Acquisitive holding company the Claxson Group is
implementingthin client technologyacross its
businesses to give access to centrally based applications and
remove the need to build IT infrastructures from
scratch.
The company, which currently has four businesses in its stable
and is looking at making more acquisitions, is using Citrix
software to allow its 70 staff to connect securely to all office
applications from any location and on any device.
The group of companies includes businesses as diverse as IT
supplier
Comtec Enterprises and the West Sussex Polo club.
"As we got the extra companies, being able to support these
locations was not feasible. There is a cost and time to get on site
and give each location a server and a backbone," said Nick Claxson,
managing director at the Claxson Group.
"We wanted to keep a greater degree of control over costs as
well as procedures but needed to have a reliable [technology] to
provide secure remote connection on demand," said Claxson.
The software is housed at the company's main datacentre using HP
Blade servers, and users can run Microsoft remote desktops from any
remote PC.
Claxson said remote workers have found support easier because of
the centralised control, while mobile workers are receiving
connectivity via
Vodafone Mobile Connect modems.
"On realising the benefits of providing a secure remote access
to the business we have also adopted and implemented new mobile PDA
devices which are 3G enabled and allow direct push email to the
handset, which again keeps remote employees connected at all times,
which obviously helps drive the productivity of the business," said
Claxson.