39th in the 2010 Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies!

Posted on 8/03/2010 by Matthew O`Neill
Awards, Best Companies, Lab News, Sunday Times

I'm pleased to report that the awards and recognition have continued. We've just been placed 39th in the 2010 Sunday Times 100 Best Small companies!!

You all know the Sunday Times, however you might not know the Best Companies organisation, the people behind these top 100 lists and their own star accreditations in recognition of the very best places to work. 

To quote:

Being a best company goes beyond the bottom line. It's about excelling in every area throughout the workplace and an organisation's commitment to its most important assets - its workforce. Focusing on employees brings real benefits such as, improved workplace engagement, better staff retention, reduced recruitment costs and greater financial performance.

It's a fantastic result and a real tribute to all the great people here.

Check out our listing in the Sunday Times here.

 

 

Ranked number 23 in the world!

Posted on 12/02/2010 by Matthew O`Neill
Awards, Lab News, Lab Tech

We have succeeded in making it into the 2010 MSP Mentor top 100 list, which highlights IT service providers that are excelling in the realm of managed services.

The Background

Managed Services and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are increasingly important to modern day IT support providers like ourselves. They enable the majority of our services to be improved and automated through the use of advanced management technology. For example, we use the revolutionary Kaseya technology as the centrepiece of our IT Automation philosophy. It means we can:

• Monitor and report on clients networks in real time
• Resolve issues before they occur
• Automated routine checks
• Fix 80% of issues remotely
• Deploy software autmatically and remotely
• Much more!

 

Who are MSP Mentor?

They are a media outift designed to be the ultimate guide to managed services, and are the leading global destination for MSP's. They've made it their mission to ignore all gossip, speculation, and vendor hype to deliver in-depth and entirely factual analysis of the evolving managed services provider industry.

One of their well known efforts is the annual Top 100 list. This ranks MSP's from all over the world not just on their managed services based revenue, but also the way in which they use managed services and technology to improve both their offering and customer experience.

Where did we come?

Not only have we made it into the list this year, but we've come in at number 23! It's a fantastic result and great recognition of the progress we're making.

Check out the full list here.

 

Poor data security could cost businesses £500,000

Posted on 25/01/2010 by Rich Adams
Data Protection Act, FSA, ISO

From April 6th, the government will impose fines of up to £500,000 for serious Data Protection Act breaches.

This is a major upscale in the power held by the Information Commission's Office (ICO) who currently only have the power to enforce security changes.

The move toward tougher penalties for data security breaches has come as no surprise to many. In a statement, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said, "Getting data protection right has never been more important than it is today.

As consumers now rely more heavily on internet based transactions and online banking, security must be stepped up a gear. In fact, many predicted even stronger punishments being put in place.

Some experts argued that the maximum fine for a serious breach could be 10% of annual turnover of an offending organisation, while the ICO itself had been seeking the power to impose jail sentences for DPA breaches.

In the end the power to sting offenders with up to half a million pound penalties was decided upon, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the ICO is about to start playing fast and loose with its new found power.

Unlike the Financial Services Authority (FSA) the ICO will have to first serve a preliminary notice saying why they are imposing the fine. They must also reveal what evidence they have, and then consider the organisation's response. Many experts are predicting that fines will only be imposed in the most serious of cases.

What most agree on is, however, that many organisations are in denial about their security, and some may well be caught out financially if the ICO decides to make a few examples as an immediate warning to the rest.

Facebook of cybercrime shut down

Posted on 18/01/2010 by Rich Adams
DarkMarket, Facebook

It will come as no surprise that cyber crime is a serious and growing problem. Where once the name of the game was simply chaos and bragging rights, a new breed of financially motivated hacker has emerged.

Using sophisticated programs and techniques, these criminals steal information from networks and databases around the world. What may come as a suprise, however, is how openly many of them operate. This comes after a group in the UK were recently exposed for running a website where data fraudsters could buy and sell stolen information freely.

They ran the DarkMarket website from an anonymous looking internet café in Wembley, North West London. The site had around 2000 vendors who traded everything from card details (obtained through hacking, phishing and ATM skimming devices) to viruses – with which to extort money from organisations.

Run like an ordinary website, it had administrators and moderators. Reviewers could even voice their opinions regarding ‘customer satisfaction.’ It even featured breaking-news-style updates on the latest compromised material available, while criminals could buy banner adverts to promote their wares.

One might think that such a blatant disregard for the law could be easily dispatched, but it took the joint efforts of both the FBI and our very own SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) to finally bring DarkMarket down.

Ex Pizza Hut worker Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, was today revealed is its founder, and was due to stand trial before pleading guilty last week. He is currently awaiting sentence. Here's a look at what his DarMarket site could supply:

Dumps: data from magnetic stripes on batches of 10 cards. Standard cards: $50. Gold/platinum: $80. Corporate: $180.
Card verification values: information needed for online transactions. $3-$10 depending on quality.
Full information/change of billing:  $150 for account with $10,000 balance. $300 for one with $20,000 balance.
Skimmer: device to read card data. Up to $7,000.
Bank logins: 2% of available balance.
Hire of botnet: software robots used in spam attacks. $50 a day.
Credit card images: both sides of card. $30 each.
Embossed card blanks: $50 each. 
Card holograms: $5 per 100.

 

Google goes into real-time

Posted on 15/01/2010 by Rich Adams
Bing, Google

It may be moving into software, operating systems and mobile phones, but Google clearly still intends to keep its search engine fresh by creating a real time function – search is its bread and butter, after all!

This means, rather than undertaking a single search, Google will continue to trawl the internet and deliver the latest social media content as it's posted online. You can even filter the results down to scan for microblogs like twitter.

The concept certainly seems rather impressive/ imposing – depending on whether you work for a rival engine or not. They even have a star studded line-up of partners on board, such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace – it’s like a who’s who of the social media world.

Google's vice-president of engineering, Vic Gundotra, stated… "Information is being posted at a pace I have never seen before… In this information environment, seconds matter."

Not to be outdone (although many suspect they will be) Bing has also launched its own real-time service. Their version, however, only has twitter on board and doesn’t embed the links on the actual search page.

While not every search term on Google will trigger the real-time function, only those it considers relevant, it will still come in handy if searching for things like tickets: where offers can be shown as they are uploaded.

Google NEXUS One gets off to slow start

Posted on 15/01/2010 by Rich Adams
Google, NEXUS One

Latest reports suggest Google’s attempt at taking on the iphone (NEXUS One) hasn’t exactly set the mobile phone world alight. Where as the app laden, iTunes friendly Apple handset sold 1.6 million in its first week, NEXUS One is only estimated to have sold 20,000.

This appears to be a tremendous own goal by the search and technology giant, as few people are actually disputing that Google have produced a decent piece of kit. The reason for the disappointing take up seems to be poor distribution and customer service on their part.

One user stated… “This isn’t about whether or not NEXUS One a great phone… It’s about the botch job Google did on distribution – they’re far too difficult to get hold of.”

What’s more, Google decided to provide only online technical support via email.  The adverse publicity created as a result of the disgruntled punters who flooded Google’s inbox has clearly taken its toll.

So far, however, Google has refused to disclose sales figures, stating only that… “All estimates should be treated with caution.”

The general consensus is that Google simply took their eye off the ball, and didn’t prepare properly. They may know their stuff when it comes to developing technology, but they clearly didn’t realise the importance of great customer service.

Google vs China

Posted on 14/01/2010 by Rich Adams
Baidu, China, Google

Not content with taking on Microsoft through its software and Apple with its Nexus phone, it now seems that Google has declared cyber war on yet another foe: China.

It would appear the Chinese government has been caught trying to phish around in the gmail accounts of leading human rights activists. Although apparently unsuccessful, Google is now threatening to shut down both its China office and the heavily censored Google.cn service it runs.

The search giant said, "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn… We recognise that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

Has Google actually just decided to cut its losses?

Some commentators have suggested it's really all a smoke screen, and that Google is looking for a way to pull out of China without losing face. They are currently lagging behind in the Chinese search market with only a 19% share, while Baidu hold what many people believe to be an unsalable lead with a whopping 77%.

However, 19% is still a huge amount of users in a country with an estimated 1.3 billion people. So it might seem unlikely that Google would want to throw in the towel just yet. Plus, the relatively cheap outlay needed in China helps make it a viable business venture. It all depends on whether Google thinks it will be able to a) cut away at Baidu’s lead b) keep hold of their 19%.

Microsoft’s black screen of… not very much at all!

Posted on 4/12/2009 by Rich Adams
Lab News, Microsoft, PrevX

Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the Harry Potter and the… sorry… Microsoft and the Black Screen of Death saga, it would seem that it isn’t actually black or death like at all. It doesn’t even appear to be very dark, or even a particularly nasty shade of beige.

For those in need of a refresher, it all started last week when a small UK based internet security company called PrevX announced the danger through their blog. It could, they informed us, conceivably shut down not just windows 7 but any system more advanced than Windows 98. To stop the worlds IT luddites rubbing their hands with smug glee, however, PrevX also announced it was offering a free fix. This only had one drawback… they couldn’t guarantee it was going to work – GREAT!

As you can imagine, this set the blogosphere alight with rumour and counter rumour. It also meant Microsoft launched an immediate investigation and, sure enough, announced that they could not see any problems.

Faced with standing down the might of the world’s largest software developer, PrevX immediately began to back track. They have now announced that “"Regrettably, it is clear that our original blog post has been taken out of context, and may have caused an inconvenience for Microsoft. This was never our intention.”

The whole saga has undoubtably put PrevX on the map. But the degree to which the IT world views all this as a cynical PR ploy remains to be seen, as does the extent of any possible backlash.

IT inventions I would like to see in 2010.

Posted on 27/11/2009 by Rich Adams
Facebook, iPhone, Lab Innovation

With December nearly upon us, and the year drawing to a close, I thought I’d look ahead and highlight a couple of IT innovations I’d like to see invented in 2010:

An iPhone app that stops people going on about their iPhones

Yes, yes… I know the iPhone is pretty good. I know this because there is an endless stream of people telling me so – usually as if they were the first to discover it, like some sort of geeky Indiana Jones.

Oh, they say, it’s all about the apps! Some are pretty handy I’ll admit, but… Basically, there are two types of people: normal people, and those who think apps like UK Payphone Location (you’re carrying a phone for goodness sake!) and the one that tells you where you parked (if you can’t remember you shouldn’t be on the road) are a good idea. No one in this second group has ever kissed a girl!

A ‘dislike’ button on Facebook

While Facebook can be pretty useful for catching up with old friends from yesteryear, too many people are using it:

• As the world’s biggest popularity contest, collecting 100s of friends they will never contact.
• To send us all to sleep with status updates like ‘I’m bored’ – thanks… so am I, now!
• To stalk exes.

 

Too many people have got nothing to say, but are going to say it anyway. It would be good to tell them so with the click of a button. Maybe I’ll just stop using Facebook?.. mmmmmm... Nah!

Google Chrome previewed

Posted on 20/11/2009 by Rich Adams
Google, Lab News, Microsoft

Another week, another round in the ongoing struggle for supremacy between Google and Microsoft. No sooner did Microsoft release its (pretty impressive) Windows 7 operating system, than Google has previewed its answer: Google Chrome.

Open souced (that means free!) and specifically designed for netbooks, all applications are designed to run in a web browser and all the user's data is stored on Google's own servers. That means it can be downloaded straight from the net.

Google has been able to boost the speed of the system by designing it for specific hardware. The firm said that it would only run on computers using "solid state drives" instead of traditional hard drives.

During a recent demonstration, Sundar Pichai, vice-president of product management, stated "We want Google Chrome OS to be blazingly fast."  He then showed it booting up in just seven seconds. He also gave a demonstration of its pretty speedy game playing, music and typing capabilities.

Microsoft still has 90% of the operating system market, which puts it light years ahead. Chrome OS, however, is a clear sign that Google isn’t simply prepared to chip away at this lead. It’s after a much larger slice of the pie.