• Standardisation of desktop, office and email software. Adoption of Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop will ensure all users across your firm have the same version of Windows desktop, Microsoft Office and Exchange email, all of which is fully licensed and supported -- this benefit removes the burden of software auditing of desktop, office and email software.
  
• Standardisation of corporate desktop. All desktops would be branded as your firm; Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop is a 'locked-down' corporate desktop environment. This approach ensures standardisation and substantially reduces the desktop support overhead. Any applications required for business use can be published to users to ensure that each user has all the tools necessary to perform their role but the ability to install non-business applications is removed ensuring that the working environment remains clean and standardised.
  
• Lower support overhead for core desktop computing. With a resulting standardised locked-down desktop, office and email solution the support overhead required is dramatically reduced -- Support is no longer required for installing or upgrading Windows desktop, Microsoft Office or Exchange email. With Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop the support overhead is reduced to supporting connectivity/networking, access devices (PC, thin client, laptop, netbook, iPhone etc) printing and scanning. This support can be provided in-house by your firm or through Fitzrovia I.T. Limited. The scope of first line support is a matter for further discussion.
  
• The end of capital expenditure on desktop/office/email software licensing. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop removes the requirement to spend capital on upgrading or purchasing new 'perpetual' box software licenses for Microsoft Office, Exchange and Windows Desktop -- instead Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop ensures each user has a valid license to use Windows desktop, Microsoft Office Professional and Exchange email. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited reports licence usage to Microsoft (via one of its 6 UK distributors) and the monthly fee charged to your firm covers all licensing. So no more capital expenditure and depreciation on software licences. 
  
• The end of capital expenditure on server hardware. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited provide the physical infrastructure for delivering the service. This removes the requirement to spend capital on upgrading or buying new servers and data centre space for hosting desktop, Microsoft Office Professional and Exchange systems. 
  -- instead, the per user per month fee covers all the hardware systems (including servers, power, operating system, data centre space, back-up) necessary to host and deliver your desktop computing in the cloud.
  -- your firm's capital expenditure is reduced to the cost of end user devices such as thin clients, iPhones, netbooks, and also to networking equipment, printing and scanning.
  
• Greater productivity. This arises through (a) service up-time and (b) mobile working. In respect of service up-time, an Infonetics survey found that the average down time for a company's IT systems is 51 hours per annum or 99.4% internal SLA. Gartner have produced a downtime figure of 81 hours per year. Taking the lower figure of 51 hours down time equates to 4% of lost turnover through lost productivity. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop's SLA guarantees 99.9% of service availability, a guarantee not breached in the last 2 years. This means the workforce will lose less time from the inability to work due to desktop outages and problems. In addition to greater up-time, Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop makes working from anywhere easy with access on netbooks and iPhones.
  
• Enhancement of security . By ensuring data is no longer stored on local hard drives of laptops or PCs the risk of data loss through the theft, accidental damage or loss of physical devices is significantly reduced. 
  
• Simplicity. your firm staff will not need to undertake wholesale re-training of Hosted Desktop because once logged in the environment is the familiar one - Windows desktop with start menu, Microsoft Office Professional and Outlook for email. The desktop is delivered in the cloud rather than from a local machine, but the user interface is familiar.
  
• Scalability. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop provides the perfect scalable solution for a group such as your firm that grows through acquisition. As new companies are acquired all users can be migrated to the standard your firm hosted desktop resulting in standardisation and cost savings. -- The scaling works downwards too, if offices / workforce are reduced during challenging economic times or periods of consolidation then you only pay for what you use (subject to any minimum user commitment agreed in the contract in consideration of overall pricing benefits).
  
• Easy management. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited provides a web based Customer Portal that enables authorised administrators to manage a wide range of key functions including provisioning and removal of users, re-setting of passwords, setting folder permissions, controlling security access to different applications and managing hosted exchange and BlackBerry. Further details on the web based Customer Portal are set out in this proposal.
  
• Future proof. Upgrades of desktop, office and email software are all included in the agreed per user per month price. When Office 2010 is released this will be available to your users without the need to plan and implement a software upgrade across the entire group, ensuring that standardisation continues without the need for any investment on your part. 
  
• Mobile / flexible working. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop works on an iPhone, netbook and other physical devices. This provides a simple way of giving your workforce a mobile working solution
  
• Multi-language. When a user is added their first language can be selected and this will be associated with that user's profile to ensure all the Microsoft aspects of the desktop and Office suite are in the user's chosen language - irrespective of the device or location from which they are accessing their Hosted Desktop account.
  
• Quick deployment. New users as well as access to applications (such as Visio and Project) can be set up in seconds through the web based portal.-- For example, you have a user that requires Microsoft Project Professional and Microsoft Visio Standard. Simply login to the web based portal and add the user to the Project and Visio security groups and the next time the user logs in those applications are available in the user's START menu. Contrast this with a purchase order for new software, obtaining quotations from different suppliers for the software, purchasing it, organising delivery, organising installation and then auditing the licenses and in future having to audit software assurance and upgrades.
  
• Gradual roll out option. Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop can be rolled out under a project plan to different territories at different times or can be rolled out across the entire group in one move.

Features of Hosted Desktop

Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop comes with the following as standard.

• Windows themed desktop Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop does not virtualise the entire Windows 7 desktop software but uses Windows server to provide a Windows 7 "themed" desktop. This is licensed from Microsoft under our Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) as a Windows remote desktop license.
  
• Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (upgrading to Office 2010 in H2 2010) This includes Word, PowerPoint , Excel, Access, Publisher, Outlook
  
• Microsoft Exchange Email Outlook Web Access, ActiveSync (for syncing your mailbox with a Windows mobile device or iPhone), anti-virus and anti-spam filtering.
  
• Web browsing and filtering
  3 web browsers are available - Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome. In addition all web browsing is filtered through an intelligent web filtering proxy. The standard web filtering policy allows access to all sites other than those that are deemed to contain illegal content. However, a customised web filtering policy can be set up for your firm. This would enable your firm to deny access to certain types of site such as social networking sites or gambling sites.
  
  'My Documents' and other tools
  Windows Accessories
  Network drive storage
  Zip file creation
  Sync toy - offline file synchronisation
  PDF viewer
  
  Optional Extras
  Hosted BlackBerry Enterprise Server
  Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project
  Other Applications -- (examples: Accounting, CRM, Document Management Solutions)

New features for 2010

Office 2010 In H2 of 2010 Microsoft will be releasing Office 2010 which Fitzrovia I.T. Limited will be making available. No dates can be provided until Microsoft have released the update.

Exchange 2010 - In H2 of 2010 Fitzrovia I.T. Limited is releasing Hosted Exchange 2010 which provides functionality for managing large mailboxes as well as email archiving services. Unified Communications is also linked with Hosted Exchange 2010.


System Requirements

1. Connectivity.
The performance of Hosted Desktop to you, the user, is dependant on having a stable, reliable, fast internet connection. As your desktop, documents and all applications will be delivered to you over the internet, the faster the internet connection the better. The upstream bandwidth required depends on a number of variables. We recommend 80kbps of upstream per user as a minimum and this is also stated as a system requirement in our SLA. Connectivity can be any form of internet connectivity including 3G if you are using a 3G card or iPhone..

2. Web browser.
You can access Fitzrovia I.T. Limited Hosted Desktop through a range of web browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Mac browsers.

3. Citrix ICA client.
This is recommended, though if you have no administration rights to install software on the device being used to access Hosted Desktop (such as a hotel computer) you can use the Java client rather than installing the Citrix ICA client. However on the machine controlled by the user we recommend the Citrix ICA client is installed. Its easy to do and you are prompted to install the first time you login to Hosted Desktop. When Hosted Desktop is deployed to a new organisation the project plan can define how this is done and how is responsible.

4. Thin Print.
Although this is primarily designed for thin clients that have limited local memory, we recommend all users install it as it improves printing performance. The way printing works in Hosted Desktop is that it will map the printers from the local machine. If you can print locally, you will be able to print inside Hosted Desktop. We strongly recommend that all users install the Thin Print client (a small piece of software to assist with printing) before you start using Hosted Desktop. If required, we will discuss this with you prior to your go-live-date.

5. Space on local drive.
You will need at least 200Mb of space on your local hard disks to install the XenApp and Thin Print clients. These two small pieces of software enable your systems to communicate with ours. You will also need to ensure that you have enough available space for your machine to continue performing at high levels. The performance of Hosted Desktop on your machine is partly dependent on the performance of your local machine.

Requirements for iPhone:
For use on an Apple iPhone you need to install the Citrix Receiver app. This is free of charge.

Web based Customer Portal
Authorised administrators are granted access to Fitzrovia I.T. Limited's browser based customer portal which enables administrators to manage several aspects of the Hosted Desktop, Hosted Exchange and BlackBerry services. The functions that can be managed through the Customer Portal include:

Hosted Exchange: ability to add a user, delete a user, modify a user's details; add / edit an alias; add / edit distribution lists; re-set passwords; disable users; create a contact in the Global Address list (mail enabled contact); set up forwarding from an existing mailbox

Hosted Desktop: add a user, remove a user, disable a user, re-set a password; change folder permissions on the company file share; add / remove users to application groups e.g. add a user to the Visio group would add Visio in to that user's start menu.

BlackBerry: activate a BlackBerry, de-activate a BlackBerry, remove a user from the BlackBerry service, delete data from the BlackBerry device memory and make the BlackBerry unavailable (kill handheld command).


Support & Service Level Agreement

Fitzrovia is focused on providing the highest standards of support and the results of Microsoft's Customer Satisfaction surveys and the feedback from customers prove that we provide a high standard of support. We continually strive to produce an excellent user experience and a professional and prompt support service when support is needed. 

Fitzrovia's Service Level Agreement (SLA) sets out details on the service and support. The SLA guarantees 99.9% service availability.

Fitzrovia's technical team consists of first line support and senior engineers. The team is managed by a Service Delivery Manager who reports to our Managing Director.

There are a number of factors that result in significantly lower levels of support required for Hosted Desktop and Exchange when compared to traditional 'on-premise' desktop and email services. The reasons are
* the redundancy built in to the Hosted Desktop and Hosted Exchange platforms meaning that hardware faults on the system can occur without causing outages;
* the highest levels of service availability, and
* the standardised and cleansed nature of the Hosted Desktop service.

Fitzrovia provides a 247 support telephone line. Out of UK business hours this number is answered by an outsourced specialist technical support service and Nasstar senior engineers are on a rota for dealing with any priority 1 support incidents out of hours.

Support does not cover user training in the use of applications, for example if a user needed help using certain features of Word or Excel then this falls outside the scope of our support. Instead support is responsible for ensuring service availability and resolving support incidents caused by configuration or system faults.