Hello and welcome to the first SpiderGroup e-newsletter. We have come to realise that we need to communicate better with our clients, partners and the local community. We want to use this monthly news letter as a vehicle to explain what we do for our clients and also to keep you informed and up to date with information technology that could affect your business. We hope you find this useful and encourage you to pass this onto friends and colleagues so they can subscribe. Subscribe to our newsletter

Going mobile with Blackberry

If you don't have one, you've probably heard about them. BlackBerry is the ultimate wireless email solution that allows users to stay connected with access to email, phone, web and organiser features on the go.

They are handheld devices engineered from the ground up for email. If email has become a vital part of your business or personal life, then you would no doubt benefit from using a BlackBerry. The old, ugly and bulky models have been replaced with swanky, highly desirable bits of kit which include many standard PDA functionalities. They have now become the only mobile communication device you need to carry. Read full article

Paul Griffiths, Product Manager

Unified Communications Is your organisation aware? The imminent release of Microsoft's OCS 2007 is causing a stir amongst telecoms providers as Voice over IP gets fully integrated with MS Office. The aim is 'unified communications' which not only makes you aware if a colleague is at their desk, in a meeting or on the move but communication with them will be diverted automatically based on their diary, preferences and activity. We'll have more about this over the coming months but until then here is some further reading

Vista Virtue 5 years in the making - but do you really need Windows Vista? In short, probably not. Having used vista since the first Beta version, it is my opinion that for business, Vista does not offer enough to warrant its high price tag. If a new machine has one of the 6 flavours pre-installed then don't worry, prepare for a small amount of re-learning, but I haven't heard an argument yet to persuade me an XP-to-Vista upgrade is a sensible choice. Take a look at this article

Buzz from the Board

We are in the middle of a great project constructing a backup data centre for a company who provide hosted software to the legal sector. Our infrastructure team have been working all hours to ensure this intricate installation causes no interruption to our client's business services and I'm certain this will be worthy of a glamorous showcase in the coming months.

The big buzz around SpiderGroup however is the release of our new Spider office™ product which is already generating a huge amount of interest in SMEs seeking to take advantage of SaaS (Software as a Service) a more cost effective and flexible way of running software, which is becoming ever more prevalent in this mobile age.

Dan Hancock, Operations Director

Showcasing Neptune Classics

SpiderGroup's development team are flexing their newly acquired status as Sage Development Partners by undertaking work to extend and enhance a SAGE implementation for one of our longstanding clients; Neptune Classics, a Swindon based furniture production company who use Sage 200 to manage their stock, orders and billing.

The primary focus of the project is to extend Sage's stock management features to provide accurate dispatch date predictions and the ability to optimise and reallocate dispatches on the fly. This will significantly optimise their throughput and improve service to their customers, providing an area on the website where customers can monitor the dispatch status of their orders. Further report and form customisations are also helping to optimise data entry and information delivery throughout the organisation.

"Spider's optimisations are helping us streamline our operations and generate real added value" Giles Redman, MD