Skytap Achieves Strong Customer Traction with Virtual Classrooms

Binary Tree, Perforce and Nuance Communications Find Cost Savings and Efficiency in the Cloud with Skytap Virtual Training Solution

SEATTLE, WASH. – November 2, 2010 – Skytap, Inc., the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions, today announced it has achieved strong customer adoption of its training solution and signed several new customers including Binary Tree, Perforce and Nuance Communications. These leading companies are on the cutting edge of cloud adoption and have deployed Skytap’s Virtual Training solution to deliver an improved, virtual learning experience and reduce costs by up to 70 percent.

“Moving to Skytap not only enabled me to survive the downturn, but thrive during it,” said Deanne Harper, senior manager for Nuance Communications Speech University training program. “We’re delivering more and better training for lower cost, and I’m now expanding my team to meet demand. Skytap met all our defined requirements and more.” Nuance Communications is the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world.

Most organizations are plagued with challenges when it comes to executing training initiatives. Training organizations are typically required to set up and maintain multiple training rooms with complex software, hardware and network configurations or physically ship mobile labs to customer sites. While organizations strive to get the most value out of their software investments and accelerate knowledge transfer, they are under immense pressure to reduce per-seat training costs and eliminate travel expenses. Online collaboration solutions like WebEx partially address this challenge via voice conference and presentations tools; however they do not provide students with the opportunity to learn via interactive, hands-on training.

Skytap’s Virtual Training solution empowers training organizations to move existing classroom environments to the cloud without any application rewrites. Through a self-service Web user interface, trainers can centrally manage classroom images and assign access, usage, and security policies. As a result, trainers can create virtual machine configurations in the cloud in as little as 30 seconds to provide students with hands-on access to training labs and course materials. Using Skytap, organizations can accelerate training delivery, enable greater collaborate between teachers and students, increase productivity, reduce costs, and offer virtual training on par with physical classroom delivery models.

Traci Blowers, director of alliances and business development at Binary Tree, a leading provider of enterprise messaging migration software, said of Skytap, “We saw the Skytap Cloud as a means to provide our partners with 24×7 worldwide access to standardized training resources. Our subject matter experts can use Skytap’s self-service web user interface to provision new classrooms and run multiple classes instantly. Because Skytap is a cloud based service, Binary Tree can scale the number of virtual classrooms to match our business needs.”

“Noticeably absent from most online learning courses is the availability of a hands-on training environment, ” said Sundar Raghavan, chief product and marketing officer at Skytap. “Transforming training initiatives through the use of the cloud has proven to help trainers execute on their core mission of create engaging training classes, while significantly reducing costs and the hassle associated with physical classroom set up. Using Skytap Cloud, companies can accelerate training delivery by providing ‘learn from anywhere’ flexibility to students without sacrificing quality.”

For additional information on Skytap’s Virtual Training solution, please visit http://www.skytap.com/solutions/virtual-training.php.

About Skytap, Inc.

Skytap is the leading provider of self-service cloud automation solutions for dynamic workloads. Skytap enables users to run enterprise applications unchanged in the cloud, collaborate securely with global teams, and gain unparalleled business productivity. Additionally, IT organizations can gain visibility and control over cloud projects, align capacity with demand, and reduce costs by 70% or more. Enterprises can securely connect Skytap to their data centers and create hybrid clouds. Skytap is ideal for any dynamic workload including application development, testing, virtual training, application migration and sales demonstration projects. To buy or learn more, visit www.skytap.com.