“Carousel is pleased once again to lead key seminars at the IAUG Global Education Conference. With the technology behind unified communications becoming increasingly complex, it is a great opportunity to share our accumulated knowledge on a variety of technical topics,” said Lucy C. Graham, director of marketing, Carousel Industries. “The seminars will provide information end-users need to make the greatest use out of their Avaya UC solutions.”

Following are dates, times and a detailed description of each session:

Can’t See the Forest OR the Trees? Best Practices for a Cohesive Visual Communications Solution in the Enterprise
Presented by Dan Hofferty of Carousel Industries (May 20, 3:30 p.m., Room 208)
Enterprise organizations consistently struggle with incorporating a cohesive visual component into their unified communications environment. Untangling the endpoints so infrastructure components can effectively call to each other presents yet another challenge to a streamlined solution. This session will discuss how to incorporate and deploy inherently competitive technologies, such as the Avaya Flare, 1X Communicator, Microsoft Lync or Polycom endpoints, into your solution without sacrificing your cohesive vision. Dan Hofferty will share best practices on how to solve the most common challenges and the pros and cons of each solution.

Show Me the Money! Leveraging Social Media in the Enterprise
Presented by Jason Aubee, Director of Strategic Consulting services of Carousel Industries (May 21, 1:30 p.m., Room 311)
Social media can have a tremendous financial impact on the enterprise – both positive and negative. Jason Aubee will discuss proactive, reactive, and constructive social media strategies and how to leverage each to your best financial advantage, specifically looking at processes, programs, and technologies like Avaya Social Media Manager. Proactive brand management includes positive ways in which you can increase brand awareness, name recognition, or interest in your organization or product through social media tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Reactive brand management includes tools and technologies which help your organization monitor and manage negative references to your brand or product. Constructive brand management determines how all of that information plugs into your contact center. This session will explore how a comprehensive approach to leveraging the best that social media has to offer can be the key to wisely managing your brand awareness, having control over your public perception, and ultimately generating success throughout your organization.

PDAs in the Enterprise – Pros and Cons for the Security Conscious
Presented by Mike Burgess, Director of Pre-Sales Engineering of Carousel Industries (May 21, 1:30 p.m., Room 312)
PDAs are a growing presence in the enterprise, presenting technical and security challenges with each new user. Executives enjoy the CapEx funding increase (thanks to employees supplying their own equipment) and employee mobility but worry about the underlying risk of loss of intellectual property. Mike Burgess will discuss these trends, explore the most common challenges they entail, and present solutions to those challenges. He will also discuss best practices Carousel has developed to address common – and not-so-common – customer scenarios, including the special challenges related to mobile and wireless networking.

Microsoft Lync / OCS Integration in a Unified Communications Environment – Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Presented by Thomas Herr, Lead Architect/SIP Solutions of Carousel Industries (May 22, 2:00 p.m., Room 201)
Today’s unified communications customers want to be able to leverage the best applications and technologies for their UC environments, but integrating different manufacturers’ components can be tricky. Avaya and Microsoft Lync and OCS can be successfully blended for an ideal solution, but a savvy provider needs to understand the nuances of each product’s capabilities and limitations. Up-front planning and evaluation is critical to ensure a UC solution meets the end-user needs without resulting in feature collisions, application “dis-integration,” or conflicting functionality between mobile and desktop users. This session will explore the many different integration options between Microsoft and Avaya in order to craft the best possible solution for several customer scenarios. Thomas Herr will also discuss the most common challenges encountered in reconciling a customer’s specific needs with all of the features and functionality these products offer. Lastly, Herr will offer Carousel’s best practices on how to resolve those challenges, so your customers get the solution they need with the features they want.

In addition to the above sessions, Carousel will also be hosting ongoing demonstrations of SmartPoint, Carousel’s managed services offering. This will be presented by Mark Damphousse, Carousel’s Director of Managed Services in the Carousel Industries booth at the IAUG Solutions Expo.

As organizations begin to enjoy the benefits of unified communications systems, IT leaders are faced with challenges such as complexity, budget constraints, 24x7 demand, and lack of visibility in the converged environment. For most IT organizations today, 80% of IT resources are devoted to simply maintaining day-to-day operations, and the related costs of maintenance and repair are rising faster than budgets. Damphousse will discuss how SmartPoint by Carousel is a flexible compilation of services designed to proactively deliver IT support with advanced business service monitoring, streamlined workflow, intelligent IT planning and ongoing operational support.

For more information on the IAUG conference, including additional details on these training tracks, please visit the IAUG website.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, managed services, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with 2011 revenues of $320 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 27 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Patrick Britton joins Carousel as vice president of video and A/V integration, and will be responsible for the service and delivery of Carousel’s industry leading video and A/V solutions. Michael Fitch has joined Carousel as vice president of managed and Premier One services, where he will be responsible for Carousel's services delivery component. Nick Kolintzas, meanwhile, comes to Carousel as vice president of engineering operations, and will be tasked with driving innovation and process improvements across Carousel's pre-sales engineering teams.

“Patrick, Michael and Nick have over 50 years of combined experience in the technology sector, and each bring unique skills that will help drive Carousel's excellence in operations and customer service,” said Jeff Gardner, CEO, Carousel Industries. “I’m pleased to welcome them to the Carousel team and look forward to their contributions in making our A/V, managed services and engineering teams even stronger."

Videoconferencing and A/V integration is among the largest growing business segments for Carousel. Britton's focus will be on the integration side, where he brings 15 years of experience in project management, engineering, system design and sales. Prior to joining Carousel, he was general manager for the Mid Atlantic Group of integrator AVI-SPL. Britton has also been an active member of the InfoComm Professional Ethics and Training Committee and InfoComm Sub Committee.

As vice president of managed and Premier One services, Michael Fitch brings 20 years of technical and managerial skills to his new role at Carousel. A technology manager and solution architect known for his ability to bring together top-performing technology teams and provide hands-on leadership, his primary focus will be on ensuring Carousel's success in delivering and maintaining the highest levels of customer service through its managed and Premier One services businesses.

Previously, Fitch was the Assistant Vice President for Program Management at Science Applications International Corporation, where he was responsible for program management, managed services delivery, strategic planning, customer relationship management, and risk assessment in leading large IT outsourcing programs.

Finally, as Vice President of Engineering Operations, Nick Kolintzas will be responsible for leading Carousel’s Contact Center practice and driving innovation and process improvements across the pre-sales engineering teams.

Prior to joining Carousel, Kolintzas was CTO and senior director of the managed services division at Quagga, a Windstream Company, where he was responsible for engineering and the positioning, promotion and placement of managed services. As a 15-year industry veteran, Kolintzas has led multiple market transitions, including digital to IP telephony and IP telephony to unified communications.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, managed services, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with 2011 revenues of $320 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 27 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

The Platinum Level designation indicates that Carousel Industries has made the investments in its technical expertise and go-to-market capabilities required to address the complex needs of today’s UC customers. Platinum Level Polycom Choice Partners also must have met the program’s exacting standards, including achieving and maintaining specialization in multiple areas. The TEAM Polycom Partner Awards, meanwhile, recognize partners that have demonstrated business excellence in selling Polycom’s award winning solutions and services over the past year. Award recipients must demonstrate outstanding customer impact, solution innovation and effective implementation of Polycom solutions in their customer engagements.

“We have worked very hard to achieve the Platinum status within Polycom and are also honored to have been named System Integrator of the Year,” said James Marsh, senior vice president, Carousel Industries. “The relationship we have with Polycom is integral to our visual communication and collaboration strategy and will be a key contributor to our success within our video practice. Polycom shares the same business values and partnership ideals as we do at Carousel. We look forward to a long and successful relationship.”

Carousel joins an elite few partners in North America that have provided the commitment and revenue growth required to be at the highest end of the Polycom Choice spectrum of partners. With a unique value proposition that includes unified communications, audio/video and visual communications design and integration expertise, Carousel has positioned itself as a leader in unified communications and video solutions in North America. Only about a dozen Polycom partners in North America meet the stringent requirements to become Platinum-recognized. Carousel exceeded Polycom’s requirements, earning Platinum status just days before being named 2012 Polycom System Integrator of the Year at the TEAM Polycom 2012 conference.

“The Polycom Choice Partner Program gives customers the confidence that, by choosing Carousel and Polycom, they’re selecting a world-class team to help them design and implement a world-class UC solution,” said Ron Myers, senior vice president, Global Channels at Polycom. “By collaborating with Polycom as a Platinum Level Choice Partner, Carousel can deliver UC solutions that power greater productivity and smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses in the process.”

Winner of CRN Magazine’s 5-Star Partner Program Award, Polycom’s Choice Partner Program emphasizes skills development, specialization, and other value added activities that help partners support the needs of their customers and improve the customer experience. For more information, visit the Polycom Choice Partner Program website.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, managed services, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2011 revenues of approximately $300 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 27 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit www.carouselindustries.com.

About Polycom

Polycom is the global leader in open, standards-based unified communications (UC) solutions for telepresence, video, and voice powered by the Polycom® RealPresence® Platform. The RealPresence Platform interoperates with the broadest range of business, mobile, and social applications and devices. More than 400,000 organizations trust Polycom solutions to collaborate and meet face to face from any location for more productive and effective engagement with colleagues, partners, customers, specialists, and prospects. Polycom, together with its broad partner ecosystem, provides customers with the best total cost of ownership, interoperability, scalability, and security for video collaboration, whether on-premises, hosted, or cloud delivered. Visit www.polycom.com or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

With a strong mobility strategy and insight into the emerging bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend, Carousel has worked with Aruba to ensure customers are getting the best solutions available to enable their own workforces to not only be more productive, but also more accessible from anywhere and from any device. Aruba recognized Carousel for its achievements in mobility and BYOD accreditations and revenue-generating business plan.

“We are pleased to be recognized for our hard work by Aruba Networks. It speaks volumes about our team’s commitment to Aruba and our vision surrounding the mobility and BYOD trends,” said Bill Annino, vice president of the data technologies group at Carousel Industries. “Over the three years we have been a member of the Aruba PartnerEdge Program, we have succeeded in growing our business and have driven forward our strategic plan with the help of Aruba.”

“Aruba Networks has recognized Carousel Industries with the Americas Partner of the Year Award for building a solid strategy for mobility and BYOD, and then executing successfully on it,” said Robert Bruce, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Aruba. “Carousel has become an invaluable partner in developing effective customer-oriented solutions around Aruba’s offerings.”

This year marks the second year in a row that Carousel has won an award at the annual Aruba Networks Partner Summit. Last year, Carousel was recognized for strong revenue and business acceleration with Aruba by winning the Growth Partner of the Year Award.

The Aruba Partner of the Year Award win follows shortly on the heels of another win at the Extreme Networks Partner Conference, where Carousel was awarded the Extreme Networks Partner of the Year Award.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

“Christopher is a seasoned executive with a track record in driving and managing growth,” said James Marsh senior vice president, Carousel Industries. “He will be responsible for building our sales and technical teams in Dallas to support new opportunities, while supporting existing clients and managing operational activities in the central region.”

Prior to joining Carousel, Smeaton was director of sales for the A/V integrator AVI/SPL, where he was responsible for leading high-end sales initiatives and managing day-to-day account activities. As a seasoned executive with proven expertise in building C-level relationships, he will play a fundamental role in growing Carousel’s presence in the Texas region while strengthening its foothold in the central United States.

By opening an office in Texas, a region that has been a U.S. growth market despite an uncertain economic climate, Carousel establishes a geographic hub in the central United States that will help facilitate the expansion of its nationwide sales and technical force. Under the direction of Smeaton, Carousel will develop its existing Texas client base while pursuing other opportunities in state and local government, education, healthcare and other areas.

“I am excited to join a leading integrator that has demonstrated steadfast, predictable growth on a year over year basis,” commented Smeaton. “As sales director for the Texas region, I look forward to leveraging Carousel’s extensive resources to develop new business in Texas and beyond.”

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

The session, entitled “Technology in Search of a Customer: Critical Factors to Consider for Your UC Strategy,” will be conducted by Edward Wadbrook, vice president, applications and collaborative solutions, Carousel Industries, and will explore decisions that need to be made in regards to unified communications mobility networks, platform-agnostic scenarios and the need for a holistic device management solution.

“It is critically important to have a comprehensive strategy in place before deploying a UC solution,” said Wadbrook. “Since UC solutions encompass so many different technologies and require significant amounts of bandwidth and network capacity, there needs to be a clear set of expectations of what is needed before the project gets underway in addition to having the technical know-how required to complete each phase of the solution. This workshop at Enterprise Connect will include all of these topics.”

A variety of topics related to UC strategies will be covered at the session, including how infrastructure readiness can support video communications and how to efficiently integrate desktops, telepresence and mobile platforms securely. Additionally, Wadbrook will speak about the impact cloud-based collaboration services and virtualization has on unified communications, and how they must factor into a sound UC strategy.

Carousel Industries will present Ed Wadbrook’s session, “Technology in Search of a Customer: Critical Factors to Consider for Your UC Strategy,” in the Enterprise Connect Orlando Exhibit Hall at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 27th, 2012. For more information, please visit the dedicated event page on the Enterprise Connect site.

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Following is a brief description of each demonstration area, which will feature the latest solutions from Carousel’s best of breed manufacturing partners as well as Carousel’s new software offering:

• Station 1: UC/Virtualization Station
  With an increasingly distributed workforce, the need for mobile devices to function as personal workspaces is now a necessity for most companies and organizations. This presents a daunting challenge for IT personnel to support an increasing range of disparate end-user devices, since it is now mission critical to deliver communication solutions that are both mobile and secure. This station will demonstrate how a virtual desktop environment can enhance business productivity while keeping information secure at end-user workstations.
• Station 2: Video
  As videoconferencing and unified communications technology become widely adopted throughout the industry, organizations and enterprises must consider how users are interconnected. This demonstration explores how ‘bridge the gap to interoperability’ and connect remote teams, colleagues and clients. Topics covered will include:
  • Maintaining business continuity
  • Reducing time to market
  • Driving customer intimacy
  • Unlocking employee potential
• Station 3: Data - Identity Aware Networking
  As organizations and companies operate in a climate of increasing regulation and compliance, managing access to the network is more important than ever. This station, presented by co-booth sponsor Extreme Networks, will explore how organizations can efficiently manage access rights for employees and stakeholders across a multitude of systems, applications and platforms. Topics covered will include:
  • Network wide viewing and reporting of identities
  • Maintaining business continuity with mobile and on-demand access
  • Centralizing management of network-wide, role based policies
• Station 4: Carousel Software
  Recently, Carousel has introduced customized software solutions designed to fit the need of organizations’ unique business environments. These software solutions will be demonstrated at this station include:
  • IVR self-service applications
  • Content center technology applications
  • Enterprise middleware
  • Customized designs

For more information on the demonstrations, or to make an appointment, please visit the Carousel booth (1025) or contact Jeff Touzeau, Carousel Public Relations contact, below.

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

“Customers continue to demand more from their applications and collaboration tools as part of their unified communications deployments,” said Dan Whalen, Vice President of Engineering, Carousel Industries. Ed will work to develop new solutions that complement and extend the UC Solutions we currently build for our customers. His extended experience with communications-based solutions span all the critical application areas, Voice, Video, Data, Collaboration and Managed Services. That expertise will help to drive Carousel’s success in the UC space.”

Wadbrook brings more than 25 years of experience in UC technology to Carousel. Prior to joining Carousel, he was the Principal and Founder of UC Advisors Group. Previously, Wadbrook was Senior Director of Unified Communications at Avaya, where he was responsible for leading the Avaya Aura Product Management organization. During his time managing the Avaya Aura product line, Wadbrook helped drive the success of Aura and transformed the organization from a seven product technology silo to simplified go-to-market initiatives. He also co-led the product management integration of Nortel UC into Avaya upon Avaya’s acquisition of Nortel’s UC portfolio.

Prior to his work on Avaya Aura, Wadbrook was Senior Director of Unified Communications at Microsoft, where he led the strategy and business development for Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and Microsoft Lync. He was instrumental in developing Microsoft’s vision and go-to-market strategy for unified communications and for driving Microsoft to become a leader in the unified communications.

Wadbrook also held senior-level product marketing and management roles at Sonexis Corp., 3Com Corp., NBX Corp. and AT&T and Lucent Corp. He holds a BS in Marketing, with a Minor in Economics, from the University of Rhode Island.

“Carousel recognizes the true promise of UC depends on significantly improving how people interact across multi-vendor environments,” said Wadbrook. “Applications and collaborative solutions are what drive UC adoption for productivity gains, cost savings and competitive differentiation. I’m excited about taking on this new role at Carousel and look forward to working with our customers to help them gain all the benefits from a truly unified communications solution.”

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

“Our services organization continues to grow, particularly in light of our recent expansion into managed services, hosted and cloud applications,” commented Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer of Carousel Industries. “As leader of our services team, Rick will help us streamline our processes and procedures to make it even easier for our customers to get the high level of service they have come to expect from Carousel.”

Losey, who will oversee all aspects of Carousel's customer support, maintenance, managed services and installation business, has spent over two decades working the IT industry in various management and operations capacities. Over the course of his career, he has developed a solid reputation as an effective manager of services-related processes and procedures for Fortune 500 companies — including for clients of up to $100 million in revenue in the healthcare, automotive, oil and gas, utilities and pharmaceutical verticals.

Prior to joining Carousel, Losey was a vice president in charge of service delivery at SAIC, where he worked for 16 years — first in IT program management and later in service management and delivery. Over the course of his career, he has also worked for Roadway Logistics and Westinghouse Naval Systems.

“I am joining a team that is extremely well versed and competent in the services category,” commented Losey. “I am excited to impart my own expertise and leadership to this team as we establish a solid platform to continue Carousel’s continued growth and success over the months and years to come.”

About Carousel
Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2011 revenues of approximately $300 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 27 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Kaman’s offices and distribution centers are scattered throughout North America, providing best-in-class products and services to their customers. But prior to the project, the geographically disperse offices were detached from a cohesive voice communications infrastructure. If a branch received a call from a customer and the best person to take the call was in another location, a separate call to that expert would be needed followed by a call back to the customer. Additionally, during peak incoming call hours, customers could potentially be put on hold or unable to place an order quickly.

One Step Ahead with Avaya Communication Manager

Using an Avaya Communication Manager solution, Carousel was able to integrate Kaman’s offices together on a single, IP-based telecommunications infrastructure. Carousel and Kaman worked together to replace over 200 different telephone system technologies in order to leverage VoIP over MPLS and gain the benefits of a centralized, IP-centric UC solution from Avaya.

“The challenge in tying all of these disparate locations together under a UC infrastructure was solved through a combination of software, network services and Avaya hardware,” said Alex Pilpel, account executive, Carousel Industries. “All of the remote offices are now connected back to Kaman’s data center at their headquarters in Connecticut, and calls can be routed from one office to another. During peak times for individual offices, calls can be automatically directed to an office receiving a smaller volume of calls, improving customer service.”

Using Avaya Communication Manager 5.2 with CMS R16, Kaman has also increased its productivity. Customer calls are now more easily directed to the appropriate expert, and Kaman also receives crucial intelligence on the number of inbound and outbound calls, how long each person spends on a call, and if customers ever have to wait.

“We have close to 900 people answering phones across the country, and the solution developed with Carousel enables us to dynamically and automatically adapt to changing volume conditions in each branch while also making our agents better equipped to give the highest standards of customer service,” said John Walshaw, manager, corporate telecommunications at Kaman Corp.

Ensuring Multi-Regional Business Continuity

The contact center solution also ensures business continuity in case of disaster or inclement weather. In case of office closures, the contact center system redirects calls to the next regional office established through a hierarchy.

To ensure business continuity, Kaman has a highly redundant infrastructure, and it continues to extend the infrastructure with additional levels of functionality and redundancy. In deploying the Avaya unified contact center solution, Kaman was also able to implement redundant, centralized SIP trunking providing phone services to any geography and eliminating traditional local phone services.

Implementation of the project began in fourth quarter of 2009 following the deployment of an Avaya UC system at Kaman’s Bloomfield, Conn. headquarters. By the second quarter of 2010, Carousel had deployed the first pilot systems in regional offices. After the pilot phase, Carousel and Kaman deployed four to five sites per week, each week until the final sites were completed in June 2011 — ahead of schedule.

In recognition of the innovative use of information technology, Kaman was awarded a place on the 2011 InformationWeek 500 as a top technology innovator for the contact center solution and enhancement of operational efficiencies, productivity and customer service.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Carousel Industries won the award after achieving a stellar revenue performance with Avaya sales during 2011, in addition to having completed several strategic acquisitions, which significantly increased Carousel’s overall value and capabilities to its Avaya oriented customer base. Additionally, Carousel completed several key Avaya data solution integrations during 2011, including projects for high profile customers Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) Studios and AAA of Southern New England.

“Avaya’s channel partners are instrumental to growth in this market and to delivering innovation and value to Avaya customers in the U.S.,” said Karl Soderlund, vice president, U.S. Channel Sales, Avaya. “The Partner of the Year awards honor our best performing channel partners for their significant efforts at identifying and pursuing sales opportunities, providing technical resources to customers and prospects, and staying up to-date on Avaya’s latest technologies.”

“We are honored to be recognized by Avaya as the 2011 U.S. Data Partner of the Year,” said James Marsh, Senior Vice President of Carousel Industries. “Several years ago we made a change in our corporate strategy to include data networking in our suite of technology solutions and we see tremendous value with the Avaya data portfolio. Like Avaya, this commitment to supporting our customers’ entire unified communications requirements, including voice, data and visual communications has set Carousel apart in the industry. As a result of these and other efforts, we’ve enjoyed a healthy increase in revenues for 2011 while providing a broader solutions set for our customers.”

In addition to having completed several complex integration projects for a variety of customers during 2011, Carousel was also recognized by a variety of influential media. The company was recognized as part of CRN’s 2011 VAR500 list, which ranks the top technology integrators in North America and Carousel was also listed in the 2011 Inc. 500/5000 for the sixth year.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2011 revenues of approximately $300 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

The panel, which will feature cloud computing experts from various businesses, will review how government agencies can prepare to move workloads to the cloud and the challenges they will face in doing so. Additionally, security, privacy and cost savings will be covered.

“As with organizations of all shapes and sizes, state and local government IT departments have to do more with less, and the average IT organization doesn’t have the manpower or budget to do what they need to. They’re looking to cloud computing solutions to be more efficient, but they have questions related to the ramifications of moving data and applications to the cloud,” Magnuszewski said.

Carousel is a trusted provider of networking and converged communications, including cloud infrastructure, within the state and local government space. During the panel, Magnuszewski and the other panelists will discuss government cloud readiness, cloud best practices and the key technologies driving adoption.

The TAG Government Society Meeting about cloud readiness will take place on November 10th, 2011 in Atlanta, Georgia.

In his role as director of data center technologies, Magnuszewski is responsible for Carousel’s national virtualization and cloud practice. An industry veteran who has helped clients optimize their technology investments through simplified architectural approaches, Magnuszewski is working with Carousel customers to develop their virtualization and cloud strategies.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2011 revenues of approximately $300 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500/5000 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact: Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

The new Meru wireless network at El Molino High School provides its faculty and staff with unprecedented network efficiency and connectivity options.

The makeover contest, which attracted 535 entries from across the United States, will provide El Molino High School with $65,000 worth of wireless technology equipment and services. This includes $45,000 worth of infrastructure, courtesy of Meru, and $20,000 worth of deployment and integration services, courtesy of Carousel Industries.

“El Molino High School’s entire faculty and staff will benefit from the extended features and capabilities of a Meru wireless infrastructure, and starting in the new year, they will have access to a faster and more reliable system than ever before,” commented Bryan Gilbert, director of sales, Carousel Industries. “We are pleased to have taken part in Meru’s ‘Summer of Wireless Makeover’ program, and are glad that one of our customers was chosen out of over 500 entries.”

Meru and Carousel Industries awarded El Molino High School with a comprehensive network solution, including installation and maintenance.

Carousel and Meru plan to deploy the wireless network -- which includes access points, controllers and management software -- during the winter break of 2011 so students, faculty and guests will have access to the advanced technologies during the new year, and without disruption to the fall semester. The new wireless infrastructure will enable students and faculty to quickly access the network from anywhere on the campus and through a range of technologies, including handheld mobile devices.

The ‘Summer of Wireless Makeover’ contest offered schools the possibility to win a next-generation wireless network from Meru, including the installation services required to get it off the ground. The comprehensive package includes:

• AP320i dual radio 802.11n access points providing 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands to support dense environments, covering up to 75,000 sq ft.
• MC 1500 controller with 15 Access Point license running on Meru’s System Director with Air Traffic Control.
• SA200 with Meru’s EzRF Network Manager with 50 Access Point license .
• EzRF Visualize with 50 Access Point license.
• Meru Training, 2.5 day instructor-led online course for one person to get up to speed on network monitoring, configuration, installation and troubleshooting
• MeruAssure Support for one year with 7x24x365 TAC support, software upgrades, patches, and advanced replacements.
• For more information, please visit:
  http://www.merunetworks.com/events/summer_of_wireless

About Meru Networks

Founded in 2002, Meru Networks provides a virtualized wireless LAN architecture that cost-effectively delivers the performance, reliability, predictability and operational simplicity of a wired network, with the advantages of mobility. Meru's solution represents an innovative, yet standards-based approach to wireless networking that utilizes virtualization technology to create an intelligent and self-monitoring wireless network, enabling enterprises to migrate their business-critical applications from wired networks to wireless networks, to become all-wireless enterprises. Meru's solutions have been adopted in all major industry vertical markets, including Fortune 500 enterprises, healthcare, education, retail, manufacturing, hospitality and government. Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit Meru Investor Information or call (408) 215-5300

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2011 revenues of approximately $300 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 six times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Owned and operated by the Naval Computer and Telecommunications (NCTS) Base Communications Office (BCO), the CATS network is an integrated digital communications system that is critical to the San Diego military environment, the U.S. Fleet and other government-sponsored activities. The CATS network, which is used by military and government personnel to obtain telecommunications services, must be operational at minimum of 99.9% of the time during peacetime, exercises, natural disasters and conflicts.

Downtime means lack of secure communications, which is not acceptable for military and government operations. After challenges with a previous solutions provider, the U.S. Navy selected Carousel Industries to assume the maintenance of the system’s switch, cable and infrastructure, as well as to provide moves, adds and changes for PBX and LEC dial tone services. Since the contract began, the system has not dropped below the necessary uptime, and all projects have come in on or under budget because of Carousel’s expertise in delivering consistent quality with its communications and collaboration solutions.

“The CATS network is a complex digital system that provides a transparent interface to 11 sites in the San Diego community to support more than 600 government and sponsored activities,” commented Eron Heard, vice president of strategic accounts, Carousel. “Carousel’s experience and expertise in providing high quality solutions and services to federal government departments and agencies put us in a unique position to deliver not only the ongoing operational and maintenance requirements of the San Diego CATS network, but also to offer engineering and installation services for additional projects related to the system as required.”

Carousel provides government solutions based on best-of-class technology and service offerings. With a government business practice designed to take on mission-critical, large-scale telecommunications services and integration projects on regional, national and global scopes, Carousel works with several of the government’s agencies and departments, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FEMA, the FBI, the U.S. Army and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

For the U.S. Navy’s San Diego CATS network, Carousel maintained appropriate levels of service, ensured all moves, adds and changes were completed on time and on or under budget, and provided engineering and installation services that were also on time and on or under budget.

Carousel’s success in maintaining the CATS network has led to winning a contract to upgrade the battery/rectifier plants at various U.S. military bases.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

As the only IT company to make Providence Business News’ Top Private Companies list, Carousel has demonstrated that even in a challenging economy, there are still great opportunities for technology companies in Rhode Island. Carousel has not only grown its revenue and profits, but also its staff. The company has hired 150 people in the last three years and is still seeking to expand its reach with additional talent.

“It is a special honor for Carousel to be recognized by Providence Business News in this manner,” commented Jeff Gardner, CEO, Carousel Industries. “While our company has partners, employees and customers all across the United States, we are proud to call Rhode Island our home and are pleased to know that we play an important role in our state’s economy.”

Providence Business News, a prominent business publication covering Rhode Island, publishes its annual list of the fastest growing companies and the top 100 private companies in the state based on total revenue from the previous year. In 2010, Carousel saw three-year revenue growth of 52% and total revenue of more than $224 million.

Since the publication of the 2010 list of the fastest growing companies in Rhode Island, Carousel has risen in the ranks by three spots, going from number 17 on last year’s list to number 14 on this year’s list.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Sam Kennedy, executive vice president and chief operating officer, The Boston Red Sox, commented: “These new collaboration tools help us improve the fan experience and customer service by allowing our team – regardless of where they are – to communicate more easily and efficiently, all while reducing costs by eliminating expensive conference calling and toll charges.”

Solution Overview

Avaya Aura® architecture and applications, including conferencing, mobility and contact center solutions, will help Red Sox staff work together more effectively regardless of their physical locations. The technology will support staff whether they are at Fenway Park; JetBlue Park, the Club’s Spring Training and Player Development Complex in Fort Myers, Florida; Anfield with Liverpool (UK) Football Club, which was acquired last year by the Red Sox’ parent organization, Fenway Sports Group; or attending away games, scouting expeditions and training camps.

The Avaya Flare® Experience will help provide an extra special touch to fans in luxury skyboxes and to the team’s executives. Delivered on the Avaya Desktop Video Device, the Avaya Flare Experience can serve as a kiosk or personal communications device with quick and easy access to real-time communications and collaboration tools including desktop video, social media, audio/video/web conferencing, multiple directory access, presence, instant messaging, and contextual history.

Traveling team members will have easy, real-time access to voice calls, features, directories, messages, etc. -- just as if they were in Fenway -- with their mobile devices tied into the team’s Avaya Aura enterprise communications via Avaya one-X® Mobile and Avaya one-X Communicator end-user clients.

Ticketing and customer service will be enhanced to better match customers with subject matter experts through dynamic management of the ever-changing contact center environment, so when interest in one particular area runs high, agents can be quickly moved into place to handle the volume.

“As with any industry, meeting today’s business collaboration challenges requires a fundamentally new approach to how you communicate,” said Joel Hackney, senior vice president, global sales and marketing & president, field operations, Avaya. “As a leading industry innovator in unified communications, we look forward to working with The Red Sox to deliver advanced capabilities to help them communicate more easily, efficiently and productively, while also positioning them to deliver new fan amenities.”

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 1,000 employees working from offices in 23 offices nationwide, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Since Carousel began offering VMware products as part of its data center practice just over a year ago, it has rapidly attained skilled resources to meet and exceed the criteria for Enterprise Status -- which requires VMware partners to have on staff two VMware Sales Professionals (VSPs), two VMware Technical Sales Professionals (VTSPs) and two VMware Certified Professionals (VCPs). As part of its data center practice, Carousel maintains more than 10 certified engineers and more than 20 certified sales professionals on staff to serve its customers’ data center solutions needs.

“We are pleased to have achieved Enterprise Status in VMware’s solution provider program,” said Philip Magnuszewski, director, data center technologies of Carousel Industries. “Our data center practice has earned a reputation of providing holistic, innovative data center solutions to a wide range of companies spanning virtually every vertical market. VMware has become an integral part of our data center and virtualization offering, and this distinction provides our customers with even greater assurance in our capabilities.”

To achieve VMware Solution Provider Enterprise Status, VMware partners must demonstrate expert knowledge in infrastructure and virtualization, as well as meet minimum staffing requirements in both sales and technical VMware certifications. Since adding VMware to its portfolio just over one year ago, Carousel Industries has been able to achieve each certification leading up to Enterprise Status in a very short period of time.

Carousel is able to help both enterprise and mid-market companies do more with less by providing a range of data center solutions including VMware to its customers. By virtualizing their infrastructure, companies can realize cost savings and productivity benefits – such as reduced power consumption, storage efficiencies and a more intelligent application of network resources. In designing data center solutions for customers, Carousel’s holistic approach takes into account designs for efficient power and cooling, optimized networks, best-of-class security, layers of storage, and virtualization technology on top of the entire stack.

For more information on Carousel’s approach to the data center and virtualization,
please visit http://www.carouselindustries.com/solutions/virtualization.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Media Inquiries:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Pemberton, which recently implemented its "Blueprints for Success" program for accelerating learning in the classroom environment, has a total of 2,500 computers in its district and is constantly refreshing its technology to provide its students with the best possible learning environment. Its ratio of one student to every 2.5 computers is more than double the nationally prescribed ratio. Rather than being housed solely in a computer lab, these computers play an active role in the curriculum across many different subject areas.

By working with Carousel, Pemberton was able to ensure that its mobile communication devices and computers -- including the 'mobile carts' that are frequently used in classrooms and a variety of other instructional areas -- were able to move seamlessly throughout each campus. So far, the upgrade has been successfully completed at five of the 11 schools, and installation is currently underway for each of the six remaining schools.

"Our team was very motivated to work alongside Pemberton's IT team to take their wireless network into the next decade," commented Robert Acerra, Regional Sales Director at Carousel Industries. "By designing, integrating and installing a solution that called for Meru controllers and access points, we were able to deliver seamless and reliable connectivity that far exceeded the capabilities of the incumbent solution, both in cost and performance."

Aside from the stringent technical requirements of the solution itself, the installation had to take place outside of normal school hours so as to not disrupt the instructional day. Therefore the Carousel team would routinely begin work at 3:00 p.m. each day and work into the evening. This continued until the first phase of the project -- five schools -- was completed approximately one month later.

"Last year we had a district administrative initiative that entailed changing our focus from technology as a learning center to technology integrated into all instructional areas with project based learning," explains Kathy Bernacki, district information officer at Pemberton Township Schools. "It became apparent that we were going to have to have more of these mobile labs that travelled around the schools as the teachers and students worked on different projects."

"Carousel was instrumental in helping us accomplish our technical requirements, while ensuring we were not going to spend any more than we needed to spend," she continued. "We have a very good business relationship with them and this particular installation has helped take our entire technology program to the next level."

In addition to working with Carousel to extend its wireless upgrade to its six other schools, Pemberton is also in the process of using ARRA funds to invest in smart boards, which are being used in conjunction with smart response systems - all of which will eventually be connected to the wireless network.

"It used to be that technology was a subject on the side, like art and music," concludes Bernacki. "But over the course of the last five to ten years, that has changed dramatically. Technology is now used more as a tool to motivate students to learn all subjects across the entire curriculum."

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 900 employees working from offices in 27 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

The VAR500 is a list of the largest value-added resellers, solution providers and integrators in North America by revenue size. Revenue size is determined by the amount of annual products and services sold over the course of 2010.

“We are extremely pleased to have been recognized by Everything Channel as one of the nations’ top technology integrators,” said James Marsh, Sr. Vice President at Carousel Industries. “This award further validates the success that Carousel has enjoyed this year due to our focus on delivering solutions that enhance our customers’ businesses.”

“The VAR500 represents the top performing solution providers in the IT community,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “Vendors of all sizes rely heavily on the VAR500 list to find those solution providers best suited to sell their products. VAR500 honorees are considered trusted business advisors, integration experts, and invaluable partners. Even more importantly, they solve customers’ biggest IT business problems through product integration, training, consulting and services.”

VAR500 Executive Conference and Awards

The 2011 VAR500 list was announced at the VAR500 Executive Conference and Awards, an elite two-day conference designed for high level executives to meet with VAR500 companies to discuss business models, technology offerings, and partnerships. Held June 13-14 at the Sawgrass Marriot in Jacksonville, Florida, the conference focused on channel marketing strategies and direction, offering actionable content to the top Solution Provider organizations in North America. Attendees learned the secrets for uncovering new market opportunities from industry experts, peers and fellow VAR500 companies.

A sample of the VAR500 list will be published in print and online at CRN.com on June 20, 2011.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com.

About United Business Media Limited (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com)

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM’s businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities - from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists – with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

Contact for Everything Channel
Scott Regan, Senior Marketing Manager
Everything Channel
508.416.1186
scott.regan@ec.ubm.com

Contact for Carousel Industries
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Carousel Industries is the developer of CAPS, an application family that enables rapid deployment of feature rich IP telephony applications. The application family enables companies to drive efficiencies and enhance the effectiveness of their enterprise communications across a broad range of vertical markets.

The Avaya DevConnect program promotes the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of innovative third-party products that are compatible with standards-based Avaya solutions. Member organizations have expertise in a broad range of technologies – including IP telephony, contact centers and mobility applications – helping companies extend the value of multivendor networks and transform voice into an intelligent business application that delivers true value to the bottom line.

“Membership in Avaya’s developer community will help us build and extend the value of our services to customers with greater efficiency,” said James Marsh, senior vice president of Carousel Industries. “We look forward to leveraging Avaya's resources to deliver compliance-tested solutions to the market. Our CAPS application family is an example of how we are able to benefit to our customers' bottom line by offering them a feature-rich, easy to implement application set.”

The Avaya DevConnect program currently includes thousands of software and hardware developer companies, integrators, service providers and customers. Members have created a broad array of innovative solutions tested for Avaya compliance, including natural language speech recognition applications, wireless services, specialized computer telephony integration and reporting capabilities, and applications tailored for specific vertical industries.

Through the DevConnect program, Avaya provides a number of platforms and interfaces for member companies to develop with and enhance.

“Carousel Industries has an outstanding track record of success in the enterprise market," said Eric Rossman, vice president, Developer Relations, Avaya. “The CAPS application is a simple way for Carousel's customer base to make their Avaya IP networks even more efficient by implementing robust features like Quick to Dial, Enhanced Caller ID and Push Messaging capabilities in just about any type of enterprise environment."

As a member of the DevConnect program, companies have access to a wide range of support from Avaya, including technical resources and training. There are three levels of membership – Registered, Gold and Platinum – each entailing progressive levels of marketing and sales involvement. Free Registered membership is available to anyone interested in designing Avaya-compatible solutions. Gold-level members and Platinum members must meet rigorous Avaya criteria for customer satisfaction, product support, business operations, marketing and sales. Carousel Industries is a member of the Avaya DevConnect program.

Membership information and a listing of solutions developed and tested under the DevConnect program are available at www.avaya.com/devconnect.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in business communications and collaboration systems, providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services to organizations of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com. For more information on the Avaya DevConnect program, visit www.avaya.com/devconnect.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Media Inquiries

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

DevConnect PR
908-953-6432
devconnectpr@avaya.com

"Our CAPS application platform is built on our many years of experience in implementing IP telephony solutions within a diverse range of customer sites," commented Matthew Zanni, Director of Software Engineering at Carousel Industries. "CAPS includes core functions that will help drive efficiencies in just about any customer-driven organization. For example, the simple functionality of Click to Dial can minimize user error while increasing the time that CSRs are able to personally interact in real time with customers."

"Our customers appreciate how quickly we are able to implement CAPS, as well as the level of customization these applications are able to provide," Zanni continued. "CAPS is built on an extremely secure platform and has a very short build cycle. We can tailor the 'top layer' of code to meet the specific needs of each customer, whether they are a university, a medical facility or a collections agency."

CAPS includes a sophisticated administrative foundation which allows users to add or change preferences and add specific users and groups for targeted messaging. It also interfaces with popular social media platforms such as Facebook so users can import and integrate contacts from a range of sources. Following is a brief description of some of the key application features included in CAPS’ initial launch:

• Click to Dial
  This feature, which is particularly applicable to call centers, allows the user to dial a contact within their email client database or on their web browser with a simple click. Click to Dial also captures phone extensions, so no additional dialing effort is required on behalf of the user. Click to Dial dramatically increases efficiency by reducing dialing time while improving accuracy.
• Enhanced Caller ID
  This is a sophisticated feature that helps the user gather an intelligent, instant visual representation of who is calling them. Enhanced Caller ID not only provides the user with the caller’s phone number, it provides additional information such as the city, state and other items depending on user preferences and available information.
• Push Messaging
  CAPS includes a Push Messaging application which can deliver text messages to desktop phones, unlike traditional SMS messaging. This capability provides enterprises with increased communications accessibility and a convenient messaging alternative useful for posting quick notes to either an entire staff or specific components/departments.

Carousel Industries' CAPS application bundle, which is designed strictly for end-user environments, also includes a proxy layer that allows it to run seamlessly alongside Avaya technology. Currently, CAPS is designed to communicate with Avaya Application Enablement Server (AES), but the platform is customizable to work in just about any IP telephony environment depending on the customer’s need.

For more information about CAPS please email CAPS@carouselindustries.com or visit the CAPS webpage.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Media Inquiries:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Artist's rendering of the new Performing Arts and Dining Center at Dean College (courtesy Dean College)

Back in the late nineties, Dean College was one of first universities in the country to convert its entire campus to wireless networking. By 2009, however, the aging infrastructure was no longer able to support the increased demands on the network, largely from the onset of social media usage by both faculty and students. During the planning phase of its Performing Arts and Dining Center project -- an enormous undertaking in itself-- Dean made the decision to upgrade the wireless infrastructure of its entire campus. Dean College consulted with Carousel Industries to spearhead the networking project, which had to be completed in just one year.

"When we started this infrastructure upgrade -- an ambitious project by any measure -- we had three fundamental goals: increasing our network capacity and reliability," recalls Darrell Kulesza, CIO of Dean College. "By working with Carousel, we were able to accomplish each of these objectives within our allocated time frame and budget allowance. Carousel was instrumental in the planning, integration and the overall success of this project."

The upgrade included the installation and integration of high-capacity switches, new, state of the art wireless equipment, in addition to a complete recabling of the entire campus. Most of the infrastructure work -- such as swapping out racks of equipment, reconfiguring and cabling -- would need to be completed during the summer months to avoid conflicting with busy academic seasons.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Carousel began by mounting access points and upgrading the entire campus to Cat 6 Ethernet cabling, and then installing what would function as the system's backbone: an Aruba 3x 5400 series router system with 2910 edge switches. Carousel also specified 335 Aruba AP-105 access points, effectively blanketing the entire campus in reliable 802.11n a/b/g/n wireless connectivity. At the center of it all, two Aruba 6000 Mobility Controller were installed to manage the traffic flow of wireless activity. Following is a summary of products included in the installation:

• HP ProCurve 2910al series data switches
• Aruba AP-105 802.11n wireless access points
• Aruba 6000 Mobility Controller with policy enforcement firewall

"When we began working with Dean College in 2009, we needed to complete some very ambitious goals within an extremely compressed time frame," commented Brian Feshler, Sales Director at Carousel Industries. "After careful consideration of Dean College's usage requirements -- both in the existing buildings on campus as well as within the new Performing Arts and Dining Center -- Dean IT and Carousel carefully planned and implemented a system that would support the both the existing and future needs of students and faculty -- and in a highly secure manner."

The wireless implementation was completed by August of 2010, and the Performing Arts and Dining Center opened shortly thereafter to student and faculty acclaim. Dean College now has a wireless system across its entire campus that is scalable, cost efficient and secure. The College is now collaborating with Carousel Industries on yet another technologically ambitious project entailing a new disaster recovery system.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

“Polycom solutions play a fundamental role in our unified communications portfolio,” said James Marsh, Senior Vice President of Carousel Industries. “As we continue to grow our business and broaden our customer base -- both in the SMB and enterprise spaces -- we are pleased to be able to count on the support of Polycom and especially proud to be recognized in this way.”

"This is an exciting time in the unified communications industry, and Polycom sits squarely in the middle of this ever-changing, rapidly growing market," said Ron Myers, Polycom Senior Vice President of Channels. "Our partners are absolutely critical to our success and we’re proud to be represented by the best, top-performing partners in this industry. Polycom is honored to recognize Carousel Industries for their continued excellence in meeting customer needs."

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

About Polycom

Polycom, Inc. is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions built on open standards. Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit http://www.polycom.com for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

Xigo’s family of products includes Xigo Now, a do-it-yourself cloud-based wireless telecommunications management platform that instantly delivers actionable recommendations for managing wireless telecommunications expenses. Xigo’s radical departure from traditional telecommunications expense management (TEM) products provides elegantly simple yet powerful tools to reduce mobile communications expenses. Typical TEM engagements can be prohibitively expensive to all but the largest companies and can take as long as nine months before any results are delivered. Using Xigo Now, a Carousel client can quickly upload wireless bills and get savings recommendations in minutes.

“In today’s economic climate, our clients continuously challenge us to bring more innovative solutions to the table,” commented Stephen Forest, Director of Carrier Solutions at Carousel Industries. “Managing wireless communications expenses is one of our clients’ more painful issues. Xigo’s offerings help our clients save money immediately instead of weeks or months from now. That leads to greater client satisfaction which ultimately turns into more business.”

Xigo is backed by more than a decade of expertise that spans wireless and wire line communications. The company’s cloud-based network cost management platform proactively addresses changes in business needs without the complexity of multiple technologies. Clients electing to take advantage of Carousel’s wireless expense management tools by Xigo have a choice:

Xigo Now: An instant, self-service, mobile focused expense management application that saves time and money in relation to companies’ mobile phone investments. Xigo Now delivers the features that meet the complete needs that 90 percent of companies require to effectively manage their mobile expenses -- for free.

Xigo Pro: For companies with more complex mobile telecommunications needs, Xigo Pro offers an affordable, self-service expense management application to handle the more complicated workflow automation tasks associated with mobile device, plan and carrier costs containment.

“Carousel has distinguished itself as one of the premier and forward-thinking telecommunications integrators in the industry and we’re excited to deliver a valuable solution that will further solidify its place at the top,” said David Snow, CMO of Xigo. “Carousel clients taking advantage of Xigo-powered wireless expense management tools will enjoy immediate mobile costs savings and instantly gain control over sprawling devices, plans and other issues associated with enterprise mobile telecommunications. Providing Xigo products as a complimentary offering to Carousel’s client base makes sense for us because more companies will quickly learn that telecommunications expense management doesn’t have to be expensive, hard to use or take a long time to implement and see results.”

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients' businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we've grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we've been listed in the Inc. 500 five times. Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

About Xigo

Xigo instantly reduces and controls mobile, fixed and global telecommunications costs for organizations of all sizes. The company provides the first and only solution that uploads wireless bills and automatically generates immediate cost and time-saving results -- in minutes, not months. Xigo’s single, cloud-based platform accommodates company growth without adding complexity and satisfies the full range of enterprise communications expense management requirements. Xigo’s success is attributed to customer-centric innovations and industry firsts with more than a decade of expertise spanning wireless and wire line communications. For more information visit www.xigo.com or email sales@xigo.com.

Contacts:

Carousel Industries:
Kelly Harman
Vice President, Marketing, Carousel Industries
862-210-3075
KHarman@carouselindustries.com

Xigo:
Marta Buczek
fama PR
617-986-5015
xigo@famapr.com

Now that the acquisition is closed, Carousel Industries adds considerable strength to its A/V capability and its ablity to seamlessly integrate these elements into a holistic, unified communications environment within the enterprise. The newly acquired company, which is based in Marlborough, MA, now forms the core of Carousel's Visual Communications and Collaboration Group.

"Now that our acquisition of OmniPresence has closed, we have an even stronger A/V and video conferencing integration capability,” commented Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer of Carousel Industries. “Through our Visual Communications and Collaboration Group, we will help our customers reduce costs and increase efficiencies as they incorporate visual collaboration into their unified communications infrastructure.”

Tom Wing, chief executive officer of OmniPresence, commented: "We’re excited to be joining forces with Carousel Industries. Combining the talents and skill sets of our two companies makes us uniquely positioned to lead in the Unified Communications arena."

OmniPresence established itself in the market by providing high-end expertise in video conferencing solutions. During the last several years, the company increased its focus on designing and installing systems including high definition, custom touch panels and networked A/V solutions, firmly establishing the company in the A/V systems integration space. The company specializes in multi-site installations for enterprise customers.

The purchase of OmniPresence marks the third acquisition by Carousel this year. Since January, the company has completed its purchase of Westwood, Mass.-based TAC Centre and Farmingdale, NY-based Juma Technology. Last year, the company acquired Atlanta-based LANForce Consulting Group, assets from Canton, Mass.-based TriNET Systems and Canada-based BrantTel Networks.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com
914-602-2913

Maximizing the Value of Your Avaya Business Advocate Contact Center Software
Presented by Zach Shankle of Carousel Industries (May 23, 4:15 p.m.)
Avaya Business Advocate is now an entitlement with Communication Manager 6.x for customers with Contact Center Elite software, providing a tremendous opportunity for Contact Centers. When correctly planned and implemented, Advocate offers Contact Centers the ability to connect the dots between business strategies and contact center operations, providing a unifying context that can quickly generate measureable ROI. This session will provide a brief overview of Avaya Business Advocate's features, followed by discussion of the Advocate implementation planning process. This session will also feature a case study review that demonstrates how a well-planned implementation addressing business strategies and operational directives can generate truly awesome results.

Data Center Efficiencies
Presented by Michael Burgess and Jeff Hewson of Carousel Industries (May 23, 10:30 a.m.)
A comprehensive overview of key data center components, focusing on power & cooling, architecture & design and security & acceleration. This triumvirate generates tremendous efficiencies within the data center. For example, cooling alone can account for up to 55% of a data center's TCO. A correctly designed and installed UPS (Uninterruptible Power System) can reduce an organization's carbon footprint by 30-65%. Green initiatives provide additional incentive for UPS implementation. We will also address the inherent benefits resulting from a well-designed system architecture leveraging (VENA MPLS / VPLS) and secure data center solution technologies, concluding with an open discussion on customer feedback and needs.

Visual Communications for the Enterprise
Co-presented by Dan Hofferty of Carousel Industries (May 22, 1:00 p.m.)
We will define enterprise class visual communications solutions and discuss how successful integration can extend the customer's collaborative abilities to the enterprise large or small, near or far. Integrating this technology can turn meeting spaces from separate technology silos into network assets, enhancing your ability to collaborate while cutting costs and travel, extending your community beyond traditional office constructs, improving organizational collaboration and being “greener”. The Avaya audio video collaboration solution is a fundamental element of an overall visual communications enterprise strategy. We will discuss specific technology components including telepresence, mobile solutions, distance learning, high definition video conferencing and more, in the context of their operating from a centralized interface.

Unleash the Power of Avaya Flare
Presented by Phil Magnuszewski of Carousel Industries (May 25, 9:45 a.m.)
Virtual desktop technologies have emerged as a powerful new means to reduce TCO, simplify management and increase organizational security. The Avaya Flare Experience leverages this technology to create an enterprise workspace which streamlines your applications into unique personal workflows, letting you match your favorite communications tools like video, email, IM, social networks, phone to the task at hand. In this age of ubiquitous computing, the Avaya Flare speeds critical decision-making and allows you to get business done even while away from your corporate office. Learn how your organization can take advantage of this technology by extending your desktop to the Avaya Flare.

Features and Benefits of Unified Communications Solutions
Presented by Jason Aubee of Carousel Industries (May 25, 9:45 a.m.)
We will discuss the benefits and values of multi-channel unified communications solutions, focusing on technologies providing recorded voice, email, SMS and video as enablement tools for any enterprise. Our case study will feature a government entity that experienced multiple benefits across the organization as a result of implementing UCS. Measurable efficiencies are sometimes more difficult to pinpoint within a government organization. This UCS made the clients’ information more actionable, made resources easier and faster to find, provided expanded access to individuals within the enterprise, and made it easier to navigate the enterprise despite its size. Before and after scenarios will demonstrate these efficiencies.

For more information on the IAUG conference, including additional details on these training tracks and a discount code for the event, please visit the event page here.

About Carousel
Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $220 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

With the acquisition, Carousel Industries significantly increases its footprint to serve customers in the northeastern United States while augmenting its engineering staff with additional talent.

"We are pleased to see the closing of our acquisition of Juma Technology, which represents yet another milestone in the growth of our company," commented Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer of Carousel Industries. "This acquisition not only significantly expands our geographic reach in our core areas of expertise, but also increases the strength of our engineering team, since we are bringing on some extremely talented industry veterans who are very well versed in IP telephony and unified communications.

Juma Technology established itself as a data networking solutions provider back in 2002, and began designing and selling converged solutions as soon as they began to appear on the market. The company -- which focuses primarily on enterprise customers -- has been able to develop special expertise implementing convergence solutions across a range of vertical markets including retail, healthcare, education (K-12 and university) and financial.

The purchase of Juma Technology marks the sixth acquisition by Carousel in the last two years. Since January, the company has completed its purchase of Westwood, Mass.-based TAC Centre and signed a letter of intent to acquire Marlborough, Mass-based OmniPresence. Last year, the company acquired Atlanta-based LANForce Consulting Group, assets from Canton, Mass.-based TriNET Systems and Canada-based BrantTel Networks.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 850 employees working from offices in 23 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

Contact:

Kelly Harman
Vice President, Marketing
Carousel Industries
862-210-3075 ph
kharman@carouselindustries.com

Saint Vincent Health System, the largest hospital of the 12 Vantage Healthcare Network® owner members, will serve as the communications hub for the network of facilities. The network includes over 1,700 participating physicians throughout western Pennsylvania. The new system will enable seamless communications within and among participating hospitals as well as network integration across the Pennsylvania Health Information Exchange, which is a secure network for sharing electronic health information throughout the state.

"Carousel Industries has worked closely with Vantage Health Group Telecommunications (HGT) on an integrated plan allowing the broad network of Vantage hospitals to gain greater value in their day-to-day communications, by extending advanced network applications and core services across the entire group," commented Robert Acerra, regional sales director of Carousel Industries. "This solution, which will be implemented over the next several months, will help provide hospital staff, as well as patients and their families, with greater accessibility to communications tools and information that support health care delivery, in addition to increased network uptime and state-of-the-art call center capabilities for each of the 12 member hospitals."

"Vantage's communications systems are mission critical," Acerra added. "We are pleased to be able to deliver a comprehensive, cost-effective solution that leverages the latest advances in unified communications technology."

By working with Carousel’s Capital Finance Group, Vantage financed the solution through monthly payments that are nearly equivalent to the maintenance costs they were paying for their outdated legacy system.

"We are pleased to be leveraging the expertise of Carousel in this enormously important network integration," commented Jay Long, senior vice president, HGT. "As mobile devices continue to proliferate the health care system, it is very important for our physicians to have the ability to communicate in real time, and through a single contact. The solution Carousel has proposed makes financial sense and gives us everything we're looking for -- seamless communications within and among our facilities."

"It will also give us an increased ability to securely share medical records within the Health Information Exchange, which will help provide doctors with an increased ability to diagnose patient issues in real-time," Long added.

The network integration, which is projected to be complete by April 2011, will include the following products and solutions from the Avaya portfolio:

• Avaya Aura® Session Manager, which enables centralized dial plans and user profiles that can be extended throughout the network, along with multi-vendor integration, SIP-based session management, enhanced scalability and security.
• Avaya Aura Communication Manager, which provides more than 700 advanced communications features for productivity and mobility, and industry-leading reliability and scalability.
• Avaya Modular Messaging, which enables effective, unified messaging across the enterprise.
• Avaya Call Center Elite, which maximizes call center efficiency.
• Avaya IP, digital and analog phones across eight locations.

"Every second counts in the care coordination process, and with Avaya Aura, Vantage Healthcare Network is taking a major step to improve collaboration by effectively connecting care providers and the information they need to make informed decisions," said Sanjeev Gupta, general manager, Healthcare Solutions for Avaya. "Avaya Aura will provide a highly reliable, scalable foundation on which Vantage and its members can build applications that improve care coordination and streamline processes for its staff and community."

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com.

Contact:

Jeff Touzeau
Public Relations
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
(914) 602-2913
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

By acquiring OmniPresence, Carousel significantly increases its capacity to incorporate collaborative A/V elements into a broad range of installation opportunities. According to The Enterprise Strategy Group, 19% of end-users responding ESG’s most recent IT Spending Intentions survey cited both Unified Communication (integrated IP telephony, voice-mail, e-mail, video, instant messaging) and Remote Meeting Solutions (videoconferencing, TelePresence, web meeting) as an area for significant investment in 2011. OmniPresence, which was founded in 2002, has a customer base of approximately 2,500 end users.

"Our acquisition of OmniPresence brings an important visual element to our systems integration capabilities," commented James Marsh, senior vice president of Carousel Industries. "Our new Visual Communications and Collaboration Group will enable us to incorporate compelling videoconferencing solutions into our customers' network infrastructures, helping them reduce costs and increase efficiencies."

OmniPresence established itself in the market by providing high-end expertise in video conferencing solutions. During the last several years, the company increased its focus on designing and installing systems including high definition, custom touch panels and networked A/V solutions, firmly establishing the company in the A/V systems integration space. The company specializes in multi-site installations for enterprise customers.

"OmniPresence has been delivering videoconferencing and AV integration solutions to the market for nearly a decade," commented Timothy Hill, Chief Technology Officer of OmniPresence. "Our deep expertise in design and integration of advanced A/V networks perfectly complements Carousel's existing capabilities in convergence and unified communications solutions, and will enable the combined company to scale larger video opportunities in the enterprise market."

Carousel Industries intends to retain the entire employee base of OmniPresence, which includes several engineers holding multiple certifications as well as operational and support staff. The new employees will be based out of the former OmniPresence office location in Marlborough, MA.

Jeff Hine, Sr. Analyst for The Enterprise Strategy Group commented, “Carousel continues on an aggressive path of both organic and acquisitive growth. Integrators who capitalize on market conditions and leverage their strength to acquire new capabilities and expand into new markets will solidify their leadership positions in the coming years. Acquiring OmniPresence puts Carousel in this leadership position”

The purchase of OmniPresence marks the sixth acquisition by Carousel in the last two years. Since January, the company has completed its purchase of Westwood, Mass.-based TAC Centre and Farmingdale, NY-based Juma Technology. Last year, the company acquired Atlanta-based LANForce Consulting Group, assets from Canton, Mass.-based TriNET Systems and Canada-based BrantTel Networks.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country. For more information visit http://www.carouselindustries.com

Contact:
Jeff Touzeau
Hummingbird Media, Inc.
jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com
914-602-2913

By acquiring Juma Technology, Carousel Industries builds on its core capabilities in convergence, IP telephony and traditional networking while expanding its customer footprint in the northeastern region. Juma Technology was formed in 2002 and most recently was recognized for its fast growth and innovation by leading technology magazines including CRN, which ranked Juma number 50 on its Fast Growth 100 List in 2009. Juma Technology has approximately 350 customers and offices in Farmingdale, Long Island and New York City.

"Our acquisition of Juma Technology plays to Carousel Industries' core strengths in networking and convergence, while expanding our geographic footprint," commented Jeff Gardner, chief executive officer of Carousel Industries. "The company's track record of growth -- despite economic uncertainty in the market -- is nothing short of remarkable. Their ability to attract and retain loyal, enterprise clients despite their relatively small size is also very impressive."

Juma Technology established itself as a data networking solutions provider back in 2002, and began designing and selling converged solutions as soon as they began to appear on the market. The company -- which focuses primarily on enterprise customers -- has been able to develop special expertise implementing convergence solutions across a range of vertical markets including retail, healthcare, education (K-12 and university) and financial.

"We are enthusiastic about this acquisition and believe it is a very positive development for Juma Technology’s entire customer base," commented Anthony M. Servidio, chief executive officer of Juma Technology Corp. "Since the beginning, Juma Technology has had a one hundred percent focus on the customer; we believe this important characteristic will translate seamlessly into the culture of Carousel Industries, which holds similar customer values."

In addition to possessing a veteran sales force, Juma Technology also has an experienced staff of engineers capable of providing network management, pre-sales support, programming and network design services. The purchase of Juma Technology is the latest in several acquisitions made by Carousel over the last two years, as the company seeks to increase its capabilities while expanding its customer base and geographic reach.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 5,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by both VAR and CRN Magazines as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US, including over 250 service technicians deployed across the country.

“The BurstPoint VCP is a natural fit for Carousel Industries and offers our customers a way to add new value to how they are already making use of video and unified communications in their enterprise environments,” said James Marsh, Senior Vice President, Carousel Industries. “Having BurstPoint join our Premier Partner Program provides us with the means to continue our long tradition of delivering the best solutions to our customer base.”

The BurstPoint VCP is a fully integrated, scalable, end-to-end enterprise platform that enables organizations across industries to deploy a single solution for the capture, distribution, management, viewing – including digital signage – and usage reporting of high-quality live streaming or stored high-definition video content. Carousel customers now have access to this powerful platform, which can be deployed stand alone or leveraged to take advantage of previous investments in solutions such as video conferencing and telepresence. The flexibility of the BurstPoint VCP creates new opportunities for customers to incorporate enterprise video into a comprehensive corporate communications strategy.

“More and more organizations are realizing the power of video communications to change the way information is delivered to all constituents and are actively looking for technology solutions to make the most of this opportunity,” said Tom Racca, president and CEO, BurstPoint Networks. “Carousel is a trusted partner with the knowledge and expertise to reach those customers who want to be part of the video revolution.”

About BurstPoint Networks

Headquartered in Westborough, Mass., BurstPoint Networks is transforming the way organizations use video to communicate with employees, customers, partners, and other key constituents. Designed for high performance, reliability and scalability, the company’s fully integrated, enterprise-class software platform brings together the capture, distribution, reporting, and management capabilities required to meet the complex anywhere and anytime viewing demands of a highly distributed audience while providing cost savings and ease of use. For more information about BurstPoint Networks, please visit www.burstpoint.com. Please visit Video Vantage Point to learn more about how video is changing the face of communications and to subscribe to the site’s daily newsletter.

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of over $200 million. Today we have over 3,500 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by VAR Magazine and CRN Magazine as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US.

Editorial Contacts:

“This acquisition is particularly exciting for us because of the Nortel experience the TAC team brings to Carousel,” commented Jeff Gardner, Chief Executive Officer at Carousel Industries. “We have many customers with a blend of Avaya and Nortel products in their infrastructure. The acquisition of TAC Centre allows us to continue enhancing our delivery of Nortel support and services to our customers as they begin to migrate to the Avaya platform,” concluded Gardner.

“I’m very pleased with the acquisition,” said Michael Judge, President and CEO of TAC Centre. “Not only do we bring a valuable resource to Carousel with our Nortel experience, our customer base can rest assured that they will have the support of one of Avaya’s top business partners as they begin their migration to the Avaya platform.”

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of well over $225 million. Today we have over 8,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by VAR Magazine and CRN Magazine as one of the top technology integrators in the US and has been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel holds top partner status and certification with many leading technology companies including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft. These certifications are only given to business partners who have met rigorous requirements for converged voice and data, technical expertise, and customer satisfaction. These distinctions are a direct result of the talent, dedication, and commitment of the Carousel team including pre-sales engineering, project management, post-sales support, account management, and training. Our technical team has over 250 service technicians deployed across the country, serving the needs of our customers nationwide.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US.

Contact:

Kelly Harman

862-210-3075

The executive appointments are specifically designed to further drive Carousel’s strategic direction into systems integration solutions. The seven new executives bring more than 130 years of combined experience to Carousel – with expertise in telecommunications, unified communications, IT infrastructure and data networking.

“These appointments dramatically strengthen the power of our leadership team —positioning Carousel for success as we continue to expand our services and solutions offerings,” commented Jeff Gardner, Chief Executive Officer for Carousel Industries. “Despite the challenging economy, Carousel continues to enjoy unprecedented growth in all aspects of our business. These executive changes will ensure we maintain and expand our market share without sacrificing quality and delivery.”

As part of the newly expanded team, Dan Whalen has been named Vice President of Engineering. Previously Director of Engineering at Carousel, Whalen has worked in the communications industry for more than 25 years. Prior to Carousel, Whalen held both sales and technical positions at AT&T and Lucent Technologies.

Named Vice President of Professional Services, Tom Belliveau was previously Director of Implementation Services at Carousel. Belliveau will be responsible all aspects of project management and “Day One” deployment activities for customer projects. Tom has 16 years of experience working in the telecommunications industry, and before joining Carousel worked in operations and project management for such companies as Farmstead Telephone Group, Lucent Technologies, and Expanets of North America.

Formerly Director of Global Account Services at Carousel, Jay Jamison has now been named Vice President of Global Services. With more than 17-years’ experience in the telecommunications field, Jamison will be responsible for all field operations and Carousel’s “Premier One” customer accounts. Prior to joining the Carousel team, Jamison held positions at Avaya, Lucent Technologies, Williams Communications and New York Telephone.

Strengthening its customer service team, Carousel has named Deb Ricci Vice President of Customer Service. Previously, Ricci served as Carousel’s Director of Customer Service. Deb will be responsible for the delivery of Customer Service, the Network Operations Center (NOC) and Maintenance On-boarding. Deb has over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, holding various Service and Provisioning positions while employed at Avaya, Lucent Technologies and AT&T.

In his new role as Vice president of Data Services, Bill Annino will be responsible for operations and sales support for this group, which handles all products related to Carousel’s power business, wireless, security and core routing and switching business. Prior to Carousel, Annino held positions at Cabletron Systems and SyNet Inc. Annino has 15 years experience in the telecommunications industry and holds degrees in marketing and entrepreneurship from Johnson and Wales University in Providence, RI.

Named Vice President of Managed Services, Michael Ciano joined Carousel Industries with the company’s acquisition of TriNET Systems, where he served as the company’s CIO and VP of Global Services. Prior to TriNET, Ciano was the senior director of enterprise network services and the IT security officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Ciano graduated from Wentworth Institute of Technology with a BS in Systems Engineering and attended Babson School of Management.

With more than 20-year’s experience in technology marketing, Kelly Harman now joins Carousel as Vice President of Marketing. Harman comes to Carousel as part of the company’s acquisition of TriNET Systems, where she also served as Vice President of Marketing. Harman has held senior marketing positions with industry leaders and emerging companies in the telecommunications, video conferencing, and technology outsourcing industries.

“Together these individuals bring outstanding leadership skills, business acumen, and operational excellence to Carousel Industries,” said James Marsh, Senior Vice President at Carousel Industries. “As part of the leadership team they will ensure that we continue to deliver on Carousel’s promise to our customers - integrating the best applications from the best technology providers into solutions that will create a competitive advantage for our clients.”

About Carousel

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Since Carousel was founded in 1992 we’ve grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of well over $225 million. Today we have over 8,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by VAR Magazine and CRN Magazine as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel holds top partner status and certification with many leading technology companies including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft. These certifications are only given to business partners who have met rigorous requirements for converged voice and data, technical expertise, and customer satisfaction. These distinctions are a direct result of the talent, dedication, and commitment of the Carousel team including pre-sales engineering, project management, post-sales support, account management, and training. Our technical team has over 250 service technicians deployed across the country, serving the needs of our customers nationwide.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US.

Contact:

Kelly Harman

862-210-3075

“The partnership with EMC is the final piece in our unified virtualization strategy,” commented Philip Magnuszewski, Director of Data Center Technologies at Carousel Industries. “We are now able to offer our customers a holistic and scalable approach to building that next generation data center. This includes virtualizing their servers, networks, physical infrastructure, applications and now storage and data recovery,” concluded Philip.

“Our customers require a partner that provides an evolutionary process as they plan their enterprise virtualization strategies,” commented James Marsh, Sr. Vice President at Carousel Industries. “You can’t jump in with a ‘rip and replace’ mentality. Carousel’s consultative approach and deep technical expertise puts us in an excellent position to help our customers with all aspects of their data center technologies.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries designs, delivers and supports technology solutions that become the foundation of our clients’ businesses. This includes unified communications, virtualization, Voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and collaboration and data infrastructure solutions. Carousel was founded in 1992 and has grown an average of 30% - 50% per year with estimated 2010 revenues of well over $225 million. Today we have over 8,000 customers, including 35 of the Fortune 100. Carousel has been recognized by VAR Magazine and CRN Magazine as one of the top technology integrators in the US and we’ve been listed in the Inc. 500 five times.

Carousel is headquartered in Exeter, RI with over 800 employees working from offices in 17 locations across the US. We hold top partner status and certification with many leading technology companies including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft. Our technical team has over 250 service technicians deployed across the country, serving the needs of our customers nationwide.

“This award is extremely gratifying,” commented Bill Annino, Director of Converged Network Solutions at Carousel Industries. “The criteria for attaining Diamond Partner status at Extreme Networks is very rigorous. Channel partners must demonstrate a high level of technical competency, certification and support capabilities. The fact that we have been recognized as the top partner for the third consecutive year is a testament to the expertise and top engineering talent we have at Carousel,” concluded Bill.

In addition to revenue, the award for Top Services Partner in North America evaluated customer retention and the channel partner’s ability to maintain customer relationship over a long period of time. Carousel was also recognized as the top partner in this award category.

“We are proud of Carousel’s accomplishments throughout 2010, as they excelled in both product and services revenue as well as carrying on its tradition of great service to our many customers,” said Rich Long, Director of North American Channels for Extreme Networks. “We greatly value the partnership we have established with Carousel and look forward to continued growth and commitment in 2011.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Exeter, Rhode Island, November 5, 2010 — Carousel Industries, a leader in data networking and converged communications announced today that it has been recognized by Avaya for outstanding accomplishments in bringing next generation communications and real time collaboration to new and existing customers.

The award honored Carousel Industries for garnering the most significant revenue in the U.S. by migrating existing customers to newer, more powerful technologies. This included the largest upgrade project in the U.S., which entailed providing Avaya’s entire technology portfolio to an $11.3 billion organization with 150 locations across seven states. The Carousel/Avaya solution was selected over Cisco in the technology bake off.

“We are very pleased to have been recognized by Avaya for our market leadership,” commented Jeff Gardner, CEO of Carousel Industries. “Carousel continues to lead the AVAYA partner community in growth in sales and service.”

The awards were announced during Avaya's 2011 America's Partner Conference held recently in Las Vegas, NV.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

The LANFORCE acquisition brings additional technical resources to Carousel as well as a roster of flagship customers in the financial, health, education and enterprise sectors. LANFORCE also brings contracts with several state and local government agencies.

“LANFORCE has a 12-year history of delivering stellar technology solutions to the Atlanta business community,” commented Bill Annino, Director of Converged Solutions Group at Carousel Industries. “This acquisition further enhances Carousel’s commitment to providing our customers with a highly qualified national service team. All of LANFORCE’s engineers are certified in Microsoft, Cisco and Extreme and their ‘customer-first’ philosophy aligns well with our own corporate beliefs. We are very pleased to have LANFORCE join the Carousel team.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is a nationally recognized premier technology solutions provider, leading the market with solutions designed to increase efficiency, enhance economies of scale and accelerate delivery of services at lower costs. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, Virtualization, Storage, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. They also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world; Avaya, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks and Microsoft.

About LANFORCE Consulting Group

Founded in 1998, LANFORCE Consulting Group provides the following services: wired and wireless Infrastructure design and architecture; Server system integration and deployment; Desktop Installation and configuration support; Troubleshooting and Diagnostics help; Complete turnkey maintenance support; Custom application development; Security audit setups, and Web/Email hosting services.

“I’m very pleased to have Jeff on board at Carousel Industries,” commented James Marsh, Sr. Vice President at Carousel. “Jeff’s near 20 years of experience with market leading convergence manufactures make him uniquely qualified to assist Carousel customers with navigating the many offerings in this new growing market.”

Jeff has spent the last 18 years of his career in the data and telecommunications industry working in Sales, Channel Management, Operations and Marketing. He has worked for such companies as Wellfleet Communications, Bay Networks, Nortel Networks, Firstwave Intelligent Optical Networks, and Juniper Networks. Jeff was the Business Development Manager on the Nortel AT&T account team where he helped build the next generation optical AT&T backbone and launch many technical managed services. While at Juniper Jeff was instrumental in building and developing the Juniper VAR community after the acquisition of Netscreen technologies when Juniper’s focus went from a direct to channel based sales model. His expertise is primarily based on selling around datacenter infrastructure and security based solutions. Jeff holds certification degrees from Northeastern University in Data and Telecommunications.

“I’ve watched Carousel Industries enjoy well over 100% growth each year in the convergence market space,” commented Jeff Hewson. “They have tremendous technical expertise and a deep customer base. I’m looking forward to contributing to the continued growth of this division within the organization.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

“Everyone at TriNET Systems is extremely pleased to be joining Carousel Industries,” commented Ken Archer, CEO, TriNET Systems. “Carousel is a highly respected technology solutions provider and has long been a leader in our industry. There is a great deal of synergy between the two companies and this acquisition is going to allow us to offer a much broader set of capabilities to our customers.” TriNET’s end-to-end solutions and existing customer base is a perfect fit into Carousel’s business structure. With these joint resources, Carousel is now the leading reseller and consultant to deliver on these business initiatives. “The combination of Carousel and TriNET will enhance our abilities, give us added scale, resources and expertise to deliver our entire portfolio to our mutual customers. This acquisition represents a stronger presence of highly trained and dedicated sales and engineers to support our customer’s needs,” stated Jeff Gardner, CEO, Carousel Industries.

Carousel is preparing to announce general strategies for the acquisition. “The main benefit is going to be for our customers. The combined businesses give us greater geographic coverage, enhanced capabilities, and greater access to people and resources. All of these strengths will enable us to deliver better solutions to our customer base,” stated Gardner.

Carousel Industries is a nationally recognized premier technology solutions provider, leading the market with solutions designed to increase efficiency, enhance economies of scale and accelerate delivery of services at lower costs. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, Virtualization, Storage, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. They also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world; Avaya, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks and Microsoft. For more information about Carousel visit www.carouselindustries.com

In addition, Carousel is now Self Service accredited for Call Center 7 (CC7) and Agile Communication Environment (ACE) which uses service-oriented architecture as well as web services to facilitate the development of communications enabled applications and automating business processes that could only be completed manually with existing technology. In addition, ACE supports location-based services to allow geography to begin to factor into the decision-making process.

Carousel’s is pleased to support its team of highly trained professionals who continue to reinforce their dedication to providing their customers with the highest levels of customer service and support, and maintaining technical excellence with up-to-date skill sets.

View all of Carousel Industries Technical Certifications

Carousel Industries is a nationally recognized premier technology solutions provider, leading the market with solutions designed to increase efficiency, enhance economies of scale and accelerate delivery of services at lower costs. Located in Exeter, RI, Carousel employs a single-source approach to its design-implementation processes. Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Carousel Industries (www.carouselindustries.com) is a nationally recognized premier technology solutions provider, leading the market with solutions designed to increase efficiency, enhance economies of scale and accelerate delivery of services at lower costs. Located in Exeter, RI, Carousel employs a single-source approach to its design-implementation processes. Carousel’s approach facilitates its ability to be a dominant player in the established converged, mobility, unified and visual communication markets, while readying itself for newer technology initiatives.

OmniPresence (www.omnipresence.com) located in Marlborough, MA is a nationally recognized design-implementation company. OmniPresence leads its market with customized audio visual solutions that improve operating profit, enhance competitive advantages and productivity and, finally, capture subtle human factors that enhance long distance communications and meeting effectiveness. With its i2i technology, OmniPresence is leading the Telepresence market with a superior product offering.

“With virtual internal systems, companies can consolidate hardware and lower IT costs while heightening IT performance dramatically,” says Jeff Gardner, CEO at Carousel Industries. “Over the past three years the virtual internal systems at Carousel Industries have lowered our power consumption by 10%, which has never happened before.”

Virtualization and power distribution have helped Carousel Industries remove 15% of their physical servers in the past two months with plans to virtualize 50% more servers in the next 4-6 months. Carousel Industries servers now occupy six racks instead of 10, a 40% reduction. In addition to reducing necessary IT infrastructure, Carousel Industries virtual internal systems reduce power consumption and BTU output for enterprise companies.

“Business requirements change rapidly and virtual systems give IT departments increased flexibility and robust power to respond quickly and keep a company moving forward,” says Gardner. “The streamlined virtual internal systems also lighten the load for IT staff who manage both external and internal network workloads.”

The Carousel Industries virtual internal systems solution shifts application workloads to virtually available resources and makes sure every area receives the service it requires without large infrastructure. Utilizing VMware technology, Carousel Industries has increased their host capacity by 25% and lowered costs for backup and redundancy, heating and cooling, and storage.

“Virtual internal systems mean fewer maintenance hassles, reliable internal communication across channels and locations, and more opportunity to attend to strategic goals,” says Gardner. “A company's communication needs change and grow and the Carousel Industries virtual internal systems are flexible, easily scalable, and designed with the future in mind.”

Customers looking for single source technology solutions including virtual internal systems, IP telephony, data networking, and physical infrastructure with top technology partners are encouraged to visit http://www.carouselindustries.com to learn more about Carousel Industries complete end-to-end unified communications services and solutions.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Michael has spent the last 15 years of his career working and leading technical Systems Engineering teams in the networking and security industries. Prior to coming to Carousel, Michael has worked for such companies as Anixter, SBC, Extreme Networks, Netscreen, Juniper Networks, Force10 and most recently Fortinet. While at Juniper and Force10, Mr. Burgess was instrumental in building and developing the Northeast region. His technical expertise is primarily with switching, routing and security (Firewall, IPS, UTM, etc.) accompanied with strong business acumen and professional leadership skills. Mr. Burgess is a U.S. Air Force veteran and holds a Masters Degree in Management from Cambridge College.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

The 16th annual ranking VAR 500 list details the leading producers among technology integrators and technology solution provider organizations in North America based on gross worldwide revenue of hardware and software sales, as well as earnings from professional and managed IT services. This year’s list reflects the strength of the technology reseller channel as the ranking includes 182 new companies with four percent of the new entrants landing in the Top 100.

“The VAR 500 is the who’s who of the solution provider community. Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Symantec among others are highly reliant on the VAR 500 to sell their products to businesses and collectively this audience generated more than $500B in sales in 2009. Even more importantly they solve customers’ biggest IT business problems through product integration, training, consulting and services. In companies large and small, the VAR 500 are considered integration experts, trusted business advisors and invaluable partners. We are honored to compile this list and represent this audience,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel.

The complete listing of the VAR 500 is published in print and online at CRN.com on May 24, 2010.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at www.everythingchannel.com.

About United Business Media Limited

www.unitedbusinessmedia.com
UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetization of B2B communities and markets. UBM’s businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities - from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists – with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

A company grounded in selective partner alliances and a best-of-breed mentality, BrantTel’s contribution to Carousel’s overall growth strategy will be significant. “The partnership represents a tremendous opportunity for BrantTel and Carousel. The acquisition is key to Carousel’s strategy to expand or presence on the west coast and drive technology business solutions to our customers. We continue to grow our company so that we are properly positioned to support all of our customers nationally,” states Carousel CEO Jeff Gardner. “BrantTel has a great reputation in the industry and a strong customer base. Like Carousel, they have built a culture around taking care of customers.”

The acquisition will also bring the addition of a highly experienced group of BrantTel specialists to the Carousel team. “This is an exciting time, a chance to strengthen our reputation as the premier Technology Solution Provider in the country. We intend to make the most of this opportunity and continue our success in growing our presence in the west,” states Gardner.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2010 Carousel Industries™ All Rights Reserved.

With this initiative we are happy to announce that David White has accepted the leadership role as Director for Carousel Capital Finance, formerly Carousel Industries Financial Services. David brings a strong background along with 25 years experience in sales and channel management in the technology solutions sector and Capital Finance business with CIT, Avaya, AT&T and Carousel Industries.

Carousel Capital offers many benefits:

• Put the latest technology to work for your business.
  Don't hamper your business growth with outdated equipment. Reduce the risk of technology obsolescence and put the latest equipment to work for your business. Match the lease term with the technology's productive business life and simply return equipment at end of lease and move to the latest technology solutions. These offers make obsolescence - obsolete.
• Align your payments to the benefits you receive from using the solution.
  With the convenience of one low monthly payment for your total solution, you can develop an IT strategy based on your business needs and cash flow. You may also receive potential accounting and tax benefits. Leasing may qualify your IT equipment costs as an expense versus asset.
• Leverage built-in end-of-life services.
  Don't worry about how to dispose of equipment at the end of its useful life - we take care of it for you in an environmentally friendly manner.
• Enjoy the flexibility to add on and upgrade as your needs change.
  As your business evolves and grows, leasing enables your IT to change with you. Finance your total solution to get the most from your IT budget - put the latest technology to work for your business today. Carousel Capital is a smart choice for all your business needs when investing in IT.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2010 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In executing this agreement, Carousel will install, program, test and turn up over (300) voice end-points, network services, and connect over 50,000 feet of voice, data, CATV, video and fiber cable. The temporary installation will support TV sets at Dolphin Stadium, and South Beach, Production Hotel and “stand-up” positions throughout the stadium complex. “We are enthusiastic to again have the opportunity to serve CBS and Super Bowl XLIV and are confident that our Carousel team of experts will provide yet another successful implementation,” stated Jeff Gardner, Carousel Industries CEO.

Carousel will hit the ground running January 20th with an engineer, cabling expert and six additional technicians that will ensure the initial T1 service and that the CBS advance production unit can start communicating with the outside world by January 25th.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Given our nation’s current economic struggles, this grand opening reinforces that Carousel is here to stay for the long haul. The west will be a major part of our growth in years to come and having offices in key geographies in the west will allow us to continue to deliver best in class solutions and service,” states Carousel CEO Jeff Gardner.

As part of their ongoing expansion, Carousel Industries’ latest office is important in creating a strong presence on the west coast. “The strategic location of the San Mateo office, as well as the addition of key personnel with 20 plus years of experience in the converged solutions space, allows us to better serve our growing client base in Northern California,” said Bryan Gilbert, Sales Director for Carousel in Northern California.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Carousel Industries truly shined in 2009, both as a valuable Diamond-level Extreme Networks partner with the highest revenue and by demonstrating its total commitment to technical solutions and the highest levels of customer service,” said Christopher Rajiah, director, North American Channels for Extreme Networks. “Looking to the future, I am confident that our success will continue as we help enterprises harness the power of their converged networks.”

Carousel's team of highly qualified data engineers can design and implement complete infrastructures that run seamlessly throughout your organization. Carousel works with the best in breed technology partners like Extreme Networks to provider customers customized and innovative solutions.

“We are honored to receive the designation as the top revenue achieving Diamond Partner for Extreme Networks in 2009,” said Bill Annino, Director, Converged Network Solutions for Carousel Industries. “The close alignment with our goals offered through the Extreme Networks Channel Partner Program and the differentiation achieved through its network solutions make for an enduring relationship. We look forward to continued success in 2010.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Basking Ridge, NJ, October 19, 2009 — Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications applications, systems, and services today announced that Humanim, a Maryland-based non-profit serving individuals with disabilities, has implemented an Avaya Aura™ unified communications solution to drive down costs. The new technology also added employee flexibility and business continuity capabilities and simplified administration of its telecommunications system.

Humanim is a 38 year-old, not-for-profit organization that provides mental health, vocational, neurorehabilitation, developmental disabilities and deaf services to children, adolescents, adults and older adults in the greater Baltimore area. The organization maintains six locations from which more than 500 office-based, mobile and consultant employees provide services to the community.

The organization recently purchased the 150-year old American Brewery Building in East Baltimore to centralize its on-site services for its consumers, help provide local jobs and encourage redevelopment in the area. Seeking a new communications system for the site, the non-profit turned to Avaya Platinum-certified channel partner, Carousel Industries.

“As a non-profit, we deal with extremely limited budgets. Cost of system and cost of operations were very important in our decision-making. Avaya and Carousel Industries were acutely aware of that and sensitive to those concerns,” said Paul Etzler, Network Operations Manager at Humanim. “Avaya and Carousel delivered innovative ideas that help us lower our costs. That’s money that goes back into supporting the services we offer to our consumers.”

Humanim estimates a savings of more than $5000 per month from the reduced requirements for copper lines alone with the Avaya Aura solution. In addition, the organization opted to equip employees with Avaya softphones integrated with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), further reducing capital expenditures while increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of both office and field staff.

With Avaya Extension to Cellular, Humanim employees gained the ability to take important phone calls while away from their offices, allowing them to answer calls from their consumers in real-time and reducing or eliminating delay when the need to speak with a live person is critical. In addition, Humanim’s field workers now have space in the office with access to their own phone line – something they didn’t have previously. The new American Brewery location provides commuter workstations (hoteling) for field staff that drop in occasionally. With the new technology, employees simply use their softphone and a USB headset to log into their phone extension at one of the available desks.

These same technologies help ensure business continuity for the non-profit. Humanim wanted to ensure that employees could continue to serve the community even in the face of disaster. Humanim’s administrative and management staff can communicate from home or remote offices if their primary location is inaccessible. In addition, Avaya’s solution is helping Humanim deliver more personalized services to its clients as it begins to serve its community from more non-traditional locations.

The new technologies simplify work life for both end-users and IT staff. The Avaya Aura integration with Microsoft OCS enabled Humanim to eliminate its inefficient, hard copy phone list system; instead, now staff members have a quick and easy way to look up contacts, get presence information on a contact’s availability before calling and subsequently, click-to-call from the same user interface.

For IT staff, the Avaya solution eliminates the need to call outside consultants to solve issues in the system. Now, the simple, easy-to-use system has increased the self-sufficiency of its IT staff of three, enabling them to centrally manage communications for all of its six locations. As a result, the IT staff travels less between sites and has more time to devote to other projects that will help support Humanim’s clients.

About Humanim

Humanim was founded in 1971 as a not for profit organization serving individuals with disabilities. Humanim’s mission is to identify those in greatest need and provide uncompromising human services. Humanim’s vision is that all people in its community (greater Baltimore) have access to the human services that they need. Humanim has five core service areas: Mental Health, Vocational, Neuro-Rehabilitation, Developmental Disabilities and Deaf Services. Services are available to children, adolescents, adults and older adults.
To learn more about Humanim, visit www.humanim.com.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is a premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

In today’s current environment, our clients are having to find ways to do more with less money and resources. Carousel’s new Managed Services Offerings will enable our clients to turn to us to augment their staff and provide day-to-day operational support for their converged environments for a predictable, fixed monthly cost.

“This is a great time for Carousel to continue to demonstrate to our clients the capabilities and value we bring to the market. There is a tremendous opportunity in front of us, and these new offerings will continue to help Carousel position itself as an industry leader,” stated Jeff Gardner, CEO.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Our dedication and commitment as always is to our customers, in fact Carousel has already begun to ramp up resources including hiring dedicated support engineers that are committed to giving you the flexibility and support for your technology needs. In addition, our sales team at Carousel will be staying in touch with you and continue to provide you updates on this transaction to ensure you have uninterrupted service. Thank you for your continued trust and support in Carousel.

If you are interested in scheduling an engineering specialist for a meeting to understand the Nortel integration architecture, please contact your Carousel representative today or email info@carouselindustries.com. Visit our website today www.carouselindustries.com to learn about educational events, training opportunities from Carousel University which offers Avaya-authorized training curriculum, as well as many other topics to help keep you ahead of the game on your technology knowledge.

We look forward to continue providing our customers best in breed solutions and support.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Customers are attracted to Carousel because we offer turn-key solutions, from design engineering through support, and we teamed with Aruba so we could provide best-in-class, secure mobility solutions that scale to almost any size,” said Bill Annino, Carousel’s Director Converged Solutions. “Our company has achieved elite partner status with the world’s top technology companies, and based on our growing pipeline we are well on our way to doing the same with Aruba.”

Enterprise users are increasingly mobile and need secure access to business-critical information from anywhere within or outside the office. Aruba's 802.11n Wi-Fi solutions deliver that mobility, enhancing user productivity, resource utilization, and operating efficiency. By displacing overbuilt wired networks with streamlined wireless access, Aruba enables enterprises to rightsize wired infrastructure and lower operating, service, and labor expenses.

These benefits also extend to branch offices and teleworkers. Aruba's remote networking solutions are simple to use, feature enterprise-class security, and can be centrally managed with minimal IT overhead. The AirWave Management Suite provides a single point of control for even the largest networks, and its multi-vendor capability manages devices from Aruba and more than 15 other vendors.

“Carousel is well known for its voice over IP and unified communications expertise, and Aruba’s award-winning mobility solutions will open a range of new wireless and remote networking opportunities for them,” said Tim Colby, Aruba’s Head of Strategic Partnerships. “By extending the enterprise network everywhere users roam, and delivering a common user experience from every location, Aruba and Carousel can together increase the utility of network solutions and the productivity of end users.”

About Aruba Networks

People move. Networks must follow. Aruba securely delivers networks to users, wherever they work or roam. Our mobility and network virtualization solutions ensure that the enterprise network moves in lock-step with users:

• Adaptive 802.11n Wi-Fi networks optimize themselves to ensure that users are always within reach of mission-critical information;
• Identity-based security assigns access policies to users, enforcing those policies whenever and wherever a network is accessed;
• Remote networking solutions ensure uninterrupted access to enterprise resources without compromising security;
• Multi-vendor network management provides a single point of control while managing both legacy and new wireless networks from Aruba and its competitors.

The cost, convenience, and security benefits of our secure mobility solutions are fundamentally changing how and where we work. Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions.
To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.
For real time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ArubaNetworks.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Aruba Networks, Inc and Carousel Industries Inc. AirWave®, Aruba Networks®, Aruba Mobility Management System®, Bluescanner, For Wireless That Works®, Mobile Edge Architecture, People Move. Networks Must Follow., The All-Wireless Workplace Is Now Open For Business, RFprotect, Green Island, and The Mobile Edge Company® are trademarks of Aruba Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Regional Market Category Award:
Juniper Eastern Region J-Partner of the Year: Carousel Industries

“Our J-Partners are among the best in the industry and share a deep understanding of the real business value that high-performance networking solutions, specializations and customer service brings to their enterprise clients,” said Frank Vitagliano, senior vice president, Worldwide Channels, Juniper Networks. “We are honored to recognize and reward these J-Partners for their continued success and applaud them for going above and beyond to demonstrate the strategic importance of the network and deliver exceptional value to their clients.”

“And it’s only the beginning,” says Bill Annino, Director, Converged Network Solutions. Bill goes on to say that, “Carousel continues to invest in manufacturers that truly enhance our value proposition. In very demanding times, our expectation of our manufacturer performance is just high as the products they deliver. We are excited about this year’s award and will continue to work diligently to be the best we can in all geographies.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including VoIP, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing.

Juniper Networks, JUNOS, and the Juniper Networks logo are registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Most recently Kevin was Avaya’s Technical Director for the western region where he managed a team of unified communication consultants and system engineers that supported medium to large Fortune 500 companies. Some of the enterprises Kevin and his team supported included: Apple, Autodesk, CSC, eBay, GAP, Google, Hilton, Honda, Juniper Networks, McKesson, Kaiser, Netflix, Pixar, Qualcomm, Wells Fargo, and Wynn Resorts. Customers view Kevin and his team as trusted advisors and as a result, many have implemented Avaya’s entire portfolio of Unified Communication, Call Center and management applications, resulting in significant ROI savings to their respective business. Kevin also spent several years as a Convergence Specialist and System engineer at Avaya and Lucent Technologies, where he designed complex, multi-application solutions for companies with thousands of sites and tens of thousands of users.

As an Assistant Vice President of Network Services at First Interstate Bank and Wells Fargo, Kevin spent ten years managing a team of engineers, project managers, voice / video / data analysts and field technicians with responsibility for over 200 sites and 7000 users. The sites included branches, call centers, check processing center, network operations center, data center and a disaster recovery site. Kevin played a strategic role in managing several mergers and acquisitions, four major disaster recovery and business resumption situations, and re-engineering many internal business processes.

The combination of Kevin’s near 30 years of experience as a customer, technical knowledge and business acumen - including an MBA; make Kevin uniquely qualified to add value to any customer relationship. Kevin understands the distinctive challenges his customers face from their user communities, their internal leadership and the service providers at large. Kevin is a strong customer advocate and looks forward to him and his Carousel technical team supporting new and existing customers accordingly.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Exeter, RI and White Plains, NY, May 18, 2009 — Top Avaya reseller and communications integrator, Carousel Industries, and CyberTech North America, the leading solution provider for quality and compliance recording, today announced an agreement to partner in a range of compliance and quality communications solutions for the Avaya platform. Carousel is the number-one Avaya business partner in software and systems design for converged communication networks to the enterprise.

Carousel selected CyberTech to complement an unsurpassed solution suite for quality and compliance recording to the nation’s largest industries, including financial services, contact centers and public safety. In line with a 97-percent rating for customer satisfaction, Carousel chose CyberTech following an intense partner-review process not typically undertaken in its sector.

“We consistently achieve unparalleled levels of service delivery to the nation’s most demanding technology organizations through our best-in-class, single-source approach,” said Rick Houlihan, Technology Director, Carousel Industries. “For this reason, we extensively reviewed, and ultimately selected, CyberTech for a range of existing and prospective recording applications to add even greater value to the Avaya channel.”

As Avaya’s premier solutions provider, Carousel designs, implements and maintains powerful converged communication networks. Carousel offers a full suite of solutions and services encompassing VoIP, data infrastructure, wireless, security, disaster recovery, and managed services. The company has achieved elite partner status with the world’s top technology companies, including Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks and APC, in addition to Avaya.

CyberTech offers award-winning voice and data recording software that returns value and dramatically reduces time to profitability through an open architecture, full scalability and unsurpassed ease of use. CyberTech is deployed globally to the world’s largest contact centers, financial services companies and public safety organizations

About CyberTech

CyberTech International is a leading supplier of voice logging and communications recording solutions with global operations and offices throughout Europe, Asia, Middle East and the Americas. It is among the fastest growing data communications providers and a recognized innovator of voice recording and monitoring applications that drive efficiencies in the capture, storage, retrieval and playback of voice, radio and data communications. CyberTech offers a worldwide suite of innovative recording technologies that enable organizations to achieve the highest levels of performance, quality assurance and liability protection while supporting existing business processes. With solutions deployed widely throughout organizations in the public safety, financial services and call center markets, CyberTech uniquely adds value through the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and applications that are scalable, turnkey, and easy to implement over a virtually unlimited number of channels. An unsurpassed commitment to customer satisfaction additionally assures maximized technology investments and quality of customer contacts without proprietary hardware, complex integrations or expensive software upgrades. For more information, visit www.cybertech-int.com.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Media Contact

Carousel media contact: - Lucy Graham, 860.760.5285, lgraham@carouselindustries.com

CyberTech media contact: Alice Ducq, 800.707.9190 x85, aliced@percepture.com

Kenny comes to Carousel from Avaya where he was the number one ranked RSE in North America as a Tier III Field Engineer. He was responsible for taking critical escalations from Avaya Tier III that could not be resolved remotely and worked to bring the issues to resolution. He provided Tier III training on Avaya’s products to new hires as well as to other Tier III associates in order to bring them up to speed and allow them to take cases on their own. The RSE/RFE job put Kenny in touch with large, complex, Enterprise customers in the North East. Due to the nature of his relationship with these customers, he became their trusted technology advisor.

Kenny was also responsible for taking problem cases from the Avaya Tier III back bone team. He took action to resolve or further diagnose the issues and also gathered the necessary data to get the issues dispatched to the right level of engineer who could fix them. His RSE/RFE role with Avaya allowed him to gain an overall sense of understanding of the entire solution, no matter what products were involved. This allowed him to quickly jump in on any problem, regardless of what had been done before, and identify what needed to be done to get complex issues resolved quickly and correctly.

Carousel is AVAYA’s elite service provider nationally and is the largest provider in North America. Carousel is committed to having the sharpest technical staff and as Paul Breslin, Carousel’s Director of Services, states “adding Kenny to our team will only enhance our client’s experience.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Basking Ridge, NJ, April 23, 2009 — The Small Business Intelligence Summit (SBIS) will kick off the first of a nationwide series of events in Dallas, Texas on Thursday May 14, with intensive sessions to help small businesses succeed in the current challenging economy. The events will allow existing and developing companies to connect and collaborate on solutions that support their business in today’s environment and well into the future.

The events will feature expert speakers, including sessions with:

• Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of the Telework Coalition and co-author of numerous articles, including “Unleashing the Hidden Productivity of Your Small Business. Unified Communications: A Key Component of Your Telework Program”
• Bob Burg, corporate speaker and author of “Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales”
• Christopher Justice, CEO of Sparksight, a small business-marketing agency
• Small and Mid-size Business experts from Avaya, a global leader in communications technology.

Small business owners will learn techniques that can strengthen their businesses, increase customer loyalty and position them for growth. Attendees will improve their ability to recognize business opportunities and successfully implement strategies for exemplary customer service, employee productivity and brand recognition through more effective communications and greater collaboration.

The event series is sponsored by Avaya and a network of Avaya BusinessPartners serving the Small and Medium Business market. Carousel Industries, an Avaya Platinum-certified channel partner, is co-sponsoring the Providence event, to be held on Wednesday, May 20 at Providence Marriott Downtown.

Other Carousel event locations include Boston, Miami and San Diego. For registration and more information on agendas, locations and schedules, please visit the SBIS online www.sbis09.com
Seating at each of the events is limited to 100 attendees.

About the Small Business Intelligence Summit:

The Small Business Intelligent Summit (SBIS) is a focused half-day workshop for small business owners and entrepreneurs which provides prescriptive strategies tackling current issues to prepare them for future challenges in a new economy.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service, and competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com/small

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Basking Ridge, NJ, April 23, 2009 — The Small Business Intelligence Summit (SBIS) will kick off the first of a nationwide series of events in Dallas, Texas on Thursday May 14, with intensive sessions to help small businesses succeed in the current challenging economy. The events will allow existing and developing companies to connect and collaborate on solutions that support their business in today’s environment and well into the future.

The events will feature expert speakers, including sessions with:

• Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of the Telework Coalition and co-author of numerous articles, including “Unleashing the Hidden Productivity of Your Small Business. Unified Communications: A Key Component of Your Telework Program”
• Bob Burg, corporate speaker and author of “Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales”
• Christopher Justice, CEO of Sparksight, a small business-marketing agency
• Small and Mid-size Business experts from Avaya, a global leader in communications technology.

Small business owners will learn techniques that can strengthen their businesses, increase customer loyalty and position them for growth. Attendees will improve their ability to recognize business opportunities and successfully implement strategies for exemplary customer service, employee productivity and brand recognition through more effective communications and greater collaboration.

The event series is sponsored by Avaya and a network of Avaya BusinessPartners serving the Small and Medium Business market. Carousel Industries, an Avaya Platinum-certified channel partner, is co-sponsoring the Boston event, to be held on Tuesday, May 19 at Crowne Plaza Natick.

Other Carousel event locations include Providence, Miami and San Diego. For registration and more information on agendas, locations and schedules, please visit the SBIS online www.sbis09.com
Seating at each of the events is limited to 100 attendees.

About the Small Business Intelligence Summit:

The Small Business Intelligent Summit (SBIS) is a focused half-day workshop for small business owners and entrepreneurs which provides prescriptive strategies tackling current issues to prepare them for future challenges in a new economy.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service, and competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com/small

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Michael comes to Carousel from Avaya where he was a Unified Communications Consulting Systems Engineer supporting the western region. He was also the subject matter expert for Avaya Video Telephony in the region and was a resource for the Avaya Video Telephony product team. As a resource for the video product team, Michael supported many industry trade shows and conferences such as VoiceCon, InAAU, InterOp, Polycom User Group, as well as many regional seminars. Michael joined Avaya in 2006 as a pre-sales systems engineer supporting the southwest territory and named accounts such as Sempra Energy, Invitrogen, and Qualcomm. In May of 2008, he moved into the Unified Communications applications consulting team.

Michael brings over 25 years experience in the telecommunications industry having worked for 3COM, Alcatel, Expanets, and Nexus Integrated Solutions in many capacities including sales engineering, account management, and channel management. Michael has an extensive background in all aspects of the industry from cabling infrastructure to PBX, voicemail, contact center, and data networking design, installation and maintenance. He has experience with NEC, Cisco, Alcatel, 3COM NBX, Octel, and ActiveVoice products. Michael worked as a Senior Design Sales Consultant for an Audio/Video integration company in southern California delivering enterprise class visual communications designs and solutions. These solutions included converged and integrated conferencing and collaboration technologies for distance learning, broadcast media, and video conferencing.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Lori comes to Carousel from Avaya where she was the Global Account Manager on Fox Entertainment Group, a large subsidiary of NewsCorp. Prior to working with NewsCorp, Lori managed the Avaya relationship with Toyota, Honda, DirectTV, and Pixar Entertainment. Lori spent four years prior to joining Avaya in Australia, working as a Voice Sales Specialist for Telstra, Australia’s largest Avaya partner.

Lori brings with her over 13 years of telephony experience and has been responsible for growth revenue and development in highly competitive environments. Lori has received achievement awards from her past employers for her excellence and expertise.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The acquisition of Daycom makes a strong contribution to Carousel’s overall growth strategy and will employ more than 550 people. “This acquisition represents a tremendous opportunity for Daycom and Carousel. Given our nation’s current economic struggles, this acquisition reinforces that Carousel is here to stay for the long haul. We continue to grow our company so that we are properly positioned to support all of our customers nationally,” states Carousel CEO Jeff Gardner. “Daycom has a great reputation in the industry and a strong customer base. Like Carousel, they have built a culture around taking care of customers.”

Carousel is preparing to announce general strategies for the acquisition. “It’s truly a perfect fit,” states Day. “Carousel’s great reputation and its strong relationships within Avaya will complement our large customer base and wide geographic coverage. Our people are very excited about this opportunity and the potential for the future,” continues Day.

“The main benefit is going to be for our customers. The combined businesses give us greater geographic coverage, enhanced capabilities, and greater access to people and resources within Avaya. All of these strengths will enable us to deliver better solutions to our customer base. This is an exciting time, a chance to strengthen our reputation as the top Avaya Business Partner in the country. We intend to make the most of this opportunity”, states Gardner.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“Business Partners like Carousel, enable customers to be fully confident that they will receive the highest level of service for the care of their communications systems,” said Carol Giles Neslund, vice president, North America Channel Sales, Avaya. “To achieve the SDS designation, Carousel exhibited a standing record of success in serving customers, which they have taken to the next level through additional training and access to Avaya Global Services tools and methodologies. It gives us great pleasure to see Carousel carry the Avaya SDS designation and know they are serving our customers.”

Having successfully completed the rigorous requirements associated with the Services Delivery Specialization Program, this reaffirms to our client base and prospects the best-in-class services that Carousel Industries can bring to them and their end-users in both implementation and support services, and validates the excellence of the services experience we deliver to our clients,” said Jeff Gardner, CEO, Carousel Industries.

“It is important for vendors to segment partners based on services capabilities to help customers differentiate partners during the sales cycle,” said Christine Tenneson, Research Director at Gartner. “Channel partners with specialized services designations have invested significantly to earn these designations.”

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

About Avaya

Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

John comes to Carousel from Avaya where he was the Managing Director of the global IBM Alliance. In his Alliance role John was responsible for managing Avaya’s overall business relationship with IBM which includes sell-to, sell-thru, buy-from, OEM, and joint technology dimensions. Prior to serving in his alliance role, John held leadership positions within Avaya’s Global Accounts organization and served as Global Sales Vice President overseeing Avaya’s business relationships with Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, St. Paul Travelers, Citizens Financial Group, Liberty Mutual, and Discover Financial Services. John and his teams were directly responsible for insuring the alignment of Avaya’s solutions portfolio with the complex and unique business needs of these demanding financial services clients that yield in excess of $75M in annual revenues for Avaya.

John joined Avaya in 2004 and brings over 20 years of sales, IT, and business operations experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Avaya John was the Vice President and CIO at Abovenet where he was responsible for a team of 175 IT professionals and was accountable for the strategic planning and operation of 8 Tier I Internet datacenters, the firms managed services business, and Abovenet’s corporate IT functions. Prior to Abovenet, John held various sales and IT positions at AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Metromedia Fiber Network.

John holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Scranton and has completed post graduate studies at Stevens Institute of Technology and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. John lives in Green, NJ with his wife and five children and an active member of the community.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

Avaya and the Avaya logo are trademarks of Avaya Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All trademarks identified by the ®, SM or TM are registered trademarks, service marks or trademarks, respectively, of Avaya Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The honor, awarded at Extreme Networks 2008 North American Channel Partner Conference in Beverly Hills, CA, recognized Carousel Industries for its performance and commitment to designing, installing and maintaining high performance converged networks that support voice, video and data. Carousel Industries has experienced year over year growth and is recognized as a leading solutions provider. They have been ranked as Avaya’s #2 Business Partner in the US and provide its customers with seamless IP telephony, contact center/CRM and messaging solutions and unsurpassed customer service.

Carousel Industries has built the largest Convergence Solutions Organization of any Avaya BP Nationally. In only 5 years time, Carousel has grown their Converged business to represent 20% of the company’s overall revenue. Carousel is proud to have the most Sales and Technical Extreme Certifications in their partner program.

Carousel Industries and Extreme Networks integrated business solutions are based on robust technologies, including the award-winning BlackDiamond® and Summit® switching families that are convergence ready, tested and certified to support Avaya’s market leading IP telephony applications and services.

“Carousel has been a highly successful channel partner for Extreme Networks we are excited to have named them the Top Revenue award winner this fiscal year,” said Christopher Rajiah, director of North American Channels for Extreme Networks. “Carousel’s achievements in 2008 and throughout the many years of our relationship showcase how our value-driven, high performance convergence solutions are being accepted with premier customers nationally.”

About Extreme Networks, Inc.

Extreme Networks provides converged Ethernet networks that support data, voice and video for enterprises and service providers. The company’s network solutions feature high performance and high availability switching that deliver insight and control enabling customers to solve their real-world business communications challenges. Operating in more than 50 countries, Extreme Networks provides wired and wireless secure LANs, data center infrastructure and Service Provider Ethernet transport solutions that are complemented by global, 24x7 service and support. For more information, visit: http://www.extremenetworks.com

The USLBA "Best of Local Business" Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USLBA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2008 USLBA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USLBA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA)

U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USLBA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USLBA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

SOURCE: U.S. Local Business Association

CONTACT:
U.S. Local Business Association
Email: PublicRelations@USLBA.net
URL: http://www.USLBA.net

Zach comes to Carousel from Avaya with over 15 years of experience in contact center operations, management, planning, strategy, and optimization. His vast experience has primarily come from working with Fortune 500 companies, implementing complex call center solutions involving CTI systems such as Avaya Interaction Center, dialer solutions, workforce management systems, quality monitoring, recording solutions, and multi-site consolidations. His experience has spanned numerous industry verticals including financial services, healthcare, retail, utilities, and hospitality. Zach is Avaya certified on many products including Avaya Business Advocate and Avaya Virtual Routing.

Carousel is a national leader in Contact Center solutions, utilizing the Avaya Communication Manager product suite as well as other leading contact center products and applications. These solutions include: inbound multi-channel voice/email/chat contact management; Reporting/Analytics; Self Service/IVR; and Outbound Proactive Contact/Dialer solutions.

“Zach brings a wealth of knowledge to Carousel that will be invaluable to our customers”, said Carousel CEO Jeff Gardner. “Carousel continues to be a major player in the Contact Center arena and Zach’s experience will help us better serve our current customers and offer enhanced capabilities and services to our prospective customers.”

Carousel continues to invest in top talent to serve its customers requirements. In the past 2 years, Carousel has added technical expertise in areas like convergence, unified communications, and physical infrastructure, as well as in specific industry verticals like government, education, and healthcare. Says Carousel CEO, Jeff Gardner, "These investments in personnel continue to enhance our reputation as the premier technology integrator in the country."

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Elwyn is recognized nationally and internationally as experts in the education and care of individuals with special needs and disadvantages. Founded in 1852, Elwyn is a leading provider of services for people with special needs of all ages.

Carousel Industries is a leading telecommunications integrator and one of the largest Value-Added Resellers in the country. Headquartered in Exeter, Rhode Island, the company provides full service communications, data, video, and software solutions to some of the largest organizations in the country including Reebok, Monster.com and Bank of America.

The new telecommunications system being provided by Carousel is designed around a platform from Avaya, the leading provider of IP Telephony products and software. The hub is located at a downtown co-location facility for robustness and disaster recovery purposes. Elwyn’s main campus and 19 other branch locations will be tied together with Avaya S8300 media servers and 1000 IP, digital and analog handsets. The main campus will also have an Avaya S8500 media server for secondary call control. The entire network will be connected via a meshed AT&T MPLS network for data and internal calls across the network, with local PRI’s for least cost routing.

Carousel was chosen primarily for its proven ability to provide a full service, turn-key solution of this size and scope. The largest beneficiary will be the mentally challenged children and adults that Elwyn serves. The Avaya Solution provided by Carousel will:

• Improve efficiency by consolidating communication assets and reducing overall system management costs
• Enhance mobility for users by providing access to communications applications from any location
• Provide a virtual organization where resources throughout the enterprise can be leveraged
• Simplify and enhance user experience and reduce training/support requirements through uniform deployment of enterprise-wide features and dial plan
• Improve Elwyn’s intake time by reducing the time needed to do daily tasks via unified messaging and mobility. This will result in “soft” ROI by significantly increasing the time Elwyn care providers are able to spend providing quality care and assistance to their clients.

About Carousel Industries

Carousel Industries is the premier technology solutions provider designing, implementing and maintaining powerful converged communication networks for enterprise customers nationwide. Utilizing a single-source approach, Carousel offers a full range of solutions including IP Telephony, Data Infrastructure, Unified Communications, Video, Power and Cooling, IVR, Wireless, Security, Speech Applications and much more. We also provide a complete range of services from Design Engineering, Installation and Project Management to Repair, Remote Monitoring, Support Agreements, Managed Services and Financing. Carousel has achieved elite partner status with the top technology companies in the world including Avaya, Juniper Networks, Extreme Networks and Microsoft.

© 2009 Carousel Industries Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Overall Performance Category Award Winners

Juniper New J-Partner of the Year: Carousel Industries

“We are honored to acknowledge these J-Partners for their continued excellence in providing customers with high-performance networking solutions to meet their business objectives,” said Frank Vitagliano, senior vice president, Worldwide Channels, Juniper Networks. “These partners have exceeded expectations and continually demonstrate their depth of knowledge and commitment to customers.”

“Hard work pays off!” says Bill Annino Director, Converged Network Solutions. Bill goes on to say that Carousel received this honor based on their revenue growth and technical achievement for the 07-08 evaluation period. Bill extends the gratitude to all those at Carousel that contributed to this honor with a special thanks to Steve Coscarella, and Carousel’s dedicated SE’s and implementation team.