The project will see Axon design and deploy an Altiris-based solution designed to achieve substantial time and cost savings, through sophisticated remote management of Frucor's 600-user Australasian desktop fleet. Frucor will manage Australian desktops from its Sydney branch office, and the New Zealand fleet from the company's Auckland headquarters.

Frucor's brands include Fresh Up, Mizone, Pepsi, Frank, V, H2go and Just Juice. The company runs a significant research and development operation in New Zealand. The highly successful V brand – the number one energy drink in Australia and New Zealand, and popular in the U.K, South Africa and Argentina – was created in New Zealand.

Frucor Beverages Group IS Manager Paul Miller says Frucor has posted strong growth throughout its history. Now - with 600 users at multiple office locations around the region – Frucor is centralising desktop management to make the administration of its fleet speedier and more efficient. The Axon project will deliver faster and more efficient rollouts of new software and patches, reduce the time taken to deal with user support calls, and help facilitate software compliance.

 “The ability to deploy software remotely means users will get immediate access to the latest applications and patches,” he says.

“It will ultimately boost productivity – both for technical staff who will have the ability to clear service support calls more quickly, and for users who will get their requests for additional applications met much more rapidly, with none of the downtime associated with uplifting their machine, ” says Paul Miller.

Frucor took an innovative approach to choosing its software and implementation partner.

“We approached leading software vendors and asked them to tell us why we should use their software, and who we should use to implement their software,” Paul Miller says.

“We wanted the right tools, and we wanted recommendations on the best implementers. We evaluated two service providers for each software product. The capability of the people Axon offered was more comprehensive than anyone else was able to offer; Axon's proven experience couldn't be matched by anyone else in the field; and they actually listened to what we wanted done. We said we wanted to bring in the best intellectual property to enrich the Frucor business – Axon set themselves apart by being the only provider who heard that.”

Axon will take the first phase of the project live in November, before expanding deployment in February 2009.

“We'll initially go live in one part of the business. We have to limit change in the field from November onwards, because of the Christmas rush,” Paul Miller says.