Glo Networks Technical Blog (Glo Blog)

Recent research by hardware manufacturer Intel (and supported by the Confederation of British Industry) has highlighted the lack of investment and expertise in IT in small businesses in the UK. Their study of 3000 IT decision makers for businesses of 250 users or less shows:

• the majority still use fax machines more than smart phones
• a large percentage expose themselves to security risks by using personal laptops and mobile devices for work and are unaware of the data protection rules they’re potentially breaking by doing so
• most did not know what ‘the cloud’ is, even those that were using it already (e.g via Gmail)

There were several other worrying facts relating to investment in IT equipment (a third do not intend to buy new laptops or tablets for at least a year) and security (two thirds spend under 10% of their IT budget on protecting against attacks).

It’s disappointing that in this digital age many small businesses still do not appreciate the efficiency improvements that can be attained by updating IT infrastructure or the importance of maintaining IT security. At Glo Networks we are proud that none of our customers fall into this group (and those that may have previously have had our help to make the required improvements). Don’t let your business your business be one of those stuck in the IT ‘dark age’!

Posted by James in Desktop Hardware, Desktops and Laptops, General, Hardware, Laptop Hardware, Mobile, Servers, Small Business Software | No Comments »

Microsoft have announced they are updating pricing for Hosted BlackBerry Service for Exchange Online. Soon this service will be available free of charge to BPOS subscribers (new and existing).  The Hosted BlackBerry service offers increased functionality compared to the other, already free option: BlackBerry Internet Service.

Previously BPOS users who access their email via the free BlackBerry Internet Service were limited to wireless email access, pushed from the mobile operator. Other information, such as contacts and calendar data had to be updated through a wired connection.

Hosted Blackberry services allows wireless access to e-mail, calendar, tasks and contacts with global address list (GAL) integration, and device management such as device wipe and password reset.

By scrapping the current Hosted BlackBerry services pricing structure and moving towards a free service for BPOS subscribers, Microsoft will be hoping to see businesses that have come to like and possibly rely on their BlackBerry looking on the BPOS (and Office 365 in the future) offerings more favourably.

Posted by James in Applications, General, Small Business Software | 1 Comment »

Microsoft have recently announced a new edition to their Office suites: Office 365. While there isn’t a great deal of information available it looks set to combine the elements of the Microsoft Online Services suite (Exchange Online,  Sharepoint Online and Lync Online) with the desktop Office suite (at least the Enterprise level product has the desktop suite, the Small Business only has the browser based Office Web Apps) .

The pricing structure is a monthly subscription/rental, reflecting the online ‘cloud’ based nature of the Online Services applications. While we can see the benefit for those who are already using or planning to use Microsoft Online Services (essentially a free licence for Office Professional Plus per user whilst they are subscribed) at present we cannot see any major attraction for new customers.

Whilst we still have many unanswered questions about Office 365 (primarily regards deployment in terminal server environments) what’s evident is Microsoft are trying to entice more customers to embrace their Online Services ‘cloud’ based solutions.

Posted by James in Applications, Servers, Small Business Software | 1 Comment »

Glo Networks are about to launch their new online backup solution. In the past we’ve used and resold solutions by some of the worlds biggest players but always found their costs and feature set clashing.

How would you like a fully managed backup for your desktop with 10GB of data for under £13 per month ?

More info later this week ….

Posted by Chris in Desktops and Laptops, Operating Systems, Operating Systems, Servers, Small Business Software, Software | 4 Comments »

SBS 2008 both standard and premium are now released to manufacturing, and will be widely available by the 12th november launch date.

SBS 2008 promises to be more powerful and secure, bringing new tools to manage domain names and data folders.

• It is also bringing in new single CALs making SBS licensing more flexable and cost-effective.
• improved manageability with monotoring not only servers but client PC’s as well with customizable reports.
• SBS 2008 Premium also comes with SQL 2008 and a second Server 2008 license (SQL 2008 needs its own server to run on)
• New block-based server protection that can complete backing up your system in minutes rather than hours.
• Improved remote web workplace, intergration of new SharePoint and support for the newest Windows Mobile devices.

All sounds very good, we will be test it out and blogging about it shortly.

Posted by Dave in Operating Systems, Small Business Software | 1 Comment »