Serving the Teesside Business Community | 25
/ HARTLEPOOL NEWS
WORK GETS UNDER WAY ON
NEW HARTLEPOOL HOMES
Smart IT advice from award-winning Cornerstone
Steve Bell
of Gus
Robinson,
Angela
Lockwood
of Northstar
and Nigel
Johnson of
Hartlepool
Council.
Welcome back to the Cornerstone Advice Corner, with Cornerstone Business
Solutions director Chris Petty...
In our first quarterly column, we discussed
some of the software versions that
were being retired, and touched on new
versions that could improve or simplify the
way you do business.
This time we are going to focus on
Microsoft’s Exchange Online as we see
more and more businesses choosing this
option over the traditional approach of
hosting your emails on site.
We’ve also been helping local charities
save costs on software purchases.
Exchange Online
Microsoft Exchange Online provides
business-class email, calendar and
contacts to your PC, phone and web
browser.
Delivered as a hosted service, Exchange
Online offers a high standard of security
for your information while providing the
control you want and the reliability your
business needs.
For a predictable and affordable cost, you
can run your email on globally-redundant
servers, protected by built-in antivirus and
anti-spam filters.
Exchange Online is perfect for smaller
companies that do not want to go to the
extent of having an on premise Exchange
Server, or for larger companies that want a
high level of redundancy for email, without
having to build in fault tolerance to a
physical network that can be expensive.
Plans range from £2.50 per month per
user. If you would like to find out if
Exchange online is right for your business,
contact your IT provider.
Software for Charities
Charities or government-funded
companies are able to access charity
pricing for Microsoft and other software
products.
B
uilding work is underway in Hartlepool
on a development of new affordable
rental homes for the over-55s.
Owned and managed by Endeavour
Housing Association – part of North Star
Housing Group - the £1.5m scheme will
create 16 new bungalows, two of which will
be fully wheelchair accessible, on previously
undeveloped land on Eskdale Road.
The development further enhances
Endeavour’s strong presence in Hartlepool,
taking its portfolio of quality affordable
homes to a landmark of 300 throughout the
town.
All of the new homes, which will be
developed by Gus Robinson Developments,
will be highly energy efficient, and will
feature plentiful car parking and private
gardens. In addition, the wheelchair
accessible bungalows will incorporate a
number of other thoughtful design features
including carports and height-adjustable
A typical Microsoft license purchased
using charity pricing is around 35%
cheaper than standard pricing.
However, there are licenses available at
even further reduced prices. A Microsoft
Office license can cost around £16, as
opposed to £200+.
A recent project we have done was for a
charity that had been quoted £14,000 for a
Microsoft CRM.
Due to the pricing available to us we were
able to provide these same licenses for
around £250.
There are lots of different brands available
at these reduced prices, so for any
charities that are looking at any upcoming
projects or software upgrades, we would
suggest you look at this option first.
Upcoming retired Software
Windows Server 2003
We mentioned this in our last column and
as the date is getting nearer thought we
would just remind you all again.
The official date for Windows Server 2003
going end of life is July 14, 2015.
For any business that has not looked
at replacing this yet, there are various
options including onsite solutions, hosted
solutions, or a mix of both.
Get in touch
For any of the above, there will be various
options for you to choose from. Some that
will fit your business, and some that will
not. So we su