CPA Australia Replaces PCs in 16 Global and Local Offices with Wyse and Reports up to a 40% Cost Saving

Sydney, Australia -- December 18 2007 -- Wyse Technology, the global leader in thin computing, today announced that CPA Australia, a leading accountancy body, has saved significant support and energy costs by deploying Wyse thin client technology.

CPA operations manager David Camilleri reported; “Metrics show that to date we have saved 20% overall on operational costs and 40% on hardware costs, and support calls dropped 60% in just a few months, management is delighted. We expect cost savings to dramatically increase over a longer time period.”

Like all businesses undergoing rapid expansion CPA Australia encountered problems in effectively communicating with, and supporting, its Australian branch office network and international operations.

How best to align IT to CPA Australia’s business needs was the biggest challenge facing David Camilleri when he joined CPA Australia late in 2005. With 16 branches supported by a central IT group in Melbourne, David found the organisation was not being served well by its existing IT infrastructure.

“However I was convinced that in early 2006, thin client was ideal for CPA Australia, and I convinced the board that if we tackled the job properly we would see great benefits and cost savings. The board agreed to totally rebuild our infrastructure; new data centre, servers, WAN, and of course replacing most PCs with thin clients.”

“In early 2006 we started looking at thin client suppliers and settled on Wyse S50 devices. Wyse is a household name in thin client and the clear market leader. The references they were able to provide were excellent”. The Wyse S50 is a small, Linux Kernel 2.6-based thin client device that offers true ‘stateless’ technology allowing users to plug and play. It has one serial and four SSB ports, fanless design with no moving parts.

CPA Australia started rolling out the new solution in early 2006, firstly with the 16 local and overseas divisions, and lastly in early 2007, the Melbourne head office.

The entire system runs on Citrix Presentation Server 4.5, running on IBM blade servers all situated in CPA Australia’s Melbourne head office. All up 440 Wyse S50 thin client terminals were deployed in Australia and overseas, with 120 notebooks being used as portable thin client terminals. 60 PCs are still used for some very intensive graphics applications such as PhotoShop.

CPA Australia runs Email and Microsoft Office applications on the Citrix system as well as the iMIS not-for-profit member relationship software incorporating the phone-in call centre application, and iManage document manager from Interwoven.

One of the interesting developments coming from David’s work is the efficiencies seen at the data centre. “One of the past criticisms of thin client is that the cost savings at the desktop are negated by increased costs in servers and support at the data centre. This is not CPA’s experience.”

“Firstly, we have successfully created a standard operating environment for all users, with full control coming from the technical centre in Melbourne giving all users a standard operating environment. All users have their own standard desktop with applications following users around the world, just log in and you are at home.”

“Next, support costs have dramatically reduced. The lack of non standard PCs, disks on the desk and virus and rogue programs means we do not need technical staff in the field to support the Wyse thin clients. Should a device fail, we just have the user pop in a new one from the cupboard and they are back on line. No data can be lost and security is 100%”

“Lastly we have dramatically reduced upgrade costs as all are done at the touch of a button from Melbourne.”

Commenting on behalf of Wyse, Richard Eccles southern region manager said “David and his team are to be congratulated on their results at CPA. Their strong belief in thin client technology and its value to the enterprise has certainly been vindicated.”

About Wyse Technology

Wyse Technology is the global leader in thin computing. Wyse and its partners deliver the hardware, infrastructure software, and services that comprise thin computing, allowing people to access the information they need using the applications they want, but with better security, manageability, and at a much lower total cost of ownership than a PC. Thin computing allows CIOs and senior IT professionals to reduce costs, manage risk, and deliver access to information. Wyse partners closely with industry leaders Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and others to achieve this objective. Wyse is headquartered in San Jose, California, with offices worldwide and ANZ head office in North Sydney, NSW.

For more information, visit the Wyse website at http://www.wyse.com.au and http://www.wyse.com.au/green/index.asp

About CPA

CPA Australia is the name, since April 2000, for the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants, initially incorporated in 19952 with roots going back to the 1880s.With a current membership of more than 112,000 finance, accounting and business professionals around Australia and internationally, CPA Australia is the sixth largest accounting body in the world and was the first accounting body in the world to require a degree for entry. Members must also complete a CPA Public Practice Program which involves distance learning and a residential component to become a Certified Practising Accountant.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Rob Stirling Markom Marketing +61 2 9977 8922 rob_stirling@markom.com.au

Anna Soriano Wyse Technology +61 (0) 409 315 012 asoriano@wyse.com