WHY ekoserve?

Many office networks look like this. It happens because of the way businesses grow.

When your business started out you had one PC. Business grew, more staff joined, and more PCs were obtained. You probably connected them together in a network so you could pass files to each other.

Then you wanted to surf the web and collect emails from your Internet provider so you did the obvious thing and added a modem to one or more of the PCs.

It's confusing and inefficient. One PC runs the company database, another is storing the letters and accounts, some can collect emails or surf the web, it's hard to remember which PC things are stored on, nobody remembers to backup their work, staff don't have their own email address at your company.

It's making your life difficult when computers were meant to make it easier.

The solution isn't new. For many years people have resolved the IT muddle by adding a network server. A server is used to store and backup everyone's work; collect and distribute email; provide shared access to databases and files; and give a single, shared connection to Internet.

But up to now it was too expensive. For many businesses reaching the point where a server made good sense, the cost was hard to justify. The standard approach was to buy a powerful computer and expensive server software, pay experts to set it all up, lease a dedicated data line from the phone company and have a member of staff sent on training courses to look after it all.

Now there's ekoserve. Ekos Consulting recognised the problem of servers being too expensive for small and medium sized businesses. They set about developing a low cost alternative.

ekoserve is a low cost server. But it still delivers just about every feature a business is looking for. The cost was kept low through:

Standard PC hardware
Linux instead of Microsoft server software
Pre-configuring a standard installation
Utilising the new ADSL service from BT
Removing the need for in-company technical experts
Making sure staff only work via Windows which they already know.