I was at the grand opening of HighVail Systems' new office in downtown Toronto last night. Company founder and president Bradley Brodkin put on a great event sponsored by his main vendor partners HP, HDS, Oracle/Sun and Symantec.
First to the news: HighVail achieved Platinum Partner status with Symantec and that is a tremendous accomplishment for a company that's only seven years young. I remember presenting an the Top 100 Best Newcomer award to Brodkin just a few short years ago. HighVail cracked the Top 100 early on it its history and tonight when CDN reveals this year's rankings HighVail will be litterally half way to the most coveted spot on the list.
Brodkin also announced that HighVail is forming an Elite Club for customers. The Elite Club will be a group meeting with executives from customers, vendor partners and HighVail staff to discuss and share ideas. It will be held quarterly in there new offices which features many new boardrooms. Brodkin stated that Elite Club will not be a sale pitch.
Brodkin addressed the guest last night with a great speech that came from the heart. I could sense emotion in his words as he talked about his employees, customers and vendor partners he deals with. You could tell this company means a great deal to him and that he really wanted to share in his success.
“I wake up everyday and pitch myself because it can't believe this is real,” he told the crowd of well wishers.
Brodkin thanked a lot of people, but he singled out Laura Tsingos for a special mention. He said that HighVail could not have accomplished what it has without her help. In fact, the move to the new office was spearheaded by Tsingos because Brodkin was off for two months recovering from knee surgery.
CDN wants to wish Brodkin and the team at HighVail all the best. They are a fantastic channel partner and any customer would be lucky to have them as its trusted advisor.
Oh, one more thing. Last night I learned that HighVail stems from the term high availability. Brodkin said as he was starting the company he wanted to provide high availability all the time to his customers and that's why he named his company HighVail.
One quick hit before I go. Westcon Group has promoted Jon Pritchard to President of its Comstor business, that handles only Cisco equipment. Pritchard was executive vice president of Comstor Worldwide and will report to Dean Douglas, the CEO of Westcon.
