School IT Committee Opts Unanimously for AVG and Walling Data

June 13, 2008 - PRLog -- Claremont, NC – Although one of Pam Nadea’s hats at Central Vermont Catholic School’s St. Monica Campus is “Technology Coordinator”, like many in her position, it is not her primary role. She is first and foremost a teacher of math, science and computer classes for more than 110 students from preschool to 8th grade. Just like thousands of other teachers across the country, Nadea found herself responsible for managing the school’s IT infrastructure because she’s a “computer person”. So, on top of all her teaching responsibilities, she has to carve out additional time to ensure the campus computers run smoothly.

Nadea has been a teacher at the New England private school for seven years; as the school has grown, so has the size of the network. With this growth came the recognition that resources needed to be dedicated to maintaining the campus computer systems. The school was not in a position to fund a full-time on-site technician, so they did the next-best thing – they formed a committee of interested teachers and parent volunteers who could pool their knowledge and experience to manage the school’s IT infrastructure.  

“We split up responsibilities across the committee,” said Nadea. ”Since I’m on campus, I do a lot of the day-to-day stuff. But when it comes to bigger decisions like software purchasing and how to secure the computers, the committee makes those kinds of decisions together.”  

The most recent challenge the committee has faced is the decision as to which security solution would best meet their particular needs and limited budget.  

“We have around 50 computers, almost all of which were donated by members of the community,” Nadea confesses. “While it’s great that we don’t have the expense of buying hardware, we do face significant challenges in ensuring they are properly protected.”

Nadea explained that the donated computers would often come with different brands of security software installed, many of which were out of date, resulting in immediate infections with viruses and spyware. The IT Committee decided that they needed to find a cohesive and affordable security solution that was easy to deploy, powerful enough to catch all the threats the school’s students and staff might encounter, and would not get in the way of productive use of the computers.

“Two of the parent volunteers on our committee said they used AVG at work and were really happy with its performance,” said Nadea. “A few others seconded that opinion, and so we all agreed AVG would be our first choice for the school. The next step was figuring out where to buy it.”

All Paths Led to Walling Data

“It’s really funny how we ended up with Walling Data Systems”, said Nadea. “Three of us on the committee researched AVG distributors and, when we met again after our research, we had all gone to Walling Data for price quotes. Of course, their prices on all the estimates were the same, and very affordable. It turned out that Walling offers special education pricing for the software and, as an added bonus, throws in free round-the-clock support. For a situation like ours, it was a match made in heaven.

It was an easy decision to purchase AVG from Walling Data, not just for my campus but the other campus, too.”

Walling Data Systems is the country’s longest-standing distributor of AVG Technologies solutions and the company’s highest-volume distributor in North America. Walling specializes in the education and nonprofit sectors, and is the only distributor to offer all customers free, unlimited, U.S.-based support.

“I had a couple of questions when we were first deploying the software,” said Nadea, “so I called Walling’s help desk. The technicians were really nice, helpful and knowledgeable about the software, and got us up and running in no time.”
In the months since AVG was first installed, Nadea’s had no problems, and feels comfortable relying the software to automatically take care of the school’s IT security needs.

“AVG was really easy to install and right after it was deployed, it actually caught some spyware on the donated computers that other security products had missed,” said Nadea.  “We are very pleased with its performance, both from the point of view of the protection itself and for the very low requirements it puts on me and on the systems themselves. I would recommend AVG to any other school.  In fact, I like it so much, that I am planning to transition my home computer’s protection to AVG, too!”

About Walling Data Systems
http://www.avg-antivirus.net
Founded in 1994, in North Carolina, Walling Data Systems is a Value-Added Technology Distributor offering innovative high-value solutions to everyday computer security problems for corporate, education, and home technology users. Walling Data was named an Authorized AVG Distributor in 2004 and is the only source for unlimited toll-free phone, “We-Do-It-For-You” remote control support, and more for their AVG customers in the United States and Canada, one reason why thousands of customers have made Walling their supplier of choice for AVG products.

About AVG
Founded in 1991 and with offices in the US, UK, and Czech Republic, AVG is a leading international developer of Internet threat protection solutions for consumers and SMBs. AVG is one of the fastest growing companies in the industry with more than 70 million active users around the world. The company employs some of the world’s leading experts in Internet security, specifically in the areas of threat research, analysis and detection. AVG’s award-winning products are distributed globally through resellers and over the Internet as well as via third parties through Software Developer’s Kits (SDK).

Media Contacts:
Ashlie Lanning 919-557-7890 alanning@wallingdatasystems.com  
Luke Walling 828-459-5422 x225 luke@wallingdatasystems.com

Website: www.avg-antivirus.net