Cobweb

Keeping things simple…

I've spent a lot of time recently speaking with some of our customers and partners about the kinds of services that they would like to see us deliver in the future. Almost universally the feedback I receive is to make our services more integrated e.g. providing a single logon to our Exchange and SharePoint services and to ensure all of the services provided can be managed through a web-based portal.

It often feels that life is getting more complex with more demands on our time and having the ability to do the things you want, when you want, is really important. I know how frustrating it can be when you need to make something happen and the call centre you need to speak with to get the task completed is closed. I recently lost my bank debit card and whilst I can do most things through my bank's web site I couldn't order a new card and I always seemed to remember I had to call them just after they closed at 8pm...

In talking with potential new suppliers for future services I've been amazed at how complex some of the pricing and licensing models can be. I like to keep things simple and offer straight forward per using per month pricing where our customers pay for only what they use. I have been completely confused on more than one occasion in the last month when presented with a pricing models for Fax-to-Email services which have complex mix of revenue share, usage charges and fixed monthly fees. It has really brought it home to me the costs and time involved in purchasing a new solution for.

At Cobweb we are committed to developing new services which integrate together and which can be managed at a time to suit you with simple pricing and which are easy to buy. So I'd love to hear of your horror stories in trying to buy new IT solutions and companies and services that you think are doing a great job in making it easy to buy their products.

How safe are your children online?

I was reading a report this morning on the rising dangers of children online and how little some parents can do to monitor this usage. Being a father of three I find this quite alarming that people are really that naive as to what dangers their children may face on the internet. There are the obvious dangers of chatrooms and online messaging where they can end up talking to strangers who may have very dubious intentions in mind. Is it a case of out of sight out of mind? Would you allow your child to go off somewhere at night and not know where they are going?

I know it's going to make me sound out but 'back in our day' we never had this freedom and access to a much wider audience as children have now so were never exposed to the same types of dangers. If parents don't think there is any risk then they either don't care what their children see or are incredibly short-sighted. The things that are available to see and can influence a young mind are boggling. Anything is there to be found, even things that we wouldn't be able to comprehend being availble IS. I've been an internet user now for over 15 years and still things crop up that amaze even me. I would never let my children stumble across them and make sure the software and monitoring is in place to keep an eye on what they do.

I think that there should be some sort of training covering this introduced in to schools too. My daughter recently came home and told me that they were being given 'social responsibility' lessons in their school which taught them how people in a civilised society live together. Why not add the 'netiquette' in to that too? How children or younger people behave in society is a much larger issue and not one I'm going in to here but if they have things from the internet are influencing them to behave in this way then surely something needs to be done about it?

Another report about this is here

Mark

Maybe you do need a solution for Email Compliancy...

I'm going to revisit a previous post - Do we Need a Solution for Email Compliancy, where I said that you should understand what your business needs to do about retaining data and not be pushed by industry trends or the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that vendors create (thanks and credit to James H due here!)

I've been seeing a fair bit of noise about MiFID recently and delved into what it's all about.   Simply, MiFID stands for the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive - Europe trying to update the regulations around investment banks, market data companies, trading platforms and exchanges that haven't worked very well to date.
The MiFID directive allows companies to provide services across borders and establish branches in other European states.   It also makes share trading easier and removes the need to use traditional exchanges.

Why the worry though?  well, businesses will have to be able to prove 'best execution' on the deals they perform.  The will be accountable for best price, venue, cost and speed... and they will have to keep records for five years.   Providing a clear audit trail is going to be important here.  Finding the right information and making it available is just as important as collecting it and retention.

So this means that new processes and systems are needed to deal with this.  Systems to calculate the 'best execution' of a deal are one thing, but each deal, trade adn transfer will have communications, decisions and reasons behind it.  Email is typically the system used for these sort of communication currently, while corporate IM will catchup fast if the auditory systems can be put in place.  All big bucks no doubt.  Given that this industry trades trillions of pounds/dollars/euros a day, you can expect the big vendor marketing departments to be working awat, and lawyers preparing their cases for the fall out when the first test cases come along!

Get Safe Online Week

Get Safe Online is a little know campaign that's been running for a few years, and aims to be a single source of security information and advice.  Most of it seems to be aimed at small businesses which is a good thing.   

Get Safe Online Week runs from 12 to 16 November and there will be some online events and webcasts coming out soon i'm sure.  http://www.getsafeonline.org/

I'd recommend you take a quick at the "ABC 10 munute guide to security" which is on the front page currently.   It states the obvious, but you really should be using Windows XP by now, patching with Windows Update, turning on Windows Firewall and.... securing your wireless networks!!

Hosting and being in the public eye...

Oh dear - when someone gets it wrong it's all point and shout time.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/11/bbc_news_website_down/

The BBC news web site had a few technical issues with it's main front page yesterday, other links and pages worked.    As we're all fascinated by other peoples misfortune (admit it you are... we've all watch people getting hurt/humiliated/crashed on You've Been Framed!) it's natural to dig about a bit and find out what's been going on with the BBC news site.   In addition i have an interest in this as we host some big sites too and use Akamai like the BBC.

Netcraft has some good information about what really happened with that site yesterday.   They also have some great tools, data and history about the internet - did you know that the internet grew by 7.6million websites last month!  http://news.netcraft.com/

The 3-peaks team are off on their challenge....

Click here to track their progress and enjoy their pictures...