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February 7, 2000

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FTD.com Consolidates IT Outsourcing
Online flower merchant hires Intira to provide technical support, performance guarantees

By Larry Greenemeier

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    FTD.com's plans to enhance its online flower and gift marketing business surged ahead last week when the company unveiled an agreement to outsource its IT and networking operations to Intira Corp. The deal will complement renovations under way on the FTD.com site, which will be relaunched in March.

    Intira will take responsibility for FTD.com's network, IT infrastructure, and storage systems. The agreement replaces FTD.com's previous arrangement with three unnamed IT outsourcers, who provided hosting, technical support, and consulting. "They each did a very good job, but due to our growth rate, we decided to get a more complete outsourcing solution from a single vendor," says Fred Johnson, CIO of FTD.com, in Downers Grove, Ill. Because Intira will be responsible for nearly all aspects of FTD.com's IT operations, it can offer a comprehensive service-level agreement that avoids finger-pointing in the event of system failures, Johnson says.

    As FTD.com continues to grow--revenue nearly doubled, to $49 million, between 1997 and 1999--so does the need for high availability. "This is a case of an established company, FTD, that about four years ago opened up a whole other area of competition by going to the Web," says Bernie Schneider, president and CEO of Intira. He adds that FTD.com has grown to a point at which the availability of business-critical systems and the integrity of its service-level agreements are critical to the business' survival.

    FTD.com considered five IT services companies, which Johnson declined to identify, ranging from hardware outsourcing companies to application service providers. Ultimately, FTD.com turned to Intira for its ability to provide a comprehensive service-level agreement covering all IT and network components, including application servers, database servers, Internet and private network services, storage arrays, and security, Johnson says. Because Intira owns the IT and network infrastructure, it's able to offer a service-level agreement that ensures up to 99.95% system availability, Schneider says.

    "Intira distinguishes itself from other outsourcing companies by being able to offer robust service-level agreements because it can take responsibility for the network, infrastructure, and system storage," says Chris Selland, VP of E-business strategies with the Yankee Group.

    To complete the renovation, FTD. com commissioned two other companies to handle areas that Intira doesn't. IBM Global Services is developing applications, and Organic Inc. is redesigning the site.


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