 2020, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) was an option, but now it’s critical.

Enter comdivision, an early VMware adopter and VMware partner since 2001. For 25 years, it has focused on designing, running, and operating its customers’ IT infrastructure, so it was perfectly positioned to help organizations when they needed it most.

“This is where we have helped answer questions like ‘How do you get from 50 desktops to 500 desktops?’ or ‘How do you take control of managing all of the devices being used?’” CEO Yves Sandfort says. Now that the pace has picked up dramatically, more of comdivision’s customers are thinking about a cloud strategy. “For some companies it wouldn’t be a problem to go from 100 users to 1,000 or 5,000 users. And today, many are discovering that the cloud is a better place for them to scale up.”

While comdivision is a medium-size company with the energy of a start-up, some of its customers are the largest in the world. “We’re currently working on a project with a German car manufacturer to bring tens of thousands of on-premises desktops into the cloud,” Sandfort says, “something that has rarely ever been done.”

Securing Digital Workspaces Globally

Challenges around security and digital workspaces are converging for many of comdivision’s customers. “Before 2020,” Sandfort says, “someone might go into another person’s office and try to do something they weren’t supposed to on the computer. Now that risk has gone virtual and global. We’re not just dealing with securing physical machines in set locations. It’s now all truly dispersed.”

Before the pandemic and together with VMware, comdivision solved similar challenges for VEKA, a German company that is a global leader in window and door profiles for commercial and residential customers. Over time its workforce expanded worldwide and became more mobile, so VEKA hoped to take better control over its devices with VMware Workspace ONE™.

VMware built the platform, and comdivision conducted the proof of concept and product training, then designed the implementation. Workspace ONE enables VEKA to deliver and manage any app on any device more securely and easily by integrating access control, application management, and multiplatform endpoint management. Costs are down, security is up, and employees are more satisfied with the experience.

“VEKA is always keen to do much of the work itself,” says Sandfort. “For us, this project was as much about skills training and helping VEKA with its strategy to optimize the use of VMware Workspace ONE as it was the implementation.” VEKA Mobile Device Manager Kai Schmidthals says comdivision’s familiarity with VEKA and its experience with VMware products—Workspace ONE in particular—meant the project was well planned. “comdivision understands our business. Because of the work we did together in the preparation stages the first install was very easy. I think I’d enrolled my first device within 30 minutes.”

A Truly Expert Organization

comdivision is an adept organization with specialists who are experts in their fields and who aim to be the best of the best across the entire VMware portfolio. It is only the second company in the world and the first in Europe’s DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) to earn all available VMware Master Services Competencies (MSCs), which recognize VMware’s most capable partners within a specific VMware solution area. No matter what kind of help customers need, from virtualization and app design to network and storage, comdivision has the right expertise on hand. “Most of our team members spend a quarter of their time on education and building up their skillsets.”

Sandfort and his team have been on the VMware cutting edge all along. In addition to helping its customers with what they need today, comdivision prepares them for what’s coming. “We have to be skilled on a range of solutions so we can plan ahead for them,” Sandfort says. “We need a vision and to understand what each VMware solution can deliver. This means that when VMware updates or acquires a new solution, we can quickly train our team and begin discussing it with customers—typically putting both us and them months ahead of where we’d be otherwise.”

comdivision does more than sell VMware solutions. It encourages its customers to have an IT strategy rather than a buying one, and comdivison wants to know about their vision. VMware and comdivision work together in a collaborative sales process, and they often partner on implementations. “What matters most,” Sandfort says, “is that everything comes together in the direction each customer wants to go. Some want comdivision in the driver’s seat, and others want VMware in the front seat and comdivision in more of a supporting role.”

Some customers are willing to challenge assumptions if it will get them further out on the cutting edge. “Even if people say it can’t be done, we’ll still try to make it happen,” Sandfort says. “We can deliver whatever the customer needs because we are agile and because we still have the magical energy of a small and flexible start-up. For all of us, architects in different fields are just a phone call away rather than in a different department or building or city.”

With proven expertise across the entire VMware portfolio, comdivision is uniquely positioned to shape the future of customers’ infrastructures and deliver transformative digital technology solutions enabled by VMware. Its emphasis has always been on service and outcomes, not product and licensing sales. “Our customers love working with us,” Sandfort says, “because we’re a partner on their journey. We’re with their IT department and their employees every step of the way. They know that when they pick up the phone, they have an expert at their fingertips, and it’s why they will always come back.”