Rock-Solid Security, Constant Uptime Helps Law Firm Work All Day, Sleep Soundly All Night

Tyler Cooper & Alcorn, one of Connecticut's oldest and most successful law firms, reduced its IT costs by 45 percent by choosing IBM over a Microsoft solution to consolidate its sprawling servers, secure its email system and install a highly reliable on demand IT infrastructure.

With 70 lawyers spread across four Connecticut towns, Tyler Cooper provides a full range of legal services and boasts nine partners on the National Attorneys Directory of "The Best Lawyers in America." Challenged to maintain its success and adhere to its centuries-old practice of using experienced law partners to personally perform clients' legal work, the firm switched from a Microsoft solution that frequently crashed. As such, Tyler Cooper has increased its attorney productivity and is one of a handful of law firms with a true fail-over, disaster recovery and virus-free IT environment.

"I can now sleep soundly at night," said Barry Winnick, attorney and IT director, Tyler Cooper & Alcorn. "We used Microsoft Outlook on Windows NT clients and a Microsoft Exchange server. With Microsoft, every time you turn around, you need another server -- seven for document management, three more for e-mail, and another three to five for financial systems, and then they'd crash. Our iSeries system has not gone down, and I don't have to worry about managing a farm of separate servers. It's all in one, highly reliable small platform."

The new streamlined IT infrastructure is powered by an IBM eServer iSeries system running IBM DB2 Universal Database, Lotus Domino and Lotus Notes. The single iSeries server runs the firm's accounting software, document management system, Lotus Notes e-mail system and tightly integrated legal software suite from IBM Business Partner Rippe & Kingston.

Having just one server run all the applications helped reduce Tyler Cooper's IT staff by 50 percent, proves why the iSeries system continues to be the server of choice for many small to medium-sized businesses.

Approximately 100 people at the firm use the reliable workflows built into Lotus Notes software to handle meetings and other collaborative tasks on demand. The firm plans on adding many new high-productivity features such as an intranet/extranet and a Web portal this year.

Tyler Cooper & Alcorn worked with Rippe & Kingston to implement the Legal Management System for firm accounting and WANDOCs for document management. Currently more than 200 law firms across the country are running Rippe & Kingston legal applications built on an IBM infrastructure.

"Our goal is to help Tyler Cooper & Alcorn continue its phenomenal growth and success," said Ron Sharp, President of Rippe & Kingston, LLC. "That means growing the network without growing staff. The combined R&K-IBM solution has helped us accomplish that goal and then some. We love the virus free environment, 99.997 percent uptime, and bullet-proof security."

According to R&K, for a 100-attorney firm, a typical WinTel-based-solution requires about 15 separate servers and an IT staff of 10 to 12 employees. By switching to R&K LMS V, the highly integrated e-business suite for law firms, Microsoft server farms can be reduced to a single iSeries, and the IT staff can be reduced from 12 to four people, freeing eight employees to do other important tasks.

About the IBM eServer iSeries

The IBM iSeries system is a tightly integrated system including hardware, middleware, storage and security. iSeries systems can run i5/OS, Windows (via an IXA or IXS), Linux and AIX operating environments simultaneously so clients can reinvest those savings to grow their business. Business partners and solutions providers of all sizes drive iSeries server success by building, selling and deploying over 6,400 of the world's most popular business applications for their clients on the iSeries platform.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of on demand business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com.

The following are either trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both: IBM, the IBM e-business logo, eServer, i5/OS, iSeries.

All others are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.


Contact:
James Smith
IBM Media Relations
914.766.4231
Email Contact


SOURCE: IBM

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