The Publicis Groupe of advertising agencies has been on a decade-long growth spurt. During that time, as it added to the worldwide set of agencies operating under its own name such major players as Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi, it has become one of the big four global advertising holding companies.

Ad agencies, of course, are known for their clever ideas. One of better ideas David Plavin, who is Operations Manager of Macintosh Enterprise Engineering for ReSources USA IT, the New York-based group responsible for managing Publicis' North American IT operations, has come across in his professional life came from Saatchi & Saatchi after it was purchased by Publicis, although it had nothing to do with advertising.

"FileWave arrived here in New York through Saatchi & Saatchi in Los Angeles," he says. "Andi Self had implemented it there before Saatchi became part of Publicis. As we kept getting bigger and bigger - going from supporting 125 machines to 650 in New York - we needed a new tool for our software distribution.

"She was using FileWave so she brought it over here and taught us how to use it. We couldn't have done it without her, and we're eternally grateful. She's the one who really got us going."

Currently ReSources USA IT manages 2500 Macs, "pretty much all in the USA," says Plavin. "We have main offices - our North American headquarters - in New York and Chicago. There are about 775 machines in New York and I'd say 600 in Chicago, but machines are located all throughout the USA. There are another 350-plus in Los Angeles, 150 in Seattle, 120 or so in San Francisco, 50 in Detroit. Plus others. I'm sure there are another 500 Macs I don't even know about."

FileWave has been the perfect software distribution solution for such a fast-growing enterprise, not least because of its scalability. "We've been able to just keep adding to it. Any office with 25 machines or more will have its own Booster. Right now we have three main servers - in LA, Chicago and New York. New York has Boosters at four of its Manhattan locations and two Boosters where our main building is."

But scalability is hardly FileWave's only virtue, according to Plavin.

"Adobe Creative Suite, this huge thing - it now takes us only 30 to 45 minutes at a desktop. We just push a button, install 20 or more at a time. We can manage user groups. Send out customized applications to different ones.

"We just did a major upgrade of Lotus Notes with FileWave," Plavin continues. "Not only did it run the upgrade, we attached some post-install scripts. Basically it enabled every user to receive the upgrade then come to their desk the next day and log in like they had every day before. No downtime. No hassle. I can't even begin to tell you how much work it saved us."

As good and helpful as the software itself is, the company's support matches it, Plavin maintains. "They're just awesome over there [in Switzerland]. You get to talk to the developers of the program themselves. You can't do that at too many other places.

"They're extremely responsive to customer needs. They might have invented the program but customers have shaped it. They actually like to listen to you. They're totally customer-driven."

The Lotus Notes rollout he recently completed provides a good example of the quality of FileWave support, Plavin says. "They really helped us with those scripts. I think the things were written by ancient Greeks, but when we contacted FileWave with questions they totally helped us get it done."

Plavin hopes to add Asset Management to his department next. "Right now we don't use an inventory tool, but we want to. I'm going to set up a test group in the second half of this year. [Asset Trustee] would allow us to provide our customers with true asset management: monitor software usage, enhance FileWave and a whole bunch of other good things.

"The great benefit of both [FileWave and Asset Trustee] is the management part," he offers. "To my mind they're obviously cost efficient because they're cheaper than hiring people. You can do a lot of work in a short period of time with very few people. It's really a tremendous thing."

It's only fitting that a multi-media company like Denmark's Fynske Medier should employ a multi-platform solution like FileWave for distributing and managing its software.

"We're a company that produces, prints and distributes several newspapers and Yellow Pages," says IT Electronics Engineer Kim Kaersgaard. "We also have a radio station and an online/Internet company.

"In total we have about 700-750 computer users, with roughly 80 Macs and the rest PCs. The ease of use and the multi-platform capabilities are what we particularly like about FileWave."

The media business is fast paced and dependent on making deadlines, and FileWave is up to the challenge presented by this environment, according to Kaersgaard.

"We haven't made any calculations when it comes to speed benchmarks, increased productivity or cost efficiencies," he says. "But before we had FileWave we spent a lot of time finding software and installing it while disturbing the end user in the process, who wasn't able to produce during that time. We don't have to do that anymore.

"We're able to install software in new machines with basically one person making all the packages and another person setting up the machines, installing the Windows or Mac OSX system and distributing the rest with FileWave."

The applications Kaersgaard installs revolve around Adobe programs, Creative Suite for the Macs and InCopy and InDesign for the PCs with plug-ins for the business systems. The company employs one PPC G5 for the FileWave Server, from which it directly loads the Macs, and has two G4s, which it intends to upgrade to G5s and augment with a third, that it uses for the PCs.

"We have multiple locations scattered in a radius of about 50 kilometers," Kaersgaard says. "At the locations outside our main office in Odense we have about 400 users. The great thing is being able to make the same installation with the same settings on all the machines. [FileWave] enables us to have a homogenous installation."

Kaersgaard personally has been working with FileWave since 1992 and at Fyens Stiftstidende/Fynske Medier since 2002. He says the company did look a little into Microsoft's SMS but not much "because we also have Mac OSX to support. I've never worked with SMS and I know very little about it. We looked into Active Directory for distributing software as well, but discovered it's not nearly as flexible as FileWave.

"One of its great advantages, in addition to the ease of use, is that you're not limited to one technology, for instance MSI."

Another major advantage is the support FileWave extends. "It's great support, they're great people, among the best. The only think I'm missing is some kind of feedback, a ‘roadmap' – what FileWave will look like in the future. That would absolutely ideal."

FileWave has decreased the amount of time and effort required for us to develop, deploy, and manage our software for the campus computer labs. With FileWave the user experience for support staff, students, and instructors is more reliable. With FileWave workstations can be updated and software deployed in the background and still allow users to access to the workstation.

FileWave customer support has been by far the best we have ever encountered. When we have a question or need assistance FileWave is always there to assist us in finding or developing a solution.

London is a city that never sleeps. And FileWave is an equally insomniac software management solution that works through the small hours to save time and energy costs during non-peak network traffic times, a feature highly appreciated by Stuart Knipe, Editorial Systems Manager at Hachette Filipacchi UK (Ltd.), a subsidiary of the leading global magazine publisher located in central London.

"One of the major challenges we faced as a magazine publisher was the fast pace at which applications may need to be upgraded," he says. "FileWave's ability to manage Apple's energy saver preference allows us to have out-of-hours maintenance windows. A whole magazine can have a version change of software outside the normal workday, with minimal cost of time to our system administrator and without disrupting the workflow."

In additional to working when you want it to, day or night, FileWave works fast. "It has allowed for a hugely reduced rebuild time for a machine," Knipe says. "It was these factors along with the ease of use that made it the correct choice for us." As he states: "FileWave was the final piece required by Hachette to have a fully managed Mac estate."

Hachette's Mac estate in London consists of approximately 300 machines. "We deploy a standard image that contains all the components required for deployment and other components that we do not need to manage the versions of," Knipe says.

"Any component that is to have its version managed is controlled by Filewave. This includes applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite. Other components that are managed include printer descriptions, Sophos anti-virus information, media players and Internet plug-ins."

The advantages of using FileWave in such a set-up, Knipe says, are wide ranging. "It provides a huge increase in productivity to our IT department. We no longer need to take a CD to a desk to re-install an application should it be causing a problem.

"Having version control in place also allows us to remove the ‘patching' culture that a lot of IT departments use. Patching an application no longer happens as we have the latest tested version of an application on every machine that requires it."

Knipe also values FileWave's assistance in managing license compliance. "It gives you instant information on the number of machines with a particular application on it. This is particularly important if you do not have a company big enough to warrant a site license.

"We also discovered FileWave useful for the control of high-value software for temporary deployment," he continues. "For instance, if we run a project in which we may need to deploy high-value software and fonts to a specific set of machines. Not only is this easy, it is accurate. This is the same in reverse, allowing us to remove licenses from machine easily and accurately."

And if you should run into any difficulties?

"The customer service available from FileWave is of the highest quality. We have had several problems with deploying sets that, with a combination of phoning FileWave and using their Internet information services, have been solved quickly and accurately."

The success of a Hollywood movie or a TV series, it's widely known, depends as much upon the people working behind the scenes as upon those appearing before the camera. At Home Box Office (HBO), the pioneering cable network that telecasts dozens of feature films every month in addition to several of its own popular TV shows, the equivalent behind-the-scenes crew would include its IT personnel. They are responsible, among other tasks, for ensuring that the cable network's computer network runs smoothly and efficiently and enables this month's big-screen blockbusters and episodes of hit series to reach their wide American viewing audience without a hitch.

Robert Tuftee is the technical leader at Information Technology Infrastructure at HBO, and works at the company's main New York location in midtown Manhattan.

"We're a subset of IT, Desktop Support," he says, "and we're responsible for all desktop computers company-wide. We have approximately 1900 employees using 2400 machines in 11 sites."

Thanks to FileWave and Asset Trustee, Tuftee can manage from his 12th floor office in a Manhattan skyscraper all the application rollouts, upgrades, OS updates, inventory, etc., for the approximately 850 Apple Macintosh computers in use at HBO facilities around the country.

"The machines are located at five of the company sites. We have around 175 Macs at our studio facility, which is also in Manhattan, 15 at out satellite broadcast center on Long Island, 20 in our Los Angeles location and all the rest in our main location here in Manhattan," he says.

"Being able to control software deliveries from one central location - that's the primary reason we have FileWave."

HBO first became aware of Filewave in 1994 and started implementing it soon afterward. "I've been a Filewave administrator since 1999," Tuftee says. "Most of the time I handle all of Filewave by myself. This is for the approximately 750 Macs running OS X and the 100 running OS 9. I have always had one backup person, but he wasn't involved day-to-day. I am currently training a new person to be my backup."

What Tuftee appreciates most about the automated software distribution system is the speed at which a full Filewave delivery comes down. "I've gone from build times in hours for a complete graphics workstation - Adobe CS2, Quark, 2 GBs of fonts plus associated tools and standard office stuff - to under a half-hour. Their commitment to improving the performance of Filewave is really impressive."

HBO also uses FileWave's inventory management solution Asset Trustee. "We used to use Asset Trustee in Mac OS 9 and have now re-implemented it again with version 7.6.2. We have an Asset Trustee server and two post offices, all based on XServers, to handle the environment.

"Filewave distributes the Asset Trustee client and SuperPrefs. As I just recently set up the Asset Trustee environment, the server is still collecting the initial data so we're not yet running queries to a defined purpose."

Any coming attractions for HBO in the software area? "I'm currently trying to persuade my management to consider Filewave and Asset Trustee as a means to deliver and report on Windows software," Tuftee says.

"I was in a discussion with our [Windows] SMS manager and he challenged me to do a proof of concept with FileWave. That's a challenge I'm going to answer."