The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 46: Dec/Jan 2019 | Page 38

TECHNOLOGY Introducing Dave Swift, Mintivo’s new Technical Director Mintivo, the Chippenham-based IT provider, announced in November that it has restructured to accommodate its significant growth. Chris Gough - a regular contributor for The Business Exchange - has become Mintivo’s Managing Director and Dave Swift has stepped up from Senior Technical Consultant to become the firm’s new Technical Director. Dave has a wealth of experience and specialises in providing technical solutions to clients. As with all the Mintivo team, he strives to understand clients’ exact business needs and creates secure, reliable IT solutions. Whether it is infrastructure design, implementation and management or support for all aspects of business-critical computing such as servers, storage, networking, connectivity, security and software, Dave is well-placed to provide direction. A Microsoft Certified Professional, Dave lives in Westbury with his fiancée, Lydia and their Miniature Dachshund, Frank. From a young age, Dave was often found with a screwdriver in hand taking things apart to investigate how they worked. His love of IT developed, and he knew he wanted a career in IT following an exciting and engaging work experience placement at a Trowbridge-based computer shop. Commenting on his new position, Dave said, “Working for Mintivo has been amazing and to be asked to join the Board and take over from Chris as Technical Director is an honour. I am looking forward to building on the firm foundations Chris has built and to ensure Mintivo continues to understand current and future IT trends and to develop and deliver solutions that really add value to our clients.” One of Dave’s first projects as Technical Director is to raise awareness of the impending Windows 7 and Server 2008 ‘End of Life’ deadline in January and to provide suitable solutions. 39% of users are still using Windows 7. Microsoft ended mainstream support for the operating system in 2015, which means that there have been no new features since then and updates have only been by way of patches to fix bugs and security issues. Users may already have had a reduction in user experience, and this will only get worse from 14th January. One of the business- critical concerns is that there will be heightened vulnerability from viruses, security problems and emerging threats as there will be a big incentive for malicious users to target those still using Windows 7. Dave concluded, “There are several simple options for organisations to avoid problems, and Mintivo is well placed to ensure that you choose the right solution. There will be a number of bespoke considerations, and our team can walk you through the value of each option taking into account your particular business needs.” Dave Swift, Technical Director “Working for Mintivo has been amazing and to be asked to join the Board and take over from Chris as Technical Director is an honour.” @mintivo Connected. Secure. IT Support Mintivo is a leading IT provider helping ambitious organisations by delivering corporate IT services to the SME Proud to be working with companies throughout the UK and Europe Managed IT Support Cyber Security Microsoft Cloud 03333 580 348 I www.mintivo.co.uk I [email protected] 38 www.tbeswindonandwilts.co.uk