Tablet Computers in Business – What Are They Good For?

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Talking to a young – as in 21 years old – undergraduate friend the other day, the subject of tech trends came up.

He said something that struck me as odd because it seemed to fly in the face of experience.

His view was that there is a big question mark hanging over tablets – iPads and their Android equivalents – and this is: What are they actually for?

He took the view that they are really nothing more than a luxury, without the portability of a smart phone, or the capabilities of a good notebook. Tablets are nice, but they’re just not especially useful.

How to Transport Your Business Data Securely

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As a business you will know that keeping your data and that of your customers secure is vital.

Like me you probably react in amazement when you read in the news of yet another data breach as laptops, flash drives and external drives containing unencrypted files are left on trains, buses and park benches.

Carrying personal information or confidential information around on devices such as an unencrypted memory stick is clearly unwise business behaviour. But situations sometimes arise when you need to transport files from one location to another in a secure manner. So what are the options?

Why the Big Noise About Ruckus – WiFi comes of age!

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The great thing about WiFi is the portability it offers, right? You can move around your home or office and your device stays connected to the Internet – most of the time.

And for the convenience of portability we’ve always had to accept that we sacrifice a certain amount of reliability. Certainly that’s true compared to a rock-solid connection provided by a cable attached directly to your device. It’s a simple trade off.

Except that technological advances now mean that the trade off is no longer necessary.

5 Websites That Every Business Should Know About

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I was recently asked to come up with five websites that every business should know about.

Being limited to five is not easy, so I focused on sites that offer the potential to help small businesses reduce costs, save money or become more efficient.

From low cost conference calling when mobile, through to outsourcing and crowdsourcing design work, I hope you find my list useful..

Add a comment and let me know your top 5 sites

What’s So Great about Virtual Desktops for Business…and What’s Not

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You’ll see them referred to by a variety of names – we tend to call them Virtual desktops, but elsewhere they are Remote Desktops, Remote Virtual Desktops, or even Desktop as a Service, or DaaS.

Doesn’t matter because they’re all talking about the same thing – a personalised desktop, usually for an individual user, that can be accessed anywhere, on any device so long as there’s an Internet connection.

So, staff in a business access all the software they are so familiar with – such as Microsoft Office, their emails and so on, remotely be logging into a data centre. What a user sees on their device however is exactly the same as if they’d set up their own desktop and had installed software on their PC or notebook.

Private, Public or Hybrid – which Cloud is right for your business?

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Cloud is very much the buzz word these days and there are a lot of business out there considering it.

But what’s the difference between the types of cloud available?

Deciding what’s right for you is all about understanding the difference between the options and then costing them out for the individual needs of your business.

Here are the options and a brief overview of some of the pros and cons of each solution.

Cookie Crunch Time – What the new Cookie Directive means for your business

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On May 26, what many businesses will see as something of a Cookie Monster will come into being.

In short, new rules are going to affect every business with a website.

For many, the new rules will seem like just another piece of unwanted bureaucratic legislation from the EU designed to make business harder than ever.

Even so, non-compliance isn’t going to be an option because the consequences could be very costly indeed, with fines of up to £500,000.

Google Drive and the Business of The Cloud

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The imminent launch of Google Drive in Europe is set to become a major game changer for businesses.

And I think we can say that even though the service isn’t even fully live in Europe yet (it’s rolling out over the coming days).

For businesses, especially SMEs, this service, while not the first of its kind, nevertheless marks a milestone because it’s the first truly mainstream offering to be launched that takes file sharing to a new level.

Wireless Payment Solutions – Is Your Business Ready?

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Technology has always played an important part in shaping consumer buying behaviour. From the first e-commerce sites in the 90’s through to the rapid adoption of smartphones and the explosive growth of m-commerce.

I believe that there is another game changer on its way and if you deal with customers face-to-face and take payments from them, then you need to start thinking about this.

Should your business be going mobile and does it need an app?

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If your business sells online, here are some quick facts you might like to think about.

£19.3 billion will be spent via mobile phones by 2021 – up from £1.3 billion in 2011, according to Barclays Corporate research.

M-commerce is expected to grow 55 per cent over the next five years.

52 per cent of consumers already use mobile devices at one or more stages of the shopping process.

Video Conferencing for Business

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When you’re in business it can often be hard to find time for those all-important face-to-face meetings.

Picking up the phone is one solution, but sometimes more of a personal touch is needed.

So, when an in-person meeting is not possible, a workable alternative to the phone is a video conference call.

Video conference systems that once cost thousands of pounds have been replaced with far superior alternatives, with costs ranging from a few hundred pounds to, well, as cheap as completely free!. We look at three best options for SME’s

Mobile Technology and Your Business

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Mobile technology or, to be more precise, mobile communications technology, can revolutionise the way businesses operate. Many businesses have already discovered the benefits.

From the early pager, then the simple mobile phone to the PDA, we have moved into an era of smartphones, netbooks, notebooks and tablets. We might not know what the next market-moulding device is going to be, but we can be pretty sure it will be mobile.

What these devices all have in common is that they can be linked to a network that allows the user to access data whenever and wherever it’s needed.

The new generation of HP servers – a taste of things to come for all tech devices?

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How about this for a mouthful: “HP ProLiant Generation 8 servers feature embedded automation and intelligence that cut lifecycle operations tasks, facilities overhead and downtime costs.”

I can tell you something else that makes the HP generation 8 server special.

It’s got a green light on the front.

Why does that matter?

The reason is interesting because it sums up what’s so different about this amazing new-generation server.

ISV – Why it really matters to your business

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ISV certification might not be one of the first thing that springs to mind when they’re looking at buying workstations.

But, in my view, it should be. Ignoring ISV certification can be a costly mistake.

So, what exactly is ISV certification?

ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor.

Sharing Your Business Data with NAS

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If you’re a small business, you’ve probably wondered what is the most cost-effective way of sharing business files with the people you work with.

And, really, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

You can opt for storage in the Cloud, which is a great way to give everyone access to the same documents and data.

Or, if you have someone who has the necessary IT skills and you need the computing power, you can invest in a server.

But there’s another relatively cheap and effective choice that can be very attractive to a small business – and that’s using NAS storage.