Iconnyx is a fast growing organisation offering business internet, MPLS VPN, managed hosting and managed IT services. Our personal approach means that customer service is at the heart of our operations.

Iconnyx combine tailored data connectivity solutions, with the experience of providing 100% availability hosting services for a variety of uses including web development and e-commerce.

Our Managed IT Services offer the complete solution for the SME using our own systems, powered by our VITAL technology platform. This delivers an IT solution either on-site, at your offices or hosted using cloud computing and accessed using terminal services.

Iconnyx partners with other companies to provide a business internet and hosting service for its customers that exceeds expectations. Tim Walker, Managing Director, explains how Iconnyx provides a customised solution for the SME market, with a flexible approach that listens to the customer’s needs and provides tailor made solutions to their IT problems.

Iconnyx provide advanced, high-speed and bespoke connectivity solutions including private networks and virtual private networks (VPN) to connect multiple sites via Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). Our IPVPN is cost effective, flexible and easy to manage, able to route traffic using a highly secure network. If you are searching for the most secure virtual network where none of the data sent between sites goes via the internet then Iconnyx IPVPN is the product for your business.

This video shows the differences between traditional VPN, which takes a long time to set up and is expensive, and Iconnyx IPVPN. There are diagrams included to demonstrate how traditional internet-based VPNs work and Iconnyx IPVPN. The benefits of IPVPN are given showing how it’s the network is inexpensive and easy to manage.

Iconnyx provide Netstep with a SANServe solution whereby they share disk space on a central network. This solution provides Netstep with more security to their data and gives them flexibility. Netstep is a fully independent Internet agency that manages projects from the initial strategic development to the creative design and development of websites; from search engine optimisation or email marketing to web hosting and domain name management. Barry Mills explains how hosting is a very important part of the Netstep service which is why they chose to partner with Iconnyx. The 100% up time guarantee that Iconnyx offers was an attract pull for Netstep as it could affect their clients dramatically even if their websites are down even for a couple of minutes.

Barry has found Iconnyx to be a reliable hosting platform and the fact that Iconnyx offers a managed solution to IT has been beneficial to the company. Iconnyx has become a selling point for Netstep to their clients when pitching how they use a sophisticated hosting platform.

GSM stands for global system for mobile communication and it has become the dominant standard used in global wireless communication markets. GSM has been deployed in over 600 networks in
200 countries and accounts for more than 80% of all digital mobile wireless subscribers.

There are three reasons to the success of GSM; standardisation, economies of scale and global roaming…

To download the full white paper, please complete the form below

A survey conducted by Star, examining SME’s attitudes towards VoIP, found that a key factor to driving VoIP demand (31%) was reduced expenditure with lower calling costs. Tariffs for calls via VoIP carriers are around 1p per minute, whereas BT’s standard tariff is 7.5p per minute.

However VoIP offers more than just lower calling costs. Other features include:

• Free voicemail
• Voicemail to e-mail
• Diversion to mobiles
• Auto-attendants
• Integration with CRM databases
• Voice recording
• Free calls to other users in business extension range

Market researcher Infonetics Research expects the telepresence and video conferencing market to reach $5.4 billion annually by 2015. One Stop Click hailed VoIP as the future “bread and butter” of business communications, showing the future of VoIP to be a positive one.

Hung Hing UK tells us why flexibility was the key issue for cloud adoption

Ian Senior at Hung Hing UK explains the flexibility of a hybrid cloud solution and why partnering with Iconnyx was “the least painful IT implementation” he’s been through.

The Business Need

We approached Iconnyx with the issue that our staff needed to be able to work and operate as though they were in the office when they were out and about. Speed was also important to us as we operate as the exclusive UK global partner of the Hong Kong/Chinese printing group, Hung Hing Offset Printing and as such our sales team need to be able to communicate quickly wherever they are.

Location, location, location

We used to have all our IT hosted in-house which meant that we had servers on site connected to PCs all over the place, in a small office that was not ideal. Now we all work from a hosted desktop which, as well as giving us more space in the office, provides our staff with a standardised experience wherever they log in from and no matter what device they use; PC or iPad etc. Working with Iconnyx our employees now have the freedom to work when they are out of the office or working from home, on a reliable service.

Why Hybrid is best for SMEs

As a small organisation with just 17 hosted desktop users this solution has made a massive difference to the way we work and has improved our continuity and flexibility. In addition the hybrid approach means we have the ultimate belt and braces to backup and recovery, with remote access to fix issues and the added security of an onsite server which receives a backup of our data overnight for our entire platform.

About Hung Hing UK

The UK sales office was founded in 1994 by the late Jeremy MacLehose to make Far Eastern book printing accessible to the UK publishing industry. The company has expanded its services and there are now 15 experienced professionals with print procurement experience, combining our capabilities to give the business its unique market position. We believe that offering quality and reliability combined with a total print solution from Hung Hing Offset Printing, has developed the customer trust that gives us the edge required in today’s increasingly diverse and competitive market.

To find out more about the solutions Iconnyx offers to SMEs or to share your experiences of the cloud please contact us.

]]> http://www.iconnyx.com/2012/05/why-smes-like-hung-hing-uk-adopt-the-cloud/feed/ 0 http://www.iconnyx.com/2012/05/overcome-the-hurdles-to-business-continuity-during-the-olympics/ http://www.iconnyx.com/2012/05/overcome-the-hurdles-to-business-continuity-during-the-olympics/#comments Thu, 03 May 2012 14:11:45 +0000 TheaParnell http://www.iconnyx.com/?p=5462 Does the thought of the impending Olympics keep you awake at night? Is your working day consumed with thoughts of how to keep your business running during the Olympic Games? Panic not, there is still time to take the necessary precautions to keep your website live, your workers working and your data secure.

Where to start?

Look back at the resourcing issues and network activity levels you encountered during pervious nationwide events (sporting or otherwise) and learn from them. Consider increasing your connectivity for a short period – you still have time.

Adding virtual servers on a temporary basis to cope with increased website traffic or installing a VPN to provide a reliable, high-speed and secure network will allow staff to work from home easily.

Working from anywhere at anytime

Traffic and congestion on public transport are both likely to be horrendous in the affected areas, so working from home or another office might be the best solution.

To ease the pain, make sure you have a policy or guidelines for remote workers, that they are equipped to work from home and that your IT infrastructure can support multiple remote workers.

Backup and the cloud

If you are travelling near or around the Olympic venues with a laptop or tablet, safeguard yourself with highly secure passwords that are changed regularly. To avoided any further frustration from a lost or stolen device, consider moving your applications to the cloud, backed up by a 24/7 support system.

Don’t leave your business continuity to the last minute, plan ahead to maintain ‘business as usual’; your customers will reward you for it and you may just get a bit more sleep!

Share your tips and recommendations for maintain business continuity by commenting below or with fellow SMEs via our LinkedIn discussion.

At BritishAmerican Business’s digital media conference on Wednesday there was a wealth of speakers, from Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, to Tom Standage, Digital Editor at The Economist.The event featured top business thinkers, and opinion formers, discussing the impact of the digital evolution on business and organisations, their reputations and the IT infrastructure. Some startling facts and interesting observations emerged, and the belief that changes in social media and new mobile technologies had turned the news and communications industry on its head, for good and for bad.

Here is just a selection of the points that emerged:

1. Social is truly global. 75% of people visit a social networking site everyday (Bloomberg)
2. Video is the new medium, and the emphasis is on all of us to produce quality, low cost video to engage with customers (Bloomberg)
3. The recent Facebook acquisition of Instagram, a 15 month old company sold for $1bn, is a sign of how businesses are radically changing their business models (KPMG)
4. We are in the Golden Age for news, there have never been more voices and choices, but the trusted sources will be more valuable as they act as a filter for users (Tom Standage)
5. The onus is upon companies to repurpose content to suit readers, and adapt apps and ways for them to encapsulate and ‘own’ their news i.e. one in three Economist readers own an iPad! (Tom Standage)
6. American Airlines on social media: they are targeted to respond to every one of the 2,000 tweets they receive each day
7. Multichannel households are increasing, with more people watching TV during a recession, yet TV over Internet still at early stage (WPP)
8. The big digital winners will be agencies with data, free-to-air TV, mobile, and content producers (Sir Martin Sorrell)
9. Time online almost doubled among EU adults in the last three years, and e-commerce is the source of nearly all UK retail growth (WPP)
10. Facebook will launch a mobile handset, with smartphones being the big differentiator – digital is still in its infancy (Sir Martin Sorrell)

Three key themes became absolutely clear throughout the day: companies must engage with customers directly and become ‘social’; mobile handsets will become far more sophisticated, and multi-channel would be the standard in most households; and finally, that the phenomenal and uncontrollable growth predicted in the mobile and social environments would intensify issues of data security, something SMEs in particular without vast access to IT resources, cannot afford to ignore.

Tim Walker, Iconnyx Managing Director, responds to the Government’s Enterprise Capital Fund announcement to invest at least £40m in high-growth potential small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK. 

“It is extremely encouraging to see an additional allocation of funding for SaaS and Cloud technology specifically, over and above what has already been allocated for the Tech City initiative.

Cloud has long been a buzz word, so it’s great that the Government has translated this into an initiative that will support SMEs in this sector, many of whom the Government looks to to provide economic growth.

My own experience of fund raising is that the money is spread too thin and across too many sectors. This focused investment is a real opportunity for SMEs to invest in new infrastructure and plan for growth. My advice to them, go and get it!”

For more information, visit our online resource SME Insights, an educational series for SMEs.

For many of our SME customers, cloud-based technologies are a great solution to a business need but far too often ‘cloud jargon’ camouflages the benefits these solutions offer.

In previous blogs, making a case for cloud, we’ve offered SMEs a way through the confusion with links to useful cloud glossaries and definitions. Today, we’d like to point to an insightful report from Information Week on the topic of cloud-based desktops, or what we like to call hosted desktops.

The report’s findings list the main advantages/disadvantages users see from their use of the cloud-based desktop, as well as results from the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return On Investment (ROI) study.

Above are the advantages as listed in the Information Week report.  Do you agree with these? As part of our SME educational series, SME Insights, we’d be keen to hear the business need that a cloud-based desktop solved for you and the benefits you have seen. Please share you experience with fellow SMEs by adding a comment below.

For more information on how SMEs use cloud-based desktops read the Information Week report here or contact us to discuss our hosted desktop solution.