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Case Studies/Spot Lights

AVAC Helps Userful Make Computers Accessible and Sustainable

Computers are one of the most significant costs for any young business. With traditional desktop computers costing anywhere from $2000 – $4000 per year to support and maintain, computers can be a serious financial strain for any company that’s struggling to keep costs down. Now, with investment support from AVAC, Calgary’s Userful has brought to market their patented software that not only makes it affordable to use and maintain computers, but actually reduces CO2 emissions in the process by turning one PC into ten.

“Userful allows ordinary individuals to manage and deploy a fleet of desktop computers,” explains Tim Griffin, President of Userful. ”We make deploying desktop computers extremely low cost and efficient by multiplying and managing them. Multiply means taking an ordinary computer and attaching up to ten monitors and keyboards; managing means using a simple webpage to manage all your computers at once.” This process not only saves the initial cost of buying individual computers, but also the cost of employing IT specialists to manage and maintain them once they’re in use. And it reduces energy usage by up to 80 per cent.

Userful began working with AVAC in late 2007, when they realized they needed additional funding to take the company to the next level. “AVAC investment helped us accelerate our growth and undertake important initiatives we couldn’t have otherwise done, like investing in building an international channel sales program or investing in more aggressive marketing. AVAC let us look to more long-term, strategic initiatives.”

Griffin stresses that the process of working with AVAC has been very valuable. “They’ve really added value above and beyond financial investment, and helped us set a bunch of milestones to guide our activity.” Some of those milestones are already being realized, with Userful recently securing a contract to roll out over 350,000 PCs for Brazil’s 2.6 million school children and similar initiatives under way with clients around the world. “Our mission is to connect the world through sustainable desktop computers, and for us that means making computers affordable to deploy, easy to support and minimizing their environmental footprint.”

Even during the current economic downturn, Userful’s software is attracting plenty of attention. “There’s a lot of interest in our company because people are looking for ways to trim IT costs and that’s exactly what we do,” notes Griffin. “Our timing with AVAC’s investment worked out perfectly, because it allowed us to do these things at exactly the right time.”