Industry analyst IDC predicts that the global economic recession will have a dramatic impact on small and mid-sized companies. But that doesn’t means these companies will stop spending on information technology (IT).

“Small and mid-sized businesses…will be increasingly interested in the productivity gains made possible by advanced technology,” said Raymond Boggs, vice president of SMB research at IDC. “New mobile communications solutions, videoconferencing, and online resources will be especially attractive, as will alternative approaches to technology acquisition and deployment.”

The reason, says IDC, is that these advanced technologies can help reduce costs and provide growing businesses with an important competitive edge.

One way to gain access to these advanced IT technologies is through Managed Services, which offers smaller companies access to and quick deployment of affordable best-of-breed technologies. Managed Services is cost-effective because it offers companies a way to make use of precious capital by fulfilling their IT needs on a pay-per-use basis.

Who can benefit from Managed Services?

• Smaller companies that don’t employ dedicated IT staff but want to take advantage of the latest developments in security, backups, messaging, and business communications.

• Mid-size companies with some in-house IT staff that want to see productivity gains among by eliminating problems and downtime.

Contact us for more information about how our Managed Services can increase your productivity while saving your money.

Yesterday I attended the TCA Conference at the Walkers Stadium in Leicester.

I was invited to the attend the TCA Conference  which was run in Conjunction with the CompTIA by William Linard.

As a member of CompTIA, I was also invited to attend the Reseller forum which is where a group of about 25 business owners from all aspects of the IT industry who sat at a round table event to discuss various aspects of business issues, such as Managed Services, Vendor Relationships and how to become the “Trusted Advisor” to our customers.

After the reseller forum which lasted a few hours, the actual conference started and there were some very interesting speakers, such as Matthew Poyiadgi, from CompTIA. (Personally I think Matthew is undoubtedly one of the BEST speakers I have ever heard). He spoke about  the current state of technology and where we are going as an industry.  He also  spoke about how we need to embracing  Social networking sites such as Twitter, FaceBook and Linked in to reach new customers and communicate with existing customers. Not sure if they recorded the event but if you get a chance to hear it, do yourself a favour and listen to it.. IT REALLY WILL CHANGE YOUR THINKING

There were a number of other speakers  during the course of the day, including David Atherton the founder of DABS.Com. This talk was an “interview style” where Keith Warburton of the TCA asked a number of questions about how David started the company and how he went on to sell it to BT for millions of Pounds. I was particularly interested in this talk  because when a guy who has made it that successful in business talks about his success, I SIT UP AND LISTEN. I was very inspired by this talk even though it was right at the end of the day and I was flagging by then, and thinking about the very long train journey home

For the duration of the Event , there  were a number of Exhibitors  such as Kaseya, Samsung, and Kingston to name but a few and we had ample time during breaks to talk to them about some of the new products and services on offer.  One of the products I was particularly interested in, was the Solid State Drives from Kingston. They had 2 laptops on their booth, where they had 1 with a standard hard drive and one with an SSD installed.  We booted them both at the same time and I was jaw droppingly fascinated at how much faster the SSD Drive was over the standard drives.. All I could say was WOW I am impressed…  the drives I am talking about is the SSD upgrade kit .

It was great to be able to catch up with some old familiar faces and meet some new people too.  I was able to engage with a lot of fellow collegues of teh small business specialist community and people whom I very much respect, such as Richard Tubb,  Andy Parkes, James Harbidge and Rob Franklin

Overall it was a fantastic day, with lots to do and lots to see. I was extremely impressed by the quality of the day and the sponsors/speakers. Both CompTIA and TCA put on a fantastic show which I will definitely attend again next year.

Thank you to everyone at the CompTIA for the hard work they did in organising the event. If  any of the other events that they put on again are as good as this, I will definitely be there, and suggest that you go too.