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Although McKenzie-Thorpe has metamorphosed int…

Although McKenzie-Thorpe has metamorphosed into an IT & Web Design Solutions company our service offering and background is much broader than that.

Very briefly, we started life as a Management Training Consultancy back in 1987 and achieved a national and international reputation for success on a large scale with organisations such as: Bank of Scotland, Shell International, American Express Europe, British Gas, Scottish Power, Royal & Sun Alliance, Safeway, Sainsbury, Tesco, and many more.

One of the many tools that we used then and continue to use today contributed the most to our success. Working at board level in many of our client organisations meant that we needed to identify the root cause of problems so that we did not develop solutions that addressed only the symptoms. We enabled the management to make effective and transparent decisions, and to develop plans that had built in problem prevention. Nearly 25 years after first using Executive Process Skills we have yet to find a more effective process to help the sole practitioner and the mighty corporation in equal measure.

We employ Executive Process Skills today, not just for IT, but to help business owners and managers clarify the major business challenges, opportunities and concerns they are faced with on a daily basis and help them develop a strategy to deal with them.

Projects can be as short as two hours and our longest running project lasted over 4 years.

We can help:

  • Business start ups
  • Business hard ups
  • Business hold ups
  • Business foul ups
  • Businesses champing at the bit

And anyone else who wants to take stock of their current situation and has one hour to invest in their future.

Contact:

Steve Castledine: 07894666826

Steve Dunton: 07966262111

The number of subscribers to retail VoIP servi…

 

The number of subscribers to retail VoIP services rose by 83% during 2005, from 10.3 million at the beginning of 2005 to over 18.7 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2005. Point Topic estimated the number of people paying for PC-to-phone calls at 4.7 million. When combined with the retail VoIP total, this increases the overall VoIP paying subscriber totals to just under 24 million, compared with 14.4 million a year previously.

Retail VOIP market
  VOIP users, 000
Region Q4 2005 Q4 2004
Asia Pac 8862 7071
Americas 4583 1389
Europe 5254 1864
Retail VOIP total 18699 10324
Skype, etc 4730 4050
Total 23429 14374
Source: Point Topic

Microsoft Live

Microsoft releases Windows Live Writer - new word processing application.

Microsoft has just announced the release of a blog authoring tool called Windows Live Writer - essentially a new word processor app. Windows Live Writer is “a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using Windows Live Spaces or your current blog service.” It is available for download now.

The Windows Live Writer product features:

  • WYSIWYG Authoring
  • Photo Publishing
  • Map Publishing
  • Writer SDK

Compatibility with other weblogs including Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the product is its ability to do mashups and be extended as part of the Windows Live ecosystem.

The official blog states:

“The Windows Live Writer SDK allows developers to extend the capabilities of Writer to publish additional content types.”

 Examples of content types that can be added include:

1. Images from online photo publishing sites
2. Embedded video or audio players
3. Product thumbnails and/or links from e-commerce sites
4. Tags from tagging services

After taking a look at the beta version it seems likely I will wait until it develops further. However, it might be of interest to the techies out there.