BlackBerry without BES

RIM’s little smartphones are some of the most popular devices on the market – but BES is complex and costly. How can you get customers online without the cost of a full BlackBerry server?

Backup goes online and offsite

Remote backup services can offer the speed of disk, the security of tape, and the simplicity of a consumer service. But how do you ensure that remote backup services comply with your clients’ data policies and integrate with their existing IT set-ups?

The Case of the Headless Corpses, Part 1

Three dead bodies, a locked room and a piece of mouse fluff – all in a day’s work for Dirtection Inc.

Storage: Buy, Build or Restore?

Over the last 20 years we have seen the cost of hardware and software plummet. For the most part, smaller companies can now run the same computing solutions as large companies.

Controlling anti-social networking – a guide to blocking employees access to Facebook, MySpace and more.

Right now, your customers’ employees are looking at Facebook and surfing MySpace. If that doesn’t worry their employers, it should.

Social networking has only gained popularity in the last three or four years, but it is generating the same concerns that instant messaging did at the start of the decade.

Managing Skype in business

Skype means free or cheap calls but it’s based on peer-to-peer file sharing principles. How can you tame consumer VoIP tools for use in a business network?

Solid State Hard Drives for database performance

Solid State Disks (SSDs) aren’t just for netbooks: they have the potential to transform server specification, especially for database systems. SSDs aren’t much in the business eye at present but we expect them to become a hot topic over the coming year.

Death and ever-more complicated taxes

January 1, 2010 saw the first of five sets of annual changes intended to cut down on VAT fraud and ease cross-border commerce within the EU. Ignorance is perilous…

Partner Focus: Robert Epstein, Microsoft

A good working relationship with Microsoft is often the lifeblood of any IT consultancy or reseller business. Microsoft still sells the vast majority of its products through the channel, but recent moves into cloud-based services have led some firms to worry that Microsoft might bypass them, and sell directly to SMEs.

Buying Laptops for Small Business

The lowest price isn’t always the best value; paying a little extra for a notebook that’s designed for business could be a better deal.