Mainline Information Systems
Delivering IT Adaptability, Flexibility and Technical Depth

For the IT industry, 2020 began with a promising outlook for projects about many technologies, solutions, and functions such as AI, containerization, cloud-native development, transitions to SAP HANA, management of an ever-growing number of clouds and associated requirements. However, and unfortunately, with the COVID-19 disruption, the original set of challenges and projects didn’t go away, for the most part, just these new and urgent requirements got added on top.

The immediate need is to “keep the lights on” for IT as many workers are working from home. Organizations’ workload has sky-rocketed or declined precipitously, followed by the need to adjust to the new environment. As such, an immediate planning stage which will involve anticipating the changes during the arrival and aftermath of this virus will have on each organization’s business. For a few companies, this will also include a discussion about how to serve customers better in these changing times. By delivering flexibility, adaptability, and technical depth, Mainline Information Systems has been committed and incredibly responsive to its customers’ immediate needs and requests. “We maintain our full support, mostly provided remotely, to meet client’s requirements and expectations,” says Jim Dixon, the VP of Software & Servers at Mainline Information Systems.

With over 30 years of experience as a technology solution provider, Mainline also offers remotely delivered managed services to a broadly diversified portfolio of customers. As a privately-held company, in strong financial health, Mainline will not only weather this storm, but will be able to rise to the occasion and help customers survive and/or flourish during this unique time. They foster long term relationships with their customers to become an extension of their customers’ team, acting as trusted advisors. “We continue to maintain a 2:1 ratio of technical to sales resources that our customers depend on,” states Dixon.

Mainline has a Business Partner Innovation Center (BPIC), where customers can see and test technologies in advance of making decisions. For years, access to this center has been either remotely or in person. In light of 2020’s challenges that companies are facing, the ability to access the BPIC from home (for both customers and Mainline employees) is a real benefit. In addition to demonstrations of technologies, proof of concepts and migration assistance are all available through Mainline’s BPIC.

Mainline works with its customers to address their complex data and information requirements by utilizing IBM’s Cloud Paks for Data solution. IBM undergoing massive shifts in its software strategy over the last two years has allowed Mainline to work with customers to transition legacy applications to modern infrastructures and to develop write-once-run-anywhere applications. “For three decades, our strategy has been to be the best IBM Solution Provider in the United States. Over time, as our customers’ requirements have changed, we have expanded our offerings with technologies demanded by our customers and capable of being integrated with their existing IBM technologies,” mentions Dixon. With IBM’s 2019 acquisition of Red Hat and its technology quickly being integrated into IBM’s offerings (Cloud Paks as one of the most visible example), Mainline’s expertise, experience, and ability to work with Red Hat will be a crucial factor in its customers’ success going forward.

We have expanded our offerings with technologies demanded by our customers and capable of being integrated with their existing IBM technologies

Mainline has helped customers with on-premise solutions that run in their data centers for years. However, customers are looking for flexibility and cost optimization in terms of where they run their workloads which increasingly, has included “hosted” solutions and “Cloud” solutions. To this end, IBM Power Systems, are now available in many locations including the IBM Public Cloud. Mainline has worked with IBM to help prepare their Power offering in the IBM Cloud and now have that as an additional option for its clients.

Despite the downturns in the market given the COVID-19 pandemic, Mainline’s future is very bright. John McCarthy, Mainline President and CEO comments, “We will continue to leverage our heritage of IBM expertise to fuel our organic growth in our accounts and new accounts. As we have for 30+ years, Mainline will continue to explore M&A opportunities to grow our customer base and invest in growing markets.”