Powerware Corporation, formerly known as Exide Electronics, designs and manufactures innovative, end-to-end power protection and management solutions -- many of which are deployed by a broad range of businesses and institutions worldwide. The company differentiates itself on several levels, but it is particularly known for its solutions approach to solving everyday power problems, simply and efficiently. Drawing upon a vast array of resources and experience, Powerware has earned a solid reputation for performance that gives customers added confidence in their technology investments.

Powerware integrates a full line of uninterruptible power systems (UPS), power management software and services, allowing customers to easily manage power in a way that increases enterprise-wide systems availability. Its products are typically used in networking, PC, financial, medical, industrial, voice and data communications, military and aerospace applications - wherever continuous power is essential to daily operations.

Powerware offers one of the largest portfolios of power-protection products in the industry. The company dominates several commercial and federal government markets. It is also the market share leader in supplying UPS products and services for resale to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). These OEMs, which include many of the largest computer and networking companies in the world, frequently list Powerware products as the default UPS on their solutions configurators.

In 2001, Powerware was faced with a growing problem of providing “live” demos of their UPS equipment to customers in locations outside of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.  The size of the equipment made taking the units on a “road show” costly and impractical.  Sending sales support engineers to every VAR sales call was costing the company in travel expenses.  In addition, each trip was limited to one or two presentations over a two-day period.

Powerware needed a way to have their sales engineers to more productive, more responsive, and less expensive.  Bluemoon Design, Inc. and William Bell Five Inc. worked with a team at Powerware to develop a solution.  From this came the Powerware Online Sales Tool.

Using 3D Studio MAX, Troy constructed, refined and optimized the 3D models for use within the Macromedia™ Shockwave3D. Because the application would be real-time, polygon count was reduced, and items within the scene were broken into separate entities so that movement of specific parts could occur. After the scenes had been optimized, Ken imported the file seamlessly into William Bell Five's custom 3D SIM authoring tool.

The next step in the process was to script the movement.  Although other CAD applications allow movies or animations, the 3D SIM tool creates immersive 3D simulations and can communicate concepts such as machine assembly and maintenance more completely. It contains a number of animation behaviors, and its export to Shockwave3D feature allowed Ken to use the Lingo scripting language to build customized scene behaviors and integrate the entire application with the Macromedia Multi-user Server (MUS). 

“Macromedia Director™ is a terrific multimedia development tool,” says Ken.  It provides support for Flash™, video, audio, graphics, 3D, and dynamic imaging.  The Powerware application required all of these.

One of the biggest challenges to the project revolved around the sounds the Powerware machines make during operation.  Much of what happens with their equipment is not visual.  The sounds of the machines turning on and off, the breakers opening and closing, the alarms, and other sound effects were critical to demonstrating the units.  Through custom 3D sound behaviors and Director’s support for Microsoft’s DirectSound, William Bell Five was able to create an audio environment that really brought the demonstration room to life.

Before this application was created, Powerware estimated it was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to lost sales and travel expenses. On-site visits and training sessions were preventing the company from developing a cost-efficient solution to supporting and training VARs and maintaining solid client relationships based on the Powerware brand. Using the multi-user 3D presentation application, Powerware can now look at solving its future demonstration, training, and maintenance needs.

Entire equipment configurations can be demonstrated to customers around the world without requiring the sales engineer to travel.  The combination of constant corporate communications and “hands on” sales support means the VARs have Powerware with them each step of the way.  Powerware is pleased with the results. "Blue Moon and William Bell Five are helping us realize the potential of real-time 3D business applications here at Powerware," said Lou Signorelli, Powerware Corporation. "Combining Shockwave3D technology and his development experience, he has delivered an exciting product with great potential future benefit."

"We have made developing integrated, multi-user visual applications a reality for businesses," says Ken Hubbell. "Using a component approach to 3D programming and modeling makes it possible to link a virtual 3D interface to real time data in a cost effective and timely manner."  Rapid development time means a faster return on a business investment. Interactive 3D sales support and training using the Shockwave3D gives you the most portable and affordable way to create interactive training applications that can be easily updated over the web or by email.  It is the next best thing to being there!

For more information, contact: Ken Hubbell

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