Riverbank It management

In this prolonged period of icy weather are you still slipping and sliding to work? Many Riverbank clients are working comfortably at home. Thanks to good remote access to their office networks they can remain productive and safe.

If you are thinking that maybe you should do better in enabling your people to work anywhere make a new year's resolution to speak to Riverbank about it. We can tell you more about the cost-effective options available and how other firms are getting the benefits of being able to work flexibly.

And remember, a white Christmas is what we've all been dreaming of. We just don't want to commute to work in it.

Cloud computing is the topic of the moment, with servers and their applications metamorphosing into web-based services. But will all businesses want to join this rush to the cloud?

The evidence so far is that for individual professionals and micro-businesses cloud computing has irresistible attractions - you don't need to buy any expensive hardware or software, and someone else manages everything for you.

Larger companies feel the same attraction, but for many it is diminished by other factors. They need to know where their data is and who has access to it. The demands of their clients might place greater constraints on their ability to entrust the care of their data to unknown people and organisations.

Enter the private cloud. In the world of the private cloud a company has its own infrastructure based in the cloud. They get the benefit of global access to their systems but they also know exactly where their data is and who has access to it. In addition they still get the benefits of scalability, flexibility and no capital costs.

Take a look at this list and ask yourself if your business would run better if you had:

• A dynamic fully-searchable internal web site with company news and announcements, ideas and discussion area, and much more.
• A client area on your network to bring your best clients closer to you.
• A company knowledge base.
• All your business procedures in one place.
• An online staff handbook.

Riverbank clients are discovering the power of SharePoint, and the opportunity it provides to improve their own systems.

 

My Places is a feature of Word and Excel that can get you to places fast. If you aren’t using it you are still plodding through folders when you could be jumping straight to the location you want. Dedicate five minutes to setting up My Places and see how much easier life can become.

 

My Places is the list of locations down the left-hand side of the Open or Save dialog box (see the image below). They take you straight to that location. The trouble is that the standard list isn’t really much use. What is useful is to create your own list of places.

Thank you to everyone who visited our exhibition stand and entered our prize draw at Genesis 2009, the London biotech showcase event. We hope the event was as useful and successful for you as it was for us.

The winner of the Riverbank iPod will be announced on 21 December.

We look forward to seeing you again at Genesis 2010.

The idea of IT as a service is starting to catch on. Like leasing a car with all the maintenance and servicing included, people like the idea of "no hassle" IT. Someone else has the responsibility for providing the equipment and keeping it running. As the customer you just pay a fixed monthly fee and that's it - no surprises and no additional maintenance costs.

The other advantage of this way of delivering IT is that you have zero capital expenditure, particularly useful in current economic times when cash is so important. 

We have just completed our first installation on this basis, and have two more in the pipeline. If the idea appeals to you, just get in touch with Riverbank. Call Chris Jones on 01844 278036 or e-mail chris@riverbank.co.uk.