Category Archives: Software

Companies Can’t Ignore SEPA Any Longer

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By Helen Thomas, Head of Enterprise Accounts & Services, GFT UK

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) isn’t going to go away, so companies need to put a strategy in place and not simply ignore it – the deadline is not a moving target!

The European Parliament passed legislation way back in 2012 requiring all euro-dominated transfers and direct debits to comply with the SEPA technical format. The idea being that standardised transaction across the 32 European countries will save time and money. The deadline is 1 February 2014. The European Central Bank (ECB) has said the deadline is set in stone and can’t be changed, even if it wanted to, as it is already passed in law. So beyond this date banks will not be able to process non-compliant transactions.

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Open Source Becoming More Of An Eye Opener

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By James Passingham, Technical Services Director for independent managed communications provider, Foehn – www.foehn.co.uk

More and more businesses are turning to ‘open source’ IT and telephony solutions for a variety of reasons, among them significant cost savings and the flexibility to manage systems such as scaling up or down, according to business needs.

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5 Top Tips For Negotiating With Your Software Vendors

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By Martin Prendergast, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Concorde Solutions

Whilst the economy at home and abroad is showing slight signs of recovery, it’s fair to say that the majority of businesses are still feeling the pinch of recession. Budgets are still being squeezed like never before, and making sure that investments represent value is nearing the top of the CIO’s ever-growing list of responsibilities.

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Office365: Taking Your On-premise Problems into the Cloud

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By David Gildeh, Director of Cloud Services for Alfresco

Users trying Office365 will immediately be struck by how familiar Office365 is to their on-premise counterparts, Exchange and SharePoint. While Microsoft took a tactical move to repurpose their existing products, they failed to understand the three key rules of cloud software, which is why users will find Office365 lacking compared to other offerings and your investment will struggle to get the adoption required. Continue reading →

Thinking big with cloud software

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By Darren Fell is an entrepreneur and MD/ founder of Crunch Accounting

 

Scaling is a crucial stage for any young business. You’ve got a decent customer base, a steady income and a couple of staff – now’s the time to think big, right?

 

Scaling has traditionally meant buying costly new IT equipment, paying out a small fortune in software licenses and taking on dedicated IT staff to manage it all. These additional costs have traditionally made scaling a costly and complex transition for small businesses.

 

Thankfully, modern cloud computing solutions have removed the need for dedicated IT systems and alleviated many of the associated costs, making scaling your business significantly easier, and cheaper!

 

Take the oldest and most necessary desktop suite, Microsoft Office. This family of programmes will set you back a few hundred pounds per user – and that’s without factoring in the costs of the hardware in will run on and an Exchange Server to handle your office email systems.

 

For those who can forego the more in-depth features of Office, there is Google Apps. This cloud suite offers web-based email, calendar and productivity tools that are comparable, and in many ways superior, to Office’s. Best of all, Google Apps is completely free for companies with up to ten employees, and available on a cheap subscription basis for those needing more capacity.

 

All the hosting and tech support is taken care of for you – all you need is a browser.

There are other ways cloud solutions can pay dividends too. Without numerous desktop applications weighing down your office computers you can do without expensive top-of-the-line hardware, and all software upgrades are included in your subscription fee, meaning you won’t have to fork out for the newest version every few years.

 

New cloud services are springing up every day to offer a cheap, hassle-free alternative to desktop software. When scaling your business, before dropping thousands of pounds on a clunky desktop solution, have a look around for a similar cloud offering. You’ll usually find they are more user-friendly and much, much cheaper.

 

There are many other elements of your business, which can be moved to the cloud, such as:

 

Project Management

 

Forget email chains and Gantt Charts – these days the simplest way to stay on top of your workload is through simple web apps like BaseCamp. Basecamp allow managers to create tasks, assign them to employees and track progress through comments and due dates.

 

Not only is it simple and cheap (pricing starts at around £12 per month), since its recent relaunch BaseCamp is quite beautiful too.

 

Customer Feedback

 

Customer feedback has always been a stilted, one-on-one affair when carried out over phone or email. No longer, with cloud solutions like UserVoice or ZenDesk. These systems create forums where your customers can suggest, discuss and vote on improvements to your products or services.

 

Your team can get involved in the discourse, and this back-and-forth creates a real sense of value for your customers – as well as a better product, which takes customer feedback into account in a completely transparent way.

 

File Sharing

 

If you’re doing away with your noisy, expensive in-office server you’ll need somewhere else to put your shared folders, and there are plenty of cloud options to choose from! Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive and the newly-launched Google Drive all offer varying levels of storage at different price points, but they’re all modern and accessible cloud solutions that make sharing anything a piece of cake.

 

All you need is an email address and you can share any individual file or folder with another person, and Dropbox even syncs the files to your desktop, so you don’t even need a network connection to get hold of your shared items.

Demystifying ‘Application Performance Management’

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By Thierry Grenot – EVP & co-founder

During the London Olympics, thousands of tourists descended en-masse to the city, and the telephone and data networks were placed under enormous pressure. They had to deal with far more traffic than normal, and they couldn’t always cope.

The Olympic opening ceremony in Hyde Park proved an example of what happens when network capacity isn’t sufficient to meet the demands of users accessing data hungry applications. A huge number of viewers congregated in one specific area, and with so many of them using mobiles to make calls, access the internet or use location services it was only a matter of time before the networks had reached capacity. Theresult? Many people didn’t have their calls connected, or were denied access to the internet suffering slowness or non-responsiveness. Cue much disgruntlement.

Now translate the Hyde Park example to a business environment where we are talking about the fixed company data network. Fewer trees, but a similar concept. Business users will be utilising applications (such as video conferencing, or YouTube, say), and these will all be running via the company’s network. Too many applications running at once, and some won’t have a big enough share of network bandwidth and will either fail to function or their performance will be impacted. And when business-critical applications fail, you have a productivity problem. It’s no longer a consumer being unable to use Google Maps, but rather a call centre agent unable to log a customer’s order in the SAAS (Software As A Service) CRM system.

So ‘Application Performance Management’ essentially offers IT teams the chance to take control of their networks, and dictate which applications can have priority access to the company’s allocated bandwidth. You don’t want an international video conference call to cut out because another user is avidly streaming videos of the latest craze on YouTube.

So at its most fundamental level Application Performance Management boils down to two things:

1) Having transparency over the network, (and being able to see exactly which applications are running, and how much bandwidth they’re utilising)

2) Being able to control application performance by making sure the business critical ones take precedence in line with the company’s goals and user needs

The result? Companies can enjoy faster and more efficient running of their apps, and be in a position to foresee network issues before they become a major threat to company productivity. When put that way, the grass seems greener, no?

What Can Open Source Do For You?

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By David Blakey, CEO and founder of Snapt

 

Traditionally business has been resistant to the idea of using open source software within the organisation, even if the IT team is more convinced of its benefits. Perhaps it doesn’t conform to the enterprise understanding of easy-to-use, secure, reliable, and tested? If there isn’t a large corporate supporting the software, who can you turn to when it goes wrong?

 

Nevertheless, the pressure for innovation and to reduce costs remains an IT problem. So can open source help to ease this burden? Can IT convince the business that open source could work for them?

 

Sceptics might argue that although open source is cheap, there are hidden costs. You need an army of techies to understand and manage it. Is it not better to pay for licensed software which is proven to be reliable, trustworthy and better supported? This is to underestimate the ever-observant open source community and the necessarily transparent development process that the software goes through. The huge scale of the community working in open source also means that providers can adopt hardware and software developments quickly as they emerge through open source, without having the to deal with the complex and expensive job of reconfiguring bespoke and legacy systems. So it’s more efficient than licensed software?

 

It’s also innovative. The nature of the open source community means that businesses can also take advantage of innovative solutions that come down the open source trail, which may well have been out of budget under the proprietary model.

 

The support issue has held back business from truly adopting open source in the past. Today however, alternatives to expensive, closed-source software are springing up. By customising and enhancing Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), these businesses are creating the quality interface, reporting capacity and expert support you would expect from commercial software packages, but in the cheaper open source technology.This is the true revolution in open source. 

 

This approach also makes FOSS a more open and flexible environment for business users, providing an agile way of meeting business demands via reduced software development cycles. The organisation can tweak and modify it to suit their needs, something they can’t do with proprietary software. This means that they can create a more efficient IT environment for their business. Open source software in general is much less resource-intensive, meaning it works well on the latest as well as older hardware.  This enables IT departments to budget hardware upgrades accordingly. Additionally open source software tends to be much better at adhering to open standards, meaning it is far more interoperable with in-house customer solutions.  

So if there are not hidden management costs, is it truly secure? Of the compelling advantages that open source presents to stressed IT departments, more so than the software price-tag, is security. Although there is no big corporate supporting and testing the software, in fact bugs in open source software tend to get fixed immediately, perhaps because there are far more eye-balls fixing and testing it than proprietary software. 

 

Open source has grown up. It’s now a mature solution that the business can no longer ignore. IT departments are not going to go away but the pressures can be significantly eased by judicious use of open source. Isn’t it time business was convinced of this?

 

The Perks of Windows 8

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Robert Rutherford, founder and Managing Director of QuoStar Solutions comments on the upcoming release of Windows 8:

Most businesses will not gain anything from moving to Windows 8 from Windows 7, but that is not to say that there is little difference between them. Windows 8 is all new, not so much at the core, but in terms of user experience it’s different, completely different. There lies the biggest issue. Many will remember the pain of moving to Microsoft Office 2007: the change was vast and caused a raft of training and productivity issues. The new Microsoft Metro interface is similar to the iPad. It is pane-based, yet it still needs to flick back to the old desktop system as most applications aren’t designed for it. That’s a good thing, but you can expect the old desktop to slowly evaporate in later releases when people get used to it. In general, people don’t like change.

So, what’s the case for Windows 8? Well, it’s a good choice for those businesses that need to move from XP. Windows XP is going end-of-life from a product and support perspective in early 2014, so many businesses are going to have to make a move. In terms of timing, Microsoft has got the product launch down to a T. Windows 7 is a very good operating system from a business perspective, but Windows 8 has landed at a time that creates a dilemma for many, mainly due to the fact that there are still a huge amount of Windows XP estates out there.

The case against? Don’t forget training – and don’t underestimate how important it is. Yes, people may be able to use PCs and applications now, but that’s because they’ve had PCs at home for the last 15 years or so. However, many can only navigate around as they know the environment, which hasn’t really changed very much since Windows 95. Yes, a good percentage will be able to work it out, but many will struggle.

Finally, a curveball: the interface may be different, but I remember how horrified everyone was with the Windows XP interface. After Service Pack 1 it was a perfect product for laptops, and once laptops were all on it, it made the jump to the desktops. This was pushed even further with the release of Windows Server 2003. Don’t forget that Windows Server 2012 is here. We may very well see the XP/2003 scenario replicated with Windows 8, starting from the tablets.

The general rule of thumb will be – stick with Windows 7 if you are already there – no matter what size of business. If you are using tablets (or want to use more tablets) then you may want to try Windows 8, but still leave the rest of your PC estate on Windows 7. It’s a solid platform and you don’t need to move; I’d still keep buying PC‘s and laptops with Windows 7 for at least the next 18 months to two years. Don’t forget that new operating systems take time to iron out the bugs, at least until the first service pack is released, and then a good few months after that.

Some techy stuff:

Hardware compatibility has been drastically improved. Virtually any PC or laptop that will run Windows 7 will run Windows 8. Also, many PCs running Windows XP will also run Windows 8. That’s a big jump from the past, where you’d have to update your whole environment to move to a new operating system. It’s also much better at managing memory, so opening and upgrading PC and laptop RAM shouldn’t be necessary. That hurts the hardware manufacturers, but it helps businesses. A lovely new feature is Windows to Go. It lets you boot into Windows 8 from a USB disk on another PC that is running Windows 8. When you log-off that PC or laptop, you leave no trace of your data. That may seem like a small feature, but it’s pretty big in terms of security.

Windows 8 – What’s New

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By  Duncan McAuley from VIP Computers

There is a real buzz in the IT industry at the moment awaiting the launch of Windows 8, especially as it seems that consumers, businesses and PC manufacturers have all stalled any new investment awaiting Microsoft’s new operating system.

Windows 8 is expected to stimulate spending in the PC industry, which has experienced the largest decline year-on-year for 11 years. Its all about total and seamless connectivity and as a result we will see a large number of devices hit the market that take advantage of this functionality, especially touch screen displays.

Windows 8 is also expected to pique interest in ultrabooks too. Ultrabooks are super-slim, super mobile notebooks — essentially the PC market’s response to Apple’s MacBook Air. Ultrabooks have had a slow start, but it’s still early in the Ultrabook game. But there are synergies between Windows 8 and Ultrabooks, as users seek to create and manage content on touch-powered Ultrabooks and other form factors.

Business customers will be interested in upgrading to the new operating system as there are a number of new features that lend themselves to businesses, such as enhanced end-to-end security and virtualisation and management.

Windows 8 offers businesses:

-          faster boot times

-          more secure

-          longer battery life

-          better performance

-          faster wi-fi connection

-          -multi-monitor improvements

-          more powerful file explorer

-          improved task manager

With businesses also under increasing pressure to deliver mobile solutions, they are currently facing application nightmares with iPads and Android-based tablets, because they need two sets of applications and two sets of management technologies. This is a real entry point for Windows 8.

The upside to this, is in the form of the iTunes-like Windows Store, which Microsoft hopes will become just as successful as Apple’s App Store. Microsoft have realised that they need to develop the application system to make Windows 8 successful.

Although the Windows Store may not be packed full of apps at the launch, I think it will be quickly full of apps that will really help businesses improve productivity, especially for tablet users or those working remotely.

Software License Optimisation For Small Firms

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Software licencing is a minefield. The lack of standardisation in the industry means that businesses have to grapple with a wide variety of complexities as a result of software publishers either constantly changing their licence regulations, or integrating new licencing models due to the likes of virtualisation technology, which is revolutionising the way all sizes of organisations manage their IT estate. This complex and severe approach to licencing is also likely to be more pronounced in the current economic climate as software publishers strive to protect their revenues via their licencing agreements.

The fact remains that for businesses, software costs are unavoidable. Studies show that 30% or more of IT budgets are consumed by software licence and maintenance. With this in mind, licence optimisation should be a proactive and ongoing activity, not just a reactive and event-based one.  Going past simple software asset management, licence optimisation enables businesses to understand not just what software it has installed, but ties together information on what is actually being used, and how that usage ties back to the licence entitlements enumerated in the software license agreement.  When software assets are managed and optimised in this way, most organisations enjoy reduced licence consumption and more efficient utilisation of software assets. It provides the fastest return on a software asset management investment.

These and a few other simple guidelines will prepare an organisation for potential audits and establish a foundation for true license optimisation.

1.    Define software asset management policies

It’s critical for IT organisations to define and implement software asset and licence management policies and procedures to be followed throughout the business. ISO and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) standards prescribe Software Asset Management (SAM) best practices to aid in this process. This means that there must be specific policies on every aspect of SAM, with an aim to reduce IT costs and limit the business and legal risk related to the ownership of software, while maximizing IT responsiveness and end user productivity.

An example of this, is the need for processes to be put place to prevent shareware and freeware installations such as Adobe Acrobat,  which can inadvertently lead to licencing liabilities, as well as to validate software installation and upgrades. In addition, educating employees on what they “may” or “may not” install will prevent rogue installations, which often jeopardise enterprises’ compliance status.

Using tools that automate licencing procedures is a good way of ensuring adherence to compliance regulation. They will help businesses understand their licencing position by matching installed versus purchased software. This will also help ascertain over-buying or under-buying and often enable re-purposing of licences – reassigning licenses from users who are not actually using the software, to those who need it but don’t have it —  resulting in cost savings.

Finally, to make sure these SAM policies are indeed effective, undertaking periodic internal audits is highly recommended. This will not only ensure that the enterprise is always “audit-ready”, but also reinforce the importance to adhering to IT policy to employees.

2.    Focus on the major software publishers

The highest value applications and the largest software publishers such as Adobe, Oracle, Microsoft, Autodesk and Symantec, pose the utmost risk of audits. These publishers represent the largest potential unbudgeted expense if businesses find themselves out of compliance, post a vendor audit.

However, at the same time, by concentrating on these large publishers, businesses will be able to optimise the use of owned licences, avoid paying for unused licences, and even place themselves in a strong negotiating position with these vendors. They will be able to re-allocate licences to other locations and departments; re-harvest licences or reclaim unused licences for use on other computers; as well as gather data of software usage prior to contract renewal to use as leverage. All these measures could potentially result in significant cost savings.

3.     Carefully monitor virtual IT environments

Virtualisation is the biggest IT trend today and is the key enabler to the Cloud, but software licencing is often forgotten or under-managed in virtualised environments. The risk of licence non-compliance is greatly increased in virtual environments for two main reasons – it’s easy to create new virtual machines running copies of operating systems and software applications; and software publishers have adopted licencing rules for virtual environments that add significant complexity to the already complicated task of managing software licences.

4.     Understand software publisher licence rules and usage rights

Usage rights of software can significantly impact an organisation’s licence position., Simply put, usage rights define what can be done with a piece of software and at what levels or numbers. Businesses should take full advantage of usage rights, including their rights to upgrade or rights of second usage where existing licences allows use of a software application on more than one machine per user, which avoids over-spending on licences and maintenance. Equally, it is crucial that licence usage restrictions are applied to stay within compliance. 

By Vincent Smyth, General Manager EMEA, Flexera Software