March-April 2010 - Chamber of Commerce Article - posted by Tony on 9th Mar 2010

Technology Tip - Cloud Computing Revisited - A year ago I wrote a column about Cloud Computing. In the article I said that Cloud Computing is here to stay and that with the right advice and guidance businesses will be able to take advantage of this technology and run IT Operations more efficiently and at a lower cost.

Even at Computer Strategies we have been surprised to see how rapidly Cloud Computing has taken off. In the last few months we have released a number of Cloud based products and services that we are really excited about.

Apart from providing our clients with really exciting and innovative products and services these offerings are very cost effective. In many cases big savings can be made when cloud based products replace existing in house products and services, and in other cases they are providing our clients with solutions that were previously unaffordable.

Cloud based products and services can be provided in isolation and they can also operate in parallel with your existing software running on your current servers.

It is currently a very interesting and challenging time for the IT industry embracing the products and services that are available in the Cloud.

For a number of years we have had a Cloud based email anti-spam & anti-virus solution. We have recently introduced a Cloud based mail archiving solution that is affordable to all our clients which is rapidly being taken up by our current client base. This is a service that was previously too expensive to contemplate running in house on our client's servers. This is a glorious example of how Cloud computing is helping companies take up services that were formally "out of their reach".

Computer Strategies are ready to help companies take advantage of this technology and run their IT operations more efficiently and at a lower cost.

Give us a call today to see how your business could benefit from Cloud Computing.

Microsoft Phone 7 Series - posted by Tony on 15th Feb 2010

3 years have passed since the launch of the iPhone and we have not really heard a peep from the largest company in the world. Windows Mobile has been around for ages and has not really improved or evolved much even from an interface point of view. Well "Everything's different now" according to Microsoft and by looking at the preview held in Barcelona recently, they may be right.

Having the backing of all major wireless and hardware manufactureres the "Windows Phone 7" is sure to pack a punch and rival the successful iPhone.

With the dramatic improvement from Windows 7, this phone is set to have a similar impact, housing a brand new operating system. It brings together a variety of Microsoft services like, Zune, Xbox and Bing to name a few, all working seamlessly together.

With the launch date set to be around the summer time 2010, this phone is exactly what a Microsoft phone should be, but is it 3 years too late?