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1 TOP 5 FUTURE-TECH TRENDS FREE E-BOOK PRODUCED BY MIDSHIRE:

2 TOP 5 FUTURE-TECH TRENDS CONTENTS TOP 5 FUTURE-TECH TRENDS 5. Hosted Telephony 4. Touchscreen Surfaces 3. Scan to Cloud Services 2. Document Security 1. Hosted Desktop Solutions ONE 2 ONE Interview with Julian Stafford - Midshire MD, North West Technology Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 and Stockport Business Person of the Year Generation C - A definition. FUTURE- TECH COMING IN Cicret Bracelet 4. iwatch 3. Wall Format Display Glass 2. Smart Card 1. Smart Newspaper FREE E-BOOK PRODUCED BY MIDSHIRE:

3 HOSTED TELEphony 5 Hosted telephone system solutions allow your communication system to be completely tailored to your business and your requirements, whilst giving you the perfect platform for future growth. With a hosted telephone system you will be able to take advantage of an extensive selection of clever, cutting-edge features, which allow you to control and monitor your telephone system via a web-based portal. This will help improve efficiency and reduce costs at your organisation, as it will lessen the burden on your IT team. The features are easy to control and use and give you the platform for flexible working. One of the main reasons why so many businesses turn to a hosted telephone system needs is because minimal capital outlay is required. DEFINITION Hosted Voice Telephony (traditionally called Hosted PBX) is an Internet delivered telephony system provided by a host and/or telephone company. Hosted PBX (Private Branch Exchange) delivers a PBX telephony system as a service. The flexibility of this solution also makes it ideal for any business; it s a reliable and proven way to improve operations at your company and enhance your brand image. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOSTED TELEPHONY FEATURES & BENEFITS OF HOSTED TELEPHONY 3 Features you can easily control 3 Empower your staff with one number anywhere 3 An on demand service with no hidden costs 3 Enables flexible working 3 Be in your office anywhere in the country with a hosted telephone.

4 TOuCHSCREEN SURFACES 4 DEFINITION A touchscreen surface is layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. A user can give input or control it through simple or multi-touch gestures on the screen with a special stylus /pen and-or one or more fingers. Possibly one of the most exciting areas of growth in technology is in surface technology and interactive products, which can quickly turn an ordinary business meeting into an impressive presentation or proposal. The simple mobile phone is now a full touchscreen entertainment centre and a whole host of other products have quickly followed suit. From touchscreen watches right up to touchscreen surface walls this technology is rapidly on the increase and impacting the working and office environment. Tablet touchscreen technology is the very latest in IT and computing equipment for business and pleasure. Used worldwide and available in hundreds of sizes from touchscreen watches, mini tablets, right up to large interactive panels for teaching and corporate presentations, there is no denying that tablet technology has been a game-changer for education and business over the last 5 years and will continue to grow and develop further. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TOUCHSCREEN SURFACES FEATURES & BENEFITS OF TOUCHSCREEN SURFACES 3 Crystal clear quality moving images and sound 3 Have greater impact in meetings and presentations 3 The latest touchscreen techniques can be used by modern businesses for staff training 3 Give your boardroom or reception the wow factor 3 Touchscreen surfaces are great for engagement and collaboration, especially in a learning or teaching environment.

5 SCAN TO CLOUD SERVICES 3 Every business relies on teamwork. But what if you could supercharge your teams by giving them secure, on-demand access to every piece of information they need, wherever they are? Imagine being able to create, access, control and share all the documents you need from a smartphone, photocopier, laptop, tablet, PC - or even from an interactive whiteboard in your meeting room. Well now you can as many cloud services are available for business productivity, cloud storage, collaboration and CRM. The Integrated Cloud Environment includes built-in connections that let you scan directly to these popular applications. You can save time by scanning documents straight into the applications you use directly from your photocopier. DEFINITION Scan to Cloud services are becoming increasingly popular in today s digital world. These services help companies to store documents electronically to try and create a paperless office where printing and photocopying output is reduced. Popular scan directly to cloud services are: scan to , Google Drive, Evernote, Hightail, Salesforce, SharePoint, SkyDrive, Dropbox, Office 365 and many more will continue to be developed to meet the needs of Generation C. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SCAN TO CLOUD SERVICES FEATURES & BENEFITS OF SCAN TO CLOUD SERVICES 3 Features you can easily control 3 Great for collaborative working in a team 3 Scan to cloud services and app is great for saving time on the job and when saving work 3 Enables flexible working 3 Makes daily tasks quick, simple and easier.

6 DOCUMENT SECURITY 2 DEFINITION Document security means protecting data in both printed and electronic format (such as scans) from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorised users. 30% of business documents are paper-based. Neglect paper and you will only ever be 70% compliant. Over 50% of organisations do not have a policy in place to control the printing of confidential documents. With potential fines from the UK ICO of up to 500,000 this is one-liability UK companies could do without. Yet most MFP users do not know that MFPs store images on their hard drives. A survey in 2008 found that 60% of customers are unaware of this feature on their office digital copier. Common Document Security Issues: Printing / multi-functional devices shared across the network Documents, which may be confidential, lying uncollected in the out tray Unauthorised printing of confidential documents Uncontrolled colour printing Cost control, waste reduction, environmental benefits FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DOCUMENT SECURITY METHODS TO ENSURE DOCUMENT SECURITY 3 Secure document release Holds documents until the user authenticates themselves at the device, via: PIN code, swipe or proximity card or fingerprint scanner. 3 Follow-me printing The user sends the print job to the FollowYou queue. The job is held at the server and ony released when the user authenticates at a device. Unclaimed jobs are deleted after a set time. 3 HDD Data Security: Data Overwrite Security Unit ensures data is encrypted after finishing each job.

7 1 HOSTED DEFINITION A hosted desktop is a product set within the larger cloud-computing sphere generally delivered using a combination of technologies including hardware virtualisation and some form of remote connection software, Citrix XenApp or Microsoft Remote Desktop Services being two of the most common. DESKTOP SOLUTIONS A hosted desktop can go with you, wherever you go! Hosted Desktops are the latest in cloud technology solutions for business. Also known as a virtual desktop, it allows you to work anywhere in the world with an internet connection and an internet enabled device. Access your programs and data over the Internet from your laptop, desktop, tablet or phone. The virtual environment is built around you and the software you need, personalised to your business needs. Hosted desktop allows you to manage your budget and control your data in a more flexible way. Tablets have become increasingly more popular as a personal device and at work. Studies show that mobile devices (inc. tablets) have overtaken desktops as the working tool of choice. Enabling bring your own device in an organisation is therefore vital for employee productivity. The data on a hosted desktop is never stored on your device, but stored in a data centre. So if it the device is lost, stolen or damaged, there is no need to worry about data loss. FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HOSTED DESKTOP FEATURES & BENEFITS OF A HOSTED DESKTOP SOLUTION 3 Always available, you just need an internet connection 3 Massive savings to be made. (Based on 10 users it could save your business up to 40%) 3 The latest technology advanced, powerful, feature-rich solution that includes licenses. 3 Safe, secure and resilient data locked down in a secure data centre environment.

8 ONE TWO ONE WITH INDUSTRY EXPERT JULIAN STAFFORD MANAGING DIRECTOR OF MIDSHIRE, NORTH WEST TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AND STOCKPORT BUSINESS PERSON OF THE YEAR. Midshire Business Systems Northern Ltd was established 18 years ago in Stockport and is one of five companies to make up the Midshire Group. Led by Julian Stafford, the company has grown from zero customers and two employees, to now supplying over 1,700 customers and currently services 3,800 machines in the field. Now employing over 79 staff, Julian has also opened a further two regional offices in Sheffield and Wales, launched an IT services arm to the business and continues to drive change and growth for the Midshire Group. We interviewed Julian to discuss the current state of the UK market, to find out his thoughts on the industry and to establish the biggest areas of opportunity for resellers he thinks there are going forward. How do you think the marketplace has changed over the last 12 months? In times of recession, as we saw a few years ago, it is normal for companies to become insular and look to protect what they have, with little or no investment aimed towards growth or development. However, in the past 12 months, the marketplace has vastly improved, with customer confidence increasing month-by-month. Dealers are looking for new accounts again and are talking about and investing in new products and features. All of this progress is aiding the growth and development of individual dealers and the industry as a whole, which is really exciting. What do you think is the main trend at the moment? I believe the UK market is at its most interesting point since the wholesale move from mono to colour. As the convergence of MFPs and IT grows ever stronger, the next 12 months will see even more IT Service providers buying copier companies and visa versa. Most customers wish to deal with one office technology provider to supply and service their IT, MPS, software and telecoms, so it makes sense that the providers are uniting. Customers and dealers alike are getting fed up with the regular argument about who is at fault when something goes wrong. What s the biggest misconception that your customers have about photocopiers? Device security is definitely overlooked too often. Most of our customers go to great lengths and much expense to secure their networks and all computer-related equipment attached to it within their businesses. However, prior to conversations with us, many are unaware that most MFPs today are basically computers. Even the smallest A4 device has a screen, hard drive, keyboard, access to the network and scan to . As such, they require the same level of security as all other computer related equipment. Julian Stafford Managing Director Midshire Northern The world of business is changing quickly and we are fortunate enough to be right in the heart of that change. The opportunity here is to advise customers of the threat and costs associated with not adhering to device security and offer suitable solutions to lock these devices down securely. This opportunity may be short lived as the manufacturers look to plug this gap, but I suspect it will be some time, possibly well into 2017 before security of this type is standard. Device security is only one element, document security is even more important. It has been reported that 65% of all security breaches are caused by human error. When you consider that a data breach can lead to fines of up-to 500,000, this really is an area that companies should invest in. We find that legal customers in particular value and realise the importance of security solutions.

9 Document management is it ever going to give return? All dealers have, at some time, looked to move into the world of document management and some of us have invested significant sums, with little or no return. Solutions used to be expensive and cumbersome to operate. We are now beginning to see fully scalable versions of once enterprise only solutions coming to market with price points that make deployment an easy decision. Some of these solutions are totally intuitive and teach themselves about your workflows. This means a fully working document management solution can be deployed affordably and without the need for skilled staff and with no element of user error. I think we are about to see an explosion of document management opportunities with solutions bundled into equipment deals. This will provide much needed additional revenue streams for cloud storage etc. Gartner predict that the use of cloud services for business processes will have accelerated past all current forecasts by 30%. How do you think the changing nature of the workplace is going to affect the photocopier industry going forward? The work place is changing quickly. We are seeing more remote workers and flexible workspaces. This is also an opportunity for us dealers. To fully embrace this new approach to the workplace there is a new increased need for wireless and air print technology. There is a big opportunity to upgrade older technology for the latest equipment. Mobile print and scan will become the norm in 2016 and the sharing of documents by people and devices will become a standard part of business life. The rapid rise of personal digital technology has meant that our customers have become savvier and more demanding about how they want to interact with each other through their preferred technology. So finally, are you optimistic about the future of the industry? The next 12 months are going to be very exciting. The world of business is changing quickly and we are fortunate enough to be right in the heart of that change. We all have real reason to be optimistic if we are willing to embrace the change our customers are demanding and look to new revenue streams to replace the ever impending drop in the printed page. The work place is changing quickly. We are seeing more remote workers and flexible workspaces. I believe the UK market is at its most interesting point since the wholesale move from mono to colour. GENERATION C Generation C is a powerful new force in culture and commerce. Sixty-five percent are under 35 but they span the generations, empowered by technology to search out authentic content that they consume across all platforms and all types of screens, whenever and wherever they want.

10 FUTURE-TECH COMING IN 2019 CICRET BRACELET I WATCH WALL FORMAT DISPLAY GLASS SMART CARD SMART NEWSPAPER FREE E-BOOK PRODUCED BY MIDSHIRE:

11 TOP 5 FUTURE-TECH TRENDS FREE E-BOOK PRODUCED BY MIDSHIRE: If you would like more information about our products and services or would like to arrange an appointment, please contact Adrienne Topping, Marketing Manager on: adrienne@midshirenorth.co.uk