According to the ISBS report commissioned by PwC, Cybercrime has done a full u-turn and has increased over the past two years costing UK businesses billions of pounds.

With 83% of small businesses having an IT security incident in the last year, this is costing on average £27,500 – £55,000 for the single worst incident. Three times as many small businesses reported they were infected by viruses over the past two years compared with the report from 2008.

Although the report shows that half of the businesses questioned

You’re sitting pretty knowing that you backup your files to that new external hard drive you bought last year. You also copy your ‘My Documents’ directory onto the server every week.

But then you’re putting together Q4 sales figures and you spot that Q2′s sales figures aren’t in your master spreadsheet. That’s ok, you’ve got a backup, right?

Holes in Backups

You check the version on your external hard drive. Hmm… missing from that spreadsheet as well. The queasy feeling is beginning to set in. You have a nasty feeling that you’re going to find the same thing when you look on the

With many small and medium businesses looking to reduce costs due to the economic climate, many companies are turning to remote IT Support to achieve these cost savings.

IT Companiesuse remote IT support tools to support businesses from their own offices by securely connecting to PC’s, Servers and even phones across the internet.

While all businesses, (especially SME’s) continue to look for ways to reduce their costs, for many virtualization has become a key strategy for reducing expenditure.

Virtualization is a broad term but essentially it is the creation of virtual IT resources such as storage, server(s), a network, or even a workstation. For example you can take one physical server and run multiple instances of different operating systems on the one piece of hardware.

It is expected the use of virtualisation technology is set to increase by as much as up to 70% among SME’s (25- 100 users) over the next 2 years

You may hear the phrase “IT Managed Services” discussed on a regular basis, but what does it mean for you and your business?

Managed Services are typically delivered to your company by a third party IT Company. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) will provide outsourced IT support and management and become your trusted IT Partner not just a supplier.

A differentiator between a standard IT Support company and an MSP is that they are proactive in responding to issues and problems (often fixing them before you even know there is an issue) instead of a standard reactive service where they sit around waiting for you to ring them with an issue.

Typically services include:

• 24/7 Proactive Server & Network Monitoring


• Remote & On-site Server and Computer support


• Network Security


• Managed Anti-Virus & Spam protection.


• Help Desk Ticketing


• Guaranteed response times through SLA’s


• Data Backup & Disaster Recovery

It’s difficult to miss Microsoft’s marketing campaign for its latest Operating System Windows 7. Television adverts are streaming into people’s homes portraying that Windows 7 has been designed as a result of end user feedback. Whether this is the case or not, the demise of Vista has been swift and painful for Microsoft.

Many businesses have been delaying purchasing new hardware until 7′s arrival and a large majority of those that have been purchasing new PCs have been exercising their downgrade rights to install and continue to run on Windows XP.

So is now a good time to take the plunge and ditch XP? According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will “simplify the things you do every day, work the way you want, and make some exciting new things possible”. They then go on to state the following 10 reasons that you should make you think about a move to Windows 7.

• Get quicker access to all your stuff


• Do more and wait less


• Better compatibility


• Share files and printers among multiple PCs


• Stay entertained effortlessly


• Easily create and share movies


• Keep your PC better protected with fewer interruptions


• Touch and tap rather than point and click


• Support more TV, movies, videos and music in more ways


• Manage devices more easily

Most of these compelling reasons seem to be aimed at the home user market and the multimedia generation but it also answers some of the key criticisms that were aimed at Vista – compatibility issues and a complicated interface that led to user frustrations, it also adds native support for the latest touch screen devices.

Initial response from users has been very positive so should you upgrade now, wait for the usual Service Pack updates or stay with the tried and tested XP?

If you’re using an older computer running Windows XP, we suggest you first head over to Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. After downloading the free tool, run it to scan your PC for potential issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs. The tool will recommend actions you should take before you upgrade.

Once you’re ready to make the move, get ready to do some homework first. Just like Vista, Windows 7 comes in different editions. Weigh your options and find out which edition is right for you. If you find the process too complicated, don’t have the time, or if you’re thinking of upgrading many computers, why not contact us?