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"We buy new releases centrally and at the store level," explains Steven Meisberger, vice president of IT and financial planning at Virgin Entertainment. "We have several buyers stationed at every location and they order what their customers want." Buyers place their orders online to an IBM AS/400 and vendors deliver the merchandise to the stores.

Virgin Entertainment's 10/100 swi tched Ethernet LAN connects to the frame relay WAN via Cisco Systems 4500-M and 776 SOHO (small office/home office) routers and Larscom Access-T 211 CSUs, according to Mark Booher, owner of Network Communications Solutions in Mesquite, Texas, and network integrator and designer for the Virgin Entertainment Group network. LanOptics StackNetPro hubs and Cisco Systems routers carry information from retail outlets to headquarters.

The company chose Microsoft Windows NT over Novell NetWare two years ago despite the industry trend, says Booher, and has never looked back. "NT provides a strong operating system to support future growth within the network," he says.

Virgin Entertainment greatly depends on JDA Software Group's point-of-sale software product line to organize inventory and keep track of retail activities within each of its 13 stores nationwide, Meisberger says. JDA's PC-based Distributed Store System handles purchase orders at the store level. The vendor's AS/400-based Merchandise Management System package provides inventory control for all transactions and stores pertinent data, according to Meisberger.

Virgin Entertainment's network also serves as the backbone for the company's intranet, giving employees quick access to important corporate information from any location. The data maintenance department manages all product SKUs and communications with vendors and transfers the resulting data into Microsoft Access databases or uploads it onto the AS/400. Virgin posts forms, user advertisement changes and deletion request documents on its intranet, Meisberger adds.

Future plans include moving Web site management in-house and developing an online catalog for customers to purchase product and employees to order from vendors.

For more information on the Virgin Entertainment Group, visit its Web site at www.virginusa.com.