Keith Shirley

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Wireless USB seems to be taking a step closer every day to being a useful tool for those of us in Europe. It’s already for sale in the states but we have to wait for various permits etc.  I love the simplicity of regular USB and except for the risks of data loss with USB storage devices- it’s pretty foolproof. The hubs for USB do a lot to reduce the number of cables but my desk is still a spaghetti junction.

Wireless USB is supposed to get rid of the standard USB interface. The standard is supposed to have quite a high transfer rate – somewhere between Bluetooth and WLAN. It uses near-field radio technology as the basis for transmission. You don’t really need to know what radio system it uses – just that it’s not designed for long distances. If you can do it now with a cable – you’ll get a little more with wireless.

The official transfer rate is 480 Mbit per second but in the real world you’ll probably get about one quarter of that. Which is fine. It’s more than enough to do most of the things I’m personally hoping for.

The extra functionality that a proper working wireless USB system would allow should be quite fun. We can get rid of a lot of cables for a start. We should be able to transmit from video players (eg Phones) direct to the TV. We’ll be able to have digital photo frames that pick up the pictures from your PC. We’ll be able to share devices much more easily. We’ll probably have some innovative new hacking techniques.

Wireless USB is supposed to have some intelligent power handling. The devices will talk to each other and form a kind of network. One member of the group will “stay awake” while the others go into sleep mode. The perfect example of this would be the digital picture frame. It can wake up – pick up a photo and then go back into sleep mode. As the other devices will remember who it is – it won’t waste energy reconnecting and setting up a link every time it needs a new photo. Like most things however – I doubt the initial devices will do it properly.

As usual – Sony are coming out with a competing technology. It’s too early for me to make any comments on it.

If you’re looking for detailed information then check out http://www.usb.org/developers/wusb

If you’re a manufacturer and you need someone to test cool gadgets – I’m willing to be a lab rat.

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I always get asked which broadband connection is the best – and I always answer I don’t know. I don’t use them all. The only thing I can do is offer some advise on what to look out for. I keep meaning to write them down but now Maeve Kneafsey has written a post Don’t get broadsided by broadband – quick guide which means I don’t have to.

A couple of points I would add

- If you are planning to play games online – the time delays when sending & receiving commands via a satellite Internet link could cause you trouble.

- If you are getting ADSL installed there is a limit on how far away from the telephone exchange that you can be. Even if you are within range the line has to pass a quality test. Multiples connections (eg the extra phone in the bedroom) as well as devices such as fax machines or your sky box can disturb the line. Sometimes it’s worth cleaning things up before they run the test.

- The speed that you can send things to the Internet is much slower than the receive (download) speed with ADSL. If you are going to be sending lots of big mails or videos then you may be better off with the wireless options which often have the same speed in both directions. Most “normal” people are perfectly happy with the slower upload speed as normal web surfing involves data coming in the other direction.

- If you are having stability problems with a fast link – try slowing it down. It often ends up consistently faster.

I’m sure I’ll thing of more.

In the middle of May I received a mail from the Carlow Chamber of Commerce.

The South East continues to lag behind other regions in terms of economic growth. There is a lack of hard data that measures business confidence and performance in the region making it difficult to make a case for South East businesses.

In response, Market Dynamics has devised its South East Business Confidence Study.  Updated every six months with business leaders, it will address issues such as business environment, changes in employment levels and the key challenges facing organisations in the region.

Being a good business citizen I decided to complete the survey (of course – the fact that there was a potential prize of a navigation system has nothing to do with it). I’m pleased to say the survey was short and to the point – I hate long surveys.

I was especially happy to see 2 issues covered that are important to me – the issue of a regional university and broadband.

I spoke to Fiona Macrae of Market Dynamics for permission to quote some of the results. The executive summary is not yet available on their website so please call them if you want more info.

I personally like the idea of having a university in the South East and find it hard to believe that we still don’t have one. At the 2008 Annual Business Forum I had the opportunity to ask Brendan Maher, the MD of Unum Ireland, what his opinion was on the subject. The question was very innocent as I have sometimes wondered if it’s just posturing by those involved and possibly not important to big business. I didn’t realise that I was close to putting my foot in it – Brendan was kind enough to make clear that he is on the board of IT Waterford and therefore also a little biased (my words not his). He confirmed that it is a big issue  – and personally causes difficulty explaining it to his head office.

The report from Market Dynamics confirms that the issue is also important to businesses in the region:

• Four out of five organisations believes that a regional university would be either important or very important to the economy of the South East region.  Organisations in counties Waterford, Wexford and South Tipperary were most positive with those in Carlow and Kilkenny less so.
• When asked to what extent they felt a regional university would benefit the county they are based in, a total of 68%, or two-thirds, considered that it would be of great benefit while about one in four (26%) felt that it would be of moderate benefit.

Strangely “Carlow based businesses are the least positive about a South East University”. I hope it’s because they are happy with the work IT Carlow is doing. What really got me thinking was “Kilkenny businesses are most negative about the possibility of a South East University than any other county in the region with one in four businesses saying it would not make an important contribution to the South East regional economy.” That must be a bitter blow to the people in Kilkenny that have spent decades fighting for their own university. At the risk of really annoying people – I think all the IT’s should be given the opportunity of applying for University status.

The report also discussed broadband and tried to access the level of satisfaction among business owners. I’m generally unhappy as I’m trying to encourage people to install online backups. Bad Internet connections are a real problem for that business. In general I think the lack of good Internet connections across the country is holding back the development of dispersed small businesses and work at home ventures. More on that another day.

I realise that I’m in a small category – dealing with 100′s of Gigabytes per month means that I need faster links than most people. I was interested to see how much my biased opinion was in sync with other business owners. Pulling some quotes out of the report:

Almost 90% of respondents believe that broadband access is important to the South East economy.  However, 29% of those who have broadband say it is inadequate to meet their requirements.

One third of Carlow respondents consider that their broadband is insufficient to meet their requirements.

(In Wexford) – One in three businesses claim that their broadband access is insufficient to meet their requirement

I’ll take that as a general 30% vote for my opinion.   I guess I need to work harder to show businesses all the extra benefits they can have by getting more from their broadband connections.

Feel free to let me know your opinions on either the University issue or the broadband. I’m especially interested in hearing other points of view as to why we may not need a university in the South East.

A reminder to anyone thinking of applying for an Enterprise Ireland innovation voucher that the closing date for the current round is 30 June 2008. If you do miss it however the next round runs from 1 Sept to 30 Sept 2008.

The idea behind the innovation voucher is to help build links between the Institutes of Technology and business. It’s a great opportunity for a small business to get involved in some research activity which they otherwise might not be able to afford. The voucher is for 5000 Euro – which although is not a lot in the research world is certainly very helpful if you are trying to flesh out an idea.

If you have an idea for a new business or product – then make sure to avail of the advice your local Enterprise Board can give you.

Shercom was awarded a voucher last year to further develop backups solutions for businesses with large amounts of data. When I applied for it I was specifically thinking of smaller businesses like printers, graphics designers or photographers that are sometimes producing large amounts of files but are stuck with a small broadband connection.

We did actually issue a press release at the time and I’m embarrassed to say I forgot to put it on the blog. Better late than never, I’ll let you read it now.

Shercom Limited, Ireland has been awarded 5000 Euro through the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Program. This acknowledgement of Keith Shirley‘s vision for the company will further his commitment to developing the Irish market. Shercom Ltd. will work closely with the Carlow Institute of Technology to research additional offsite backup options for those companies hampered by slow or expensive broadband connections.

Quietly launched in 1999, Shercom Ltd. has been focusing on international clients in the IT and Telecoms sectors. Mr. Shirley, a Carlow native, recently saw this opportunity in the Irish technology market place to provide dedicated managed IT backup solutions and is currently concentrating on the Midlands and Southeast.

Broadband speed may mean nothing to the normal user checking their emails but it is vital when providing for modern secure and efficient backup services. For most companies, broadband is the safest, most effective and most efficient solution for backing up data. However, for the few companies with exceptionally large amounts of data daily, the currently available broadband is often too slow to deal with backups in a reasonable amount of time.

The seriousness of this issue for the Irish economy as a whole was emphasized in a report from Forfas recently (www.forfas.ie). Slower broadband connections in Ireland cost “four to five times more than considerably higher-speed broadband services in countries such as France, Germany and Hungary.”

Awareness of the value of data is also increasing. A survey by MJ Flood Technologies has found that 18% of enterprises have said that a loss of data could lead to the complete business going under (quote from the Irish Independent 8 February 2007). Just imagine, you are doing “all the right things.” Every day, you change your backup tape and even take copies out of the office in case of a fire. Then, just when disaster strikes, you try the tapes and they are useless – the backups have not recorded properly at all!

Other than lobbying for the increased speed of our broadband, Keith Shirley says “my mission is to take the fear out of backing up your valuable work. You don’t need special computer knowledge. The backups are personally managed for our clients. From day to day, the software allows the client to track changes and retrieve previous versions of documents. At any time, the information is available on line so it is instantly retrievable. And, with the successful conclusion of our research, we will be able to help the clients with even the biggest data volumes to concentrate on their business and not have to worry about tasks such as swapping tapes.”

For media related queries, please contact Megan McGrath at pr@shercom.com
For sales and support queries, please contact Keith Shirley at info@shercom.com
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Having spent 9 hours in traffic last week for what should have been just 4 I’m very glad that I don’t have to go to Dublin every day for work. My sympathy to those of you that have to go through this on a regular basis.

If you are commuting from the Carlow area to Dublin each day then I recommend you register on the Click for Carlow website. The idea is to create a list of job skills that people from the area have and then to either help match them to available jobs or even better – to convince companies to setup in Carlow because of the high quality of potential employees available.

Now that Unum are setting up a software centre in Carlow and Merck are setting up a pharmaceutical factory in Carlow the future is going to be very interesting. The recent forum held by The Carlow Chamber of Commerce was very informative on the future plans of both companies in the area .

So get cracking and Register your skills for a job in Carlow.