Newton, NC -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/13/2010 -- Hancock, Mississippi’s Regional Educational Media Center #1 (REMC), provides the technology backbone for more than 10,000 students and 700 educators across two school districts. The Center manages one of the state’s largest networks - 4,000 workstations and 100 servers; it also provides network-wide Internet access, coordinates distance learning programs, and maintains a library of more than 4,000 media items. The job of ensuring that all network services are accessible and secure at all times falls to Mike Richardson, director of technology, who has been with REMC#1 for 14 years.

When students are involved, security is a high priority, particularly now that everyone has Internet access, so REMC #1 has for years entrusted frontline network security to the widely-respected AVG Anti-Virus solution.

“The only virus and spyware outbreaks we’ve seen since adopting AVG Anti-Virus have occurred on machines that, for some reason or another, did not have AVG Anti-Virus software installed,” says Richardson. “The machines running AVG Anti-Virus have never once had an issue with any kind of malware and the protection is so efficient, users barely know it’s even there.”

So when REMC#1 was nearing the end of their current license agreement earlier this year, Richardson says “we didn’t think twice about renewing our subscription with AVG Anti-Virus.”

The timing couldn’t have been better for Richardson and his team of 10 – and for a number of other school districts in the area.

“Several other school districts outside of our service area were also nearing the end of their AVG Anti-Virus subscriptions”, recalls Richardson. “They approached us to put together a consortium purchase so we could all get a better deal on the renewal price. But it wasn’t as easy as it first seemed. Different school districts had different requirements, and pulling together something this big and complex was going to be a nightmare of coordination to make sure everyone got what they wanted from the deal.”

Walling Data Tops in Service and Price
Richardson recognized that the best solution would be to find an external supplier who could do all the coordination for them. In the past, REMC #1 has purchased all their AVG Anti-Virus licenses directly from the developer, AVG Technologies, but this time he wanted to find an experienced educational distributor who could help him manage the massive order of 7,500 two-year licenses. After researching available options, Richardson came across Walling Data, North America’s longest-standing and highest-volume distributor of online security solutions, and decided to give them a call.

“When I called Walling Data, I was impressed right off the bat,” says Richardson. “Not only did they know the security products inside out, but they had a lot of experience in the education market. I spoke to a real person and explained our order, with various contracts with different end dates, and the immediate response was ‘No problem.’ When they gave me the quote a few minutes later, I was even more impressed - we were going to save 20 percent just by purchasing through Walling Data.”

And as if that were not enough, a number of consortium members actually ended up with licenses for longer than the two years on the quotation, because Walling agreed to extend the new renewal contract by the number of months remaining on the longest subscription contract held by one of the members.

“And to cap it all,” adds Richardson, “I learned that Walling Data provides free and unlimited product support for the life of the contract. By then, there was no doubt in my mind that we’d found the right supplier.”

Today, Richardson is still a big fan of AVG Anti-Virus and Walling Data.

“AVG Anti-Virus is still the best protection out there, in my opinion,” he says. “One of its best features is that it’s not a resource hog like some of the other anti-virus programs out there. We have a lot of really old machines, so AVG’s small footprint makes a tremendous difference.

“Looking back on our introduction to Walling Data, I don’t see how we could have gotten a better deal in price or service from anyone else. Walling’s support team is great and I’d recommend them to anyone any day.”

About Walling Data
North Carolina-based Walling Data, North America’s leader in security software distribution, is the nation’s first and highest volume distributor of both AVG Internet Security and avast! Internet Security products. It is widely recognized for providing unlimited, expert, US-based technical support services at no additional charge for its base of more than 100,000 reseller and end user customers. The company was founded in 1994 by Luke Walling. Learn more about Walling Data's distribution capabilities for your product line, or become a customer at http://www.wallingdata.com.

Learn more about AVG Internet Security products at http://www.avgantivirus.com.

About AVG Technologies
AVG is a global security solutions leader protecting more than 110 million consumers and small business computer users in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. Headquartered in Amsterdam, AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free online, downloadable software model allows entry-level users to gain basic anti-virus protection and then to easily and inexpensively upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense in both single and multi-user environments. Nearly 6,000 resellers, partners and distributors team with AVG globally including Amazon.com, CNET, Cisco, Ingram Micro, Play.com, Wal-Mart, and Yahoo!. More information at http://www.avg.com.