IT solutions that improve lives

Technology sales are not always just about huge profits for large organisations, as Sam Trendall discovers

The Home Farm Trust (HFT) charity has helped remind VAR EssentialNET and distributor Zycko that technology can do more than drive the bottom line of business.

HFT supports people with learning disabilities and works with 1,000 people across the UK. It offers a range of services, including supported accommodation, holidays, brokerage and help in finding employment.

The charity also encourages users to keep electronic diaries with records and pictures of their experiences. HFT aims to maximise levels of social inclusion for its users so diaries are seen as key, especially when it comes to helping them find work. Written records and documentation are an effective way of displaying competencies to potential employers.

Extracting value
The charity had encountered problems as the learning disabilities of its users made them prone to accidentally overwriting or deleting the work on their e-diaries.

Slow application speeds were also proving problematic for those using IT equipment and HFT wanted to improve the speed of computer terminals as well as introduce a backup system. Users live in different locations and installing separate servers in each was not financially viable for HFT.
WAN optimisation technology from vendor Riverbed was selected to help back up users’ work to HFT’s central location in Bristol.

Jon Arnold, regional sales director for Northern Europe at Riverbed, said his company had a history of working with not-for-profit organisations. “Some of our early adopters were charities and, for us, we can really appreciate that these customers have to get a lot of value out of technology, unlike large organisations that may have generous funding for technology,” he said.
“Often technology companies are focused on delivering solutions to large enterprises. The fact that our technology can help small organisations doing important things is fantastic.”
The installation was carried out earlier this year by reseller EssentialNET, in partnership with distributor Zycko. Kevin Penn, managing director of the VAR, said the project was a breath of fresh air for his company.

“This project was unusual for this industry,” he said. “IT can be insular in what it does and, in the majority of cases, you are putting in systems to make more money for companies or putting in technology for technology’s sake. The
feedback from this installation has so far been very positive.”

Zycko chairman David Galton-Fenzi told CRN the project had gone off without a hitch and the benefits were already evident for HFT and its users.
“The deployment went ahead smoothly,” he said. “By reducing the original data load, we were able to speed up performance while making backing up easier, addressing the two key issues.

“Users are happy, the helpdesk calls have been reduced and the network team’s resources have been free to work on important projects.”

Positive results
HFT’s IT director Martyn Tomkins also claimed the installation had produced positive results for HFT and its users. “We have particularly noticed the difference with word processing applications, email and logon speeds,” he said.
“EssentialNET’s problem-solving performance and the way in which we were encouraged to try this technology before we invested particularly impressed us.”

Penn said he had enjoyed being able to see IT used for more altruistic purposes than simply driving profits or business efficiency.
“This technology was installed purely to make people’s lives that little bit better and we have stopped a lot of the frustrations people get when things go wrong,” he said.

“It really is a pleasant change for us in that we can use technology to improve people’s quality of life.”
Galton-Fenzi echoed this view and took time to praise the good work being done by organisations such as HFT.
“The work of HFT is truly valuable and the service users rely heavily on technology. We all know how frustrating it is to accidentally delete work and to work on slow computers, and both Zycko and EssentialNet are delighted that we were able to work to improve their IT offering.
“It is certainly heartening to see how our work as a team has had such a positive impact on people’s lives,” said Galton-Fenzi.