1. Partner Success
9spheres Technologies
Helping Companies Plan For a Bright IT Future
9spheres Technologies provides IT services and support to small and medium
businesses in and around Queensland, Australia. It provides customers with
free IT plans, which regularly include Symantec™ Endpoint Protection, Backup
Exec™ 2010, and Backup Exec™ System Recovery 2010. With just four employ-
ees, 9spheres is known for personal, trusted service to companies in a variety
of industries.
There’s a common-sense piece of advice, often called the “Five Ps,” that applies to small and
medium businesses (SMBs): Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. But what sort of plan-
ning? While many companies have a business plan, it’s a safe bet that fewer have an IT plan.
SMBs in Queensland, Australia that want an IT plan have an advantage: Symantec Partner 9spheres
Technologies. When 9spheres engages with a new client—even before that client commits to pur-
chase anything—9spheres studies its needs and creates a thorough plan that charts a winning IT
strategy for the next three to five years. If the customer likes the plan—and many of them do—
9spheres helps them implement it.
9spheres technical manager Nick Marot knows the SMB IT world well: he’s served it for a dozen
years on two continents. He’s found that SMBs have tight budgets and tend to deal with IT on a
break/fix basis, reacting to problems rather than anticipating and preempting them.
But he and Alex Marot, 9spheres’ sales manager, also know from experience that SMBs are ready
to look at the longer term and want to plan for it; they just don’t know how to do it. “SMBs are
looking for guidance on their infrastructure, on how to best prepare for growth, on security and
continuity,” Alex says. “We’ve been successful in providing a vision of how they can take their
companies to the next step. We help them set realistic and specific steps to achieving their goals.”
Symantec solutions are regular elements of 9spheres’ plans.
PARTNER PROFILE
Website: www.9spheres.com.au
Headquarters: Victoria Point,
Queensland, AU
Geographic Area Served: Brisbane
and surrounding areas
Serves Company Size:
Small Business and Mid-market
Status: Symantec Registered
Partner
Symantec Solution Focus:
Endpoint Security, Data Protection,
and Archiving
“The Symantec hosted
environment adds
value to what we want
to do in the future.”
Nick Marot
Technical Manager
9spheres Technologies

2. PARTNER Success 9spheres Technologies
Extending The Team
9spheres serves about 20 permanent cus-
tomers with a staff of four, including the two
Marots (a husband and wife team). 9spheres
helps its customers, which range in size from
20 to 100 users and represent a variety of
industries, to craft and implement their IT
plan and then maintain their IT systems once
they’re operating. Customers pay a monthly
fee for 9spheres’ attention, which Nick
describes as “in your face–type service”—
that is, hands-on, actively involved, and
proactive.
“We’re an extension to their team,” Alex ex-
plains, adding that it’s a relationship based
on trust. In some cases 9spheres has remote
access to client computers, and in those
cases trust becomes particularly important.
“When I go to a new customer, I give them my
client base as referrals,” she explains. “They
do phone them and find out about their trust
in us, and our honesty.”
No Reason To Sell Anything Else
The IT plans 9spheres prepares often include
three Symantec products: Backup Exec
System Recovery 2010, Backup Exec 2010,
and Symantec Endpoint Protection. Backup
Exec System Recovery 2010, Nick says, is
“the best product I’ve yet come across from
Symantec.” When combined with Backup
Exec’s Intelligent Disaster Recovery (IDR)
feature, he says, it’s a proven winner. “We’ve
tried and tested it a thousand times, and
each time it’s worked 100 percent for us.”
The granular restore option and the agents
for Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft
Exchange are selling points for Backup Exec
2010, Nick says. “Our customers run a lot of
SharePoint, which I’m able to recover file-by-
file,” he says. “SharePoint can be a scary
application; when it goes wrong, it goes very
wrong. To recover files independently from
each other has taken away a great headache
from us.” Similarly, he appreciates the ability
to recover single emails from Microsoft
Exchange backups.
9spheres
Technologies Success
Summary
Specializations
Small and Medium Business
Key Industries
Financial
Real Estate
Manufacturing
Retail Trade
Services
Wholesale Trade
Other
Services Provided
IT Consulting
IT Implementation
Outsourcing
Symantec Products
Symantec Backup Exec™ for Windows® Servers
Symantec Backup Exec™ for Windows® Small
Business Server
Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery
Server Edition
Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery
Windows® Small Business Server Edition
Symantec™ Endpoint Protection
Symantec™ Mail Security for Microsoft®
Exchange
Symantec™ Mail Security for SMTP
For more information on 9spheres Technologies
and other partner success stories, please go to
http://go.symantec.com/partnersuccess.

3. And as for Symantec Endpoint Protection,
9spheres installs it on all its clients’ systems.
“I don’t know if it’s the product, or the way
we implement it,” Nick says with a smile, “but
we’ve not had virus attacks on any of our
sites that have Symantec Endpoint
Protection.” (That record extends back to his
days providing IT services in South Africa.) A
console at the 9spheres headquarters moni-
tors all clients’ protection environments,
simplifying maintenance and support.
“There’s no reason why I would want to sell
anything else,” he says.
Because a growing number of 9spheres’ cus-
tomers use hosted services—the company
rents rack space in a data center, where it
runs a number of clients’ applications—Nick
is looking at reselling Symantec’s
MessageLabs Hosted Services. “The
Symantec hosted environment adds value to
what we want to do in the future,” Nick says.
“It gives us the ability to be more flexible in
how we provide software to our clients, and
it takes away a headache from us in trying to
maintain that aspect of their business.”
Specializing in Accurate Answers
Bringing more Symantec products into the
9spheres portfolio appeals to Nick. “If we are
working with a vendor, we like to carry that
relationship through,” he says. “When we get
to know a package well, we can sell it well.
Symantec’s continuous training helps us.”
“We’ve had fantastic support from Symantec
in all aspects of our business,” he continues.
He gives high praise to Symantec’s technical
support—including the ability to communi-
cate via remote support with technical repre-
sentatives—and appreciates the regular
communication from Symantec marketing.
“They’ve helped us so much to get to where
we are today,” he says.
He also appreciates Symantec’s Small and
Medium Business Specialization, which he
earned quickly through online courses. “I
know exactly what a Symantec product can
and can’t do” because of the SMB Specialist
accreditation, Nick says. “When a client
throws questions at me, I can answer them
confidently.”
And that’s important in light of the free
three- to five-year IT plans 9spheres
provides. Such plans only work for 9spheres
and its customers if they’re complete and
accurate. But when such plans are right, they
benefit both 9spheres and its customers.
“We wholeheartedly believe that, in order for
us to grow, we need to ensure that our clients
also grow,” Alex says. “It’s our responsibility
to inform them and guide them, so that we
can ensure that they function at an optimum
level.”
PARTNER Success 9spheres Technologies
Copyright © 2010 Symantec Corporation. All rights reserved. Symantec, the Symantec logo, and Backup Exec are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the United
States and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Symantec document # 21152762
“We’ve had fantastic support
from Symantec in all aspects
of our business.”
Nick Marot
Technical Manager
9spheres Technologies