As the government axe prepares to fall in the,,,,

09 September 2010, 11:11am

As the government axe prepares to fall in the public spending review, firms in the North are expected to be hit the hardest

According to latest research, businesses in the North of Britain are expected to suffer most at the hands of the government’s forthcoming spending review with the towns of Middlesborough, Mansfield and Stoke-on- Trent to be hit the hardest. Pressure is mounting for businesses to cut costs ahead of what is expected to be an ‘autumn of discontent’ for many firms in the North of England. Cloud computing is about to revolutionise the way that companies do business in the North West according to recent research from the independent analysts at Gartner, who predict that cities such as Liverpool and Manchester are on the cusp of a widespread adoption of the cloud in an attempt to cut costs ahead of the public spending review. In light of recent revelations about the North/South economic divide, Cloud Computing is expected to become main stream in around 2-5 years time, acting as a solution for companies needing to cut back on costly IT solutions. Major safety concerns associated with Cloud Computing appear to be dissipating as a result of the enhanced security offered by the private cloud which acts primarily as an internal and exclusive server. The main benefit of this new wave is that it provides all the advantages of owning an in house server without the hassle or expense of maintaining one.

The mass adoption of the new wave of Cloud Computing by SME’s across the North of the country is being driven by the flexibility that it offers according to Gartner. The private cloud sits hand in glove with the core operations of local businesses and works seamlessly with the ebb and flow of business demands but offers companies the flexibility of having a hybrid solution. Gartner further claims that most SME’s will be inclined towards the new wave which incorporates the benefits of on-premise solutions with all the advantages of operating from the Cloud. This is particularly useful for businesses that operate in cities but may live in more remote, suburban areas or require access to offices in other regions.

Tim Wallis, CEO of Content and Code, market leader in Microsoft’s Cloud Computing offering (Business Productivity Online Suite) says, “Content and Code is experiencing a heavy demand from companies that need to operate programs which cannot be taken into the Cloud and therefore require their IT providers to offer a hybrid solution which incorporates all the benefits of both on premise and Cloud Computing. We can now offer them that flexibility”. SME’s can expect to make considerable savings by converting to the Cloud according to research. Gartner predicts this ‘new wave’ in cloud computing to be responsible for its growth to a total market value of several billion pounds by the year 2014, according to the latest figures.

Industry experts at Content and Code conduct a detailed analysis of each company and understand the heartbeat of the business which will assess and analyse the needs of individual companies and then create a tailor made solution to match the requirements of that particular organisation. Businesses need not be concerned with the ownership and security of their data as Content and Code’s customers benefit from Microsoft’s highly monitored and regulated data centres in Dublin and the Netherlands. As Microsoft is a signatory of the US-EU Safe Harbor agreement, data held in their data centres is protected in accordance with EU legislation instead of US regulations, which allows companies to maintain the rights over their own data. Whilst there have been some concerns over the ability of Cloud to eliminate the need for IT staff altogether, many companies have realised that in actual fact, the Cloud has been empowering IT personnel by allowing them to concentrate on the core operations of their businesses and freeing them from administrative tasks such as updating and maintaining systems which are ultimately not bringing any direct benefit to the development and growth of the business.

www.contentandcode.com

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