Barco announces significant expansion of NOC services for digital cinema

http://www.barco.com/digitalcinema/pressrelease/2491/

At ShoWest 2010, Barco unveils a major expansion of its nationwide digital cinema NOC, with enhanced remote services, diagnostics and monitoring.

Rancho Cordova, CA — 12 March 2010 — Barco, a global leader in digital cinema technology, proudly announces an expansion of its advanced NOC (Network Operations Center), a comprehensive set of monitoring tools and services available to all Barco digital cinema customers. As a proactive service designed to ensure the optimum performance of each customer's digital cinema network, the NOC now offers expanded monitoring capabilities for networked projectors, servers, theatre management systems, automation controllers, switches and UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) units.

Now well into its second year in operation, Barco's NOC provides theatre owners, service providers and system integrators with a common platform for monitoring, servicing and maintaining their projector fleet. Based on the overwhelmingly positive customer response, new NOC services have been added, including expanded remote network analysis, new remote upgrade and configuration capabilities, 24/7/365 site schedule and content verification, plus enhanced real-time network snapshots.

"It's all about keeping pictures on our customers' screens," said Jim Wickenhiser, NOC and Call Center Manager for Barco Digital Cinema, NA. "At any given customer site, particularly when staff resources are at a premium, the NOC provides our exhibitors with the confidence that their equipment, schedules, servers and switches are being monitored. More importantly, we have the ability to be proactive," continued Wickenhiser. "Not only do we have knowledge of all these network devices, but we can reach out into the network, to diagnose and troubleshoot remotely. We've had scenarios where the customer isn't aware of a network problem, yet we're already working on it. Overall, the NOC enables our customers to concentrate on business, yet know that they have a direct interface to Customer Service, 24/7."

"The great thing about the NOC is that it helps us anticipate our needs, before we actually encounter issues," said Joel Davis, VP of Operations for Premiere Cinemas. "Having that kind of backup is imperative. We have 12 locations where the NOC is monitoring over 160 Barco projectors for us. We know that when we walk into any one of our theatres running Barco equipment, we're going to have a perfect picture on the screen, all the time."

"The term 'proactive' is the key," said Mike Jones, Vice President of Customer Service for Barco NA. "Across our entire organization, customer service is more than a product. In fact, it's the way that we partner with our customers. The NOC provides a system-wide view that allows us to quickly identify and resolve problems. The majority of our calls are outbound and proactive, which is unusual for a call center of this nature, yet highly desirable from the customer's standpoint. The combination of NOC tools and a dedicated staff of technical support engineers allows Barco to maintain a very close relationship with our customers and maximize the return from the customer's investment."

For a hands-on demonstration of the NOC, please visit Barco in Booth #1931 at ShoWest, 15 – 18 March at Bally's Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada.