News...

The Blackthorn Trust are delighted to welcome Simon Luck and his team from Adept to the Garden Room at Blackthorn to demonstrate their Green IT Solution turning 1 PC into 8.

Would you like to use 87.5% less electricity and halve your computer costs with the first carbon-neutral PC?

Adept can help you cut energy consumption and costs, reduce your environmental impact, lower carbon emissions in-line with compliance requirements and save money on infrastructure.

Today's PCs use a fraction of their computing power and with Adept, they can help you harness this untapped resource. Adept's advanced software make use of this unused capacity so that up to 8 users can work from 1 single PC.

The event is taking place on Wednesday 4th May between 11am – 1pm giving Chamber members and local businesses a chance to see the system working.

The Blackthorn Trust Garden Café will be open for lunch, so why not stay and enjoy our beautiful garden setting before returning to the office? We are happy to reserve table in advance if required. Please call the café on 01622 722216.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Adept is pleased to annonce that they have opened a new office and Demo Suite in the centre of Maidstone.

The address is Link House, Knightrider Court, Maidstone, ME15 6LU.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Adept IT is pleased to launch SoftXpand – the ultimate, green, multiple-user PC solution. We would like to invite you to an exciting open day on Wednesday 9th February, which will showcase the technology to local education providers and businesses – in fact, anyone with more than one computer terminal.

SoftXpand allows users to run up to eight workstations from one personal computer – each user works on their own screen independently, as if working on a separate PC. SoftXpand appliances use just 16% of the energy a standard workstation may use. Benefits include-

• 50% reduction in PC purchase or replacement costs
• 87.5 less electricity consumption
• 87.5 less heat output

Our open day at the Innovation Centre Medway will demonstratehow your organisation could reduce its energy costs, meet environmental goals, cut energy consumption and costs, lower carbon emissions and meet compliance requirements.

In addition, there are massive savings to be made on PC infrastructure and installation. A large organisation such as a school could save thousands in the first year using SoftXpand - the solution pays for itself in the second year when integrated with a replacement loan from the Carbon Trust. [0% business loans of £3,000 - £100,000 are available from the Carbon Trust to help organisations purchase energy-saving equipment].

Contact us today for a private demonstration, or for more information on the open day, which takes place on Friday 3rd December at the Innovation Centre Medway, Maidstone Road, Chatham, ME5 9FD, from 10am-6pm.

Call or email us now for more information and to book a demonstration.

We will be sending out invitations in the New Year with more details.

We are still open for business and providing support to all of our clients.  Please continue to visit our website for further information.

Call or email us now for more information.

It could be the closure of your child's school, you may be snowed in, or your place of work is just too hard or dangerous to reach on the snowy and icy roads.

However, this shouldn't stop the job being done.  In today's virtual world there is no need to have the weather disrupt your business, you should consider your Emergency Plan and even possibly the way you work on a day to day basis.

So what can I do?
 
Cloud computing has made it easier than ever for us to stay in touch on the move, or from our own homes.

Google Apps - You can feed all your emails through Google Apps, it doesn't mean you can't still use your beloved Outlook as they sync with each other, but it does mean you can access your email account from your smart phone or any computer with an internet connection.  It also allows you to manage your diary, appointments and contacts.

CRM - You are no longer tied to the office with cloud based CRM, nor to just that one machine in the corner. With a cloud based CRM again you can access information via your smartphone or any computer with an internet connection.

Accounts - Your cashflow needn't be affected due to the bad weather, with a cloud based system like Xero you can actually auto generate repeating invoices, and invoice from your mobile phone if needed. I know of one client who was invoicing from her laptop in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport. 

Phones  - with a VoIP based telephone number you can answer your calls wherever you have a VoIP handset and internet connection, for a few pounds you can man your office from home.

So what's stopping you?

If you would like to discuss this further then please do contact us, we will be happy to chat through how we can take the stress from your shoulders and keep your business up and running even if you are stranded.

Call or email us now for more information.

Adept IT is pleased to launch SoftXpand – the ultimate, green, multiple-user PC solution. We would like to invite you to an exciting open day on Friday 3rd December, which will showcase the technology to local education providers and businesses – in fact, anyone with more than one computer terminal.

SoftXpand allows users to run up to eight workstations from one personal computer – each user works on their own screen independently, as if working on a separate PC. SoftXpand appliances use just 16% of the energy a standard workstation may use. Benefits include-

• 50% reduction in PC purchase or replacement costs
• 87.5 less electricity consumption
• 87.5 less heat output

Our open day at the Innovation Centre Medway will demonstratehow your organisation could reduce its energy costs, meet environmental goals, cut energy consumption and costs, lower carbon emissions and meet compliance requirements.

In addition, there are massive savings to be made on PC infrastructure and installation. A large organisation such as a school could save thousands in the first year using SoftXpand - the solution pays for itself in the second year when integrated with a replacement loan from the Carbon Trust. [0% business loans of £3,000 - £100,000 are available from the Carbon Trust to help organisations purchase energy-saving equipment].

Contact us today for a private demonstration, or for more information on the open day, which takes place on Friday 3rd December at the Innovation Centre Medway, Maidstone Road, Chatham, ME5 9FD, from 10am-6pm.

Call or email us now for more information and to book a demonstration.

You have to get energy costs under control and make sure energy limits won’t impact your ability to support business growth. You must also meet environmental goals. As the pressure to become more environmentally responsible increases, failure to focus on these goals can negatively affect your organization. 

We can help you cut energy consumption and costs, reduce your environmental impact, lower carbon emissions and meet compliance requirements and save money on infrastructure

Today's PC's use a fraction of their computing power and with SoftXpand we can help you harness this untapped resource. SoftXpand's advanced software algorithms makes use of this unused capacity so that up to 8 users can work from 1 single PC.

It is as though they where operating on 8 individual workstations. In fact each individual screen can perform more efficiently than an equivalent computer.

Replacing 6 standard desktop workstations with a 6 user SoftXpand Appliance could make a difference to the environment and savings in the following way:- 

• Reduce initial PC Purchase/Replacement Costs by 50%
• 83% less Electricity consumption
• 83% less Heat Output - reducing Aircon costs
• Save on IT staff and Maintenance costs (for 60 std desktops you now only need 10 SoftXpand Appliance's)
• 83% more Network switching capacity
• In some cases you may only need 1 software license for software
• Full User graphics/multimedia experience
• Improve performance of applications for end users.
• Less hardware to dispose of at end of life and lower disposal costs
• Supports your ISO 14001 Acceditation

Desktop Virtualisation

• Active Directory for Windows Servers
• Group Policy
• Roaming profiles as well as mandatory roaming profiles
• Restart and shutdown individual screens
• Full graphics and sound multimedia
• Different screens can operate at different screen resolutions

Easy to install

Each SoftXpand Appliance is powered by the latest Intel I3,I5 or I7 range of processors and is capable of full VGA/HD15 graphics.

Installation of the software is quick and easy, from installation of the software to operation takes approximately 5-10 minutes.

Powerful & flexible

Software applications work seamlessly and independantly at the same time woth SoftXpand Ecoware. Users do not need special training to operate the screens as the SoftXpand works quietly in the background.

SoftXpand Ecoware works with full graphic resolution support. If you didn't tell your users, they would think you had supplied them with new faster PC's and be totally unaware of the SoftXpand solution.

Economical & efficient

With SoftXpand Ecoware you have the ability of reducing your costs over the whole of your organisation whether it is for one office or several branches by up to 70%. A SoftXpand Appliance uses only 16% of the energy a standard workstation may use.

A larger organisation could save millions in the first year and the solutions pay for itself in the second year when integrated with a replacement Loan from the Carbon Trust.

Do you know how much a single PC costs to power in for one year, you would be amazed how much it costs you!!

Call or email us now for more information and to book a demonstration.

It announced on Monday that it had filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its ordinary shares. The number of shares to be offered and the price range were not disclosed.

Skype allows users access to encrypted voice over internet protocol (VoIP) technology so that they can make calls for free anywhere there is an internet connection. Some 124 million users spent 95 billion minutes calling friends, family and acquaintances, Skype said. Some 40% of its calls were video.

Skype has been a controversial company since its inception. It was founded in 2003 by Scandinavians entrepreneurs Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis using software developed by the file-sharing network KaZaa.

Online shopping site eBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.5bn, later selling it back to a group of investors that included Netscape founder Marc Andreesen for $1.9bn in 2009. Zennström and Friis joined the group after they claimed Skype was using proprietary technology they still owned.

The difficulties experienced by government signals intelligence agents in reading VoIP traffic, and Skype in particular, were cited as a reason for the UK government's plans to introduce a £12bn Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP).

Some believe that Skype has made a 'backdoor' available to security agencies so that they can monitor the traffic of 'people of interest'.

Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley will coordinate the listing. These three plus BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, Citigroup Global Markets, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) and Deutsche Bank Securities will help to place the shares.

Users of Outlook will be able to see the Facebook profile photos of their e-mail contacts, plus their news feeds, status updates, pictures uploads and wall posts.

Currently people will only be able to view Facebook pages rather than update them via their e-mail account.

The move follows an integration between Outlook and business network LinkedIn.

The add-on to Microsoft Outlook's Social Connector is available for download immediately.

Chris Adams, Microsoft's Office 2010 product manager said: "The Outlook Social Connector and providers from partners such as Facebook makes it easy and convenient for busy people to stay in touch with the people they care about."

Microsoft has long seen pulling the social web into its suite of products as a key part of its strategy.

Last year it launched Outlook Social Connector as part of its new Office 2010 software which went on sale in June.

Small to medium-sized businesses in particular are keen to take advantage of the latest technology trends, new applications and delivery models such as software-as-a-service – after all, these promise the ability to compete on a global scale and drive efficiencies and profitability.

But although you may well understand the critical role that IT is playing in your company, it’s likely you don’t have an internal IT department or dedicated resource to support, maintain and manage your increasingly complex networks, devices and infrastructure.

You need your IT to work – all the time – and using an outsourced IT service can give small to medium-sized businesses like yours the enterprise-level IT capabilities needed to help achieve business growth, reduce costs and maximise profitability.

Finding the right IT service provider for your business can be a tricky undertaking though, with numerous companies to chose from, seemingly offering the same type of service. Here are my tips on seven key questions you should ask to make sure you choose an IT service provider that will allow you to focus on what you know best: your business.

1. What level of customer service do they provide?

Having competent IT specialists working for your business is important, but how much help will they be if they aren’t accessible or are unable to explain your IT challenges in plain speak? Decent customer service can make your experience dealing with an IT services provider much more pleasant – and significantly more useful for your business. Ask the IT service provider about their service level agreements and whether they offer 24/7 support.

2. Can their staff offer expertise?

Highly trained staff is important to handle your day-to-day unique IT needs, but using technicians with extra in-depth expertise and knowledge means they can help you identify new or innovative ways to improve your IT capacities and functions. Hire the best of the best to help propel your business.

3. Do they offer fixed monthly pricing?

Managing costs is critical for smaller business, particularly in an unpredictable economic climate, so find out if the IT service provider can offer you a fixed monthly price for your IT support. They should be clear about what is included, such as number of visits to your office, and guarantee service level agreements (SLAs) so you get what you pay for. Paying by the hour can be expensive and may bring unexpected – and unwanted – surprises when the invoices start coming in.

4. Do they take a proactive approach?

Will your IT service provider be able to prevent issues before they affect you? If not, the chances are that you’ll be on the phone to them every five minutes when something goes wrong and they’ll spend the majority of their time – and your money – fire-fighting to put things right. Look beyond this break-fix approach and choose a provider that will protect and maintain your IT systems through real-time monitoring or automatic alerts, so they can respond rapidly to problems before they manifest themselves in your business.

5. Do they offer transparent reporting and analysis?

Using an IT service provider you can trust is important, but having access to information that gives you insight into the health of your IT system is much more advantageous. Analysing the performance of your systems, as well as your IT provider’s service levels, can help you gain a better understanding into your current IT needs as well as assess the effectiveness of your IT team and value they are – or aren’t – giving you.

6. Do they provide additional services?

Are there other ways the IT service provider can help your business? Perhaps they can be that one-stop shop for everything ‘IT’ and assist with you with new hardware and software procurement. Finding an IT service provider that will act as a key partner will definitely help you towards your business goals can go a long way in helping you achieve success.

7. Do they know your industry?

It’s not essential, but choosing an IT service provider that has experience working in your sector could be advantageous as they will be more familiar with applications that specifically designed for and used within your industry and the unique challenges you face. They will understand the varying importance of different aspects of your IT estate and will be better equipped to advise and help you get the most from your investment.

UK deployments of cloud computing will increase by almost four-fifths (78%) between now and 2012, research by the National Outsourcing Association claims.

The group’s research shows that businesses in the country will turn to the cloud – used in the NOA study to denote public, private and ‘hybrid’ cloud systems – primarily as a cost-saving strategy.

But as penetration – which the group defines as “percentage of IT infrastructure moved to the cloud” – in the UK currently sits at just 3%, the predicted 78% increase in deployments will still represent a small fraction of overall IT systems.

“Cloud computing looks set to continue its march into UK businesses over the next few years,” said Martyn Hart, chairman of the NOA. “However, it appears that there is still a long way to go before cloud becomes truly ubiquitous, as penetration is still fairly low. Being so new, users will need to ensure that they fully understand their options.”

Respondents to the NOA survey expressed concerns commonly associated with public cloud computing – 92% are worried about being ‘locked in’ to a single provider’s system while 75% have data security concerns.

(Source Information Age)

Today we’d like to share some details from an IDC White Paper sponsored by Microsoft worldwide research study, which explores the business value and return on investment (ROI) of Windows 7 for small and midsize businesses.

The study found that both end-users and IT managers reported faster reboots, shorter start-up times and fewer software failures with Windows 7 than previous versions of the operating system. Additionally, the research found that the majority of users reported significant time savings associated with many of the new features.

IDC’s research team conducted qualitative case study interviews, quantitative end user and IT manager surveys, and used an ROI model for Windows 7 deployment to generate their results. Through the Windows 7 ROI analysis and the end-user survey, research showed Windows 7 deployment resulted in positive changes in all measured categories, ultimately saving businesses time and money.

Researchers found the payback to companies started just after seven months and a return on investment of 375 percent. It showed that each user saves an average of about 43 hours total benefit per PC, annually.

Source IDC

The UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) found that the net audience now stands at 38.8 million, up from 36.9 million at the same time last year.

The majority of internet newbies were made up of over-50s, with more men than women joining up.

Net services are increasingly targeting the older generation.

"The internet is getting older in more ways than one. Not only is the medium itself maturing but the audience is shifting towards older age groups," said Alex Burmaster, speaking on behalf of UKOM.

"There is a still a perception that the net is youth-centric but this is clearly not the reality," he added.

Over-50s account for 31% of the UK net audience. Men over 50 accounted for 38% of the 1.9 million new surfers.

Women over 50 accounted for 15%, women aged 21-34 for 14%, while girls aged 12-20 made up 12% of the total.

The older generation are attracted to a range of sites, including travel, genealogy, fashion, video and community sites, according to UKOM.

Health website RealAge and community site Saga are among the most popular with an over-50s market share of 89% and 78% respectively

Source UKOM/Nielsen

Many business people are asking what these new tablet computers mean to their business, and their personal computing needs.

Tablets, and their target audience:

Tablets are not built to be business machines - the processor-intensive needs and extensive storage space required for most businesses are simply not provided in either the iPad, or upcoming slate computers like the HP Slate.

Where these tablets do excel is for personal use: if you have a computer at work, but only do light email, web surfing, eBook reading, watching videos or listening to music at home, a slate computer could be a perfect match for you. 

Benefits of the iPad:

The iPad is optimized for web surfing, multimedia and email.  It is portable, with a very bright and vibrant 9.7-inch display.  When needed, the iPad has an onscreen keyboard, which early reviews report works quite well for typing and data entry needs.

The iPad also offers benefits for the professional in their time off.  For instance, many broadsheets will offer iPad-specific versions of their newspaper, so you can read them with your morning coffee without the ink stains!

The iPad is also fairly powerful, with a 1 GHz A4 processor.  It's not likely to beat your existing laptop or desktop in terms of speed, but its processor is weighty enough that it can handle the specific needs of the iPad well. 

What's on the horizon for slate computers:

Apple has targeted a very specific audience with their product, and many more companies are now working to come up with competitive computers.  One of the most prominent on the horizon is the HP Slate.

The HP Slate will run on Windows 7, so if you're more comfortable with Windows than you are with Mac operating systems, it may be worth waiting for its release (later this year).

The HP Slate will be similar in size to the iPad, but will boast a faster processor, and a few new features that the iPad does not currently offer, including a built-in camera, an SD card slot, and a USB port. 

O2, which was Apple's exclusive UK partner for the iPhone, has introduced a monthly cap of up to 1GB (gigabyte) for data on new contracts.

This mirrors a similar recent move by rival Vodafone, and Three has also today announced a 1GB monthly cap.

Some observers expressed surprise at Three's decision to impose a limit.

Ben Wood, a mobile phone analyst at CCS Insight, said: "We had expected that Three would seek to differentiate its offer from rivals by offering bigger data bundles.

"It has obviously realised that this approcah would see heavy data users signing up and clogging up its network."

Orange has always imposed a 750MB monthly "fair usage" policy since it started to offer the iPhone in late 2009.

Some networks vary their data bundle between 500MB and 1GB per month, depending on the cost of the contract a user chooses.

A 1GB cap amounts to approximately two to three hundred MP3 song downloads in a month.

And a message on O2's website says that a user with a 500MB cap could send 1,000 e-mails with photos attached.

But data consumption grows very quickly when users start to stream video on their phones.

O2's website said: "If you're using lots of data and getting close to your network data limit, we'll let you know with a text message."

A spokesman for O2 told BBC News that once a user had hit the data limit, their connection would be throttled; users would still be able to send and receive e-mails, but would have difficulty in viewing video.

The firm said users would be able to top-up their limit, at a cost of £5 per extra 500MB.

The release concludes a long trial programme which saw details of its web-friendly features widely previewed.

Microsoft has also released cut-down versions of Office programs for the web and handsets that can be used by those who do not possess the "full" version.

Also included in Office 2010 are features that hook into popular social networking sites such as Facebook.

Office 2010 is being made available in a variety of formats suited to different groups of people. Microsoft said it expected the Home and Student version to sell for about £109 and the Professional edition for £429. Stand-alone versions of the programs making up Office are also available.

With Office 2010, Microsoft had worked hard to make a user's experience with the software as consistent as possible on the PC, web and mobiles, said Jacob Jaffe, a Microsoft spokesman. Web versions preserve the look and feel of documents and other files created with "full" versions of Office.

"It's important to have the same information show up no matter where and how I am accessing it," he said.

The web versions of the programs inside Office are immediately available to anyone who buys the software. Microsoft said ad-supported versions of these programs will be free to use for anyone with a Windows Live ID.

With the web versions of its popular programs, Microsoft is pitching itself into competition with rivals such as Google, Adobe and OpenOffice which offer web-based office software.

Despite the growth of these and other alternatives, Microsoft Office is still dominant inside businesses.

Microsoft said those that have been using the trial, or beta, version of Office 2010 can continue to use it until 31 October. At that point they can uninstall it in favour of a full version of the 2010 release, download a new trial or revert to an earlier version of Office.

(BBC; Tuesday, 15 June 2010 )

Cloud computing is essentially the management and provision of applications, information and data as a service. These services are provided over the internet, often on a consumption-based model.

Cloud computing provides a convenient way of accessing computing services, independent of the hardware you use or your physical location. It relieves the need to store information on your PC, mobile device or gadget with the assumption that the information can be quickly and easily accessed via the net. Cloud computing also negates the need to download or install dedicated software on your own computer, freeing up onboard memory and reducing energy costs.

You are probably already using cloud computing services without realizing it. Google is one of the most prominent companies offering software as a free online service to billions of users across the world. The internet giant hosts a set of online productivity tools and applications in the cloud such as email, word processing, calendars, photo sharing, and website creation tools.
Microsoft has also spent big bucks on cloud computing. In November 2009 the firm announced the availability of the Windows Azure platform - a consumption-based cloud computing service that provides web tools for businesses. Microsoft's Azure platform will bring the company closer to its "three screens and a cloud" vision.

On February 8, cloud computing company DiscCloud announced it was launching Flurry, the world's first-ever Mac OS X desktop cloud infrastructure. Flurry facilitates the instant delivery of content and applications to Mac users via the internet; it enables them to listen to their entire iTunes Library or run iWork (Apple's word processing suite) from the cloud.

Every day new start-ups are popping up offering their clients easier, better, faster and more secure options for cloud computing.

Analysts have indicated that future technology leaders will gravitate to cloud-based models as a way to deploy software and to store content. IT research analyst Gartner listed Cloud Computing as a key Strategic Technology Area for 2010 in its report on the top IT trends to watch in 2010.

In January 2010 ABI Research estimated that more than 240 million business customers will be using cloud computing services on mobile devices by 2015.

The trend points to PCs becoming a gateway into the cloud - removing the need for onboard storage and freeing consumers to leap from one device to another depending on their needs.

Consumers will no longer have to download and install memory-hogging applications and software on their device and will instead be able to access everything they need via a powerful internet browser. With this model, the majority of computing software will be rented on an as-needed basis instead of being bought as an expensive one-off purchase.