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Smart Technology: Predictable, Planned, Proactive
As news of a weakened economy continues to saturate the media and bombard business owners with negative messages, one company has found a creative way of adapting its services to fit within the current economic conditions and help businesses succeed.
Miles Technologies, a provider of business technology solutions, has created Monthly Budget Plans that allow customers to budget their technology-related expenses without having to commit to a long term contractual agreement.
According to Chris Miles, Chief Executive Officer of Miles Technologies, the company’s Monthly Budget Plans integrate separate services into one managed services package. In a single plan a customer can select business services that include IT Help Desk & Support, Business Software Support, Website Updates, and Online Marketing and Public Relations, as well as strategic consulting for all services.
Miles says that the Monthly Budget Plans were developed as a way to help customers continue productive business operations within the unsteady economic conditions by making managed services more cost effective.
“The Monthly Budget Plans were specifically designed with flexibility in mind,” explains Miles. “Most managed services providers require that customers sign a contract committing them to a certain monthly fee with a two to three year contract term. They lock in the customer which lowers the need to provide exceptional service in order to retain the customer. We’re different in that we do not require any specified length to the contract and they can cancel at any time. This way, the customer is using our services because we add value and not because of a contract term. We also allow for month-to-month flexibility in the plans in terms of both the level of services provided and the costs for those services.”
Glasnua: Powerline Bpl Smart Grid Technology Adding Intelligence to Power Utility Networks
Former European cable execs see BPL parallels
Tom Walsh and Patricia McGrath were executives at UPC Broadband — now owned by Liberty Global. The Netherlands-based firm grew from a 200-user cable modem trial network in Amsterdam in the mid 90s to a customer base of over 1.5 million cable broadband subscribers in 14 countries in 2002. Walsh was vice president of engineering and then operations and McGrath was vice president of network planning and implementation.
The two left UPC and in 2005 they started Glasnua Ltd. in Ireland. They looked at various alternative technologies and soon found BPL. Glasnua, are convinced BPL is the technology it had been looking for and set its sights on deploying BPL for utility services and retail triple play throughout Europe .
Walsh and McGrath spoke to us Thursday from their headquarters in County Kerry in Southwest Ireland .Walsh is CTO and McGrath is director.“ Europe will offer incredible opportunity for ‘smart grid’ technology players for the next 10 years,” said Walsh. He believes the key for BPL technology firms to succeed in Europe will be to maintain a presence without draining resources and funds.
www.glasnua.com is set up to help. The firm’s been trying to land BPL projects with utilities but like everywhere, European utilities have resisted.
EU’s pushing BPL
“Utilities have been slow to come to the table so far — but here in Europe the EU is actively pushing the technology,” said Walsh. Why is the government of Europe pushing BPL?