Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire-based Apricot-ITL is offering a new facilities management service for organisations that wish to contract out the management of all or part of their computing operations. Already estimated at UKP250m per annum, the facilities management market, says Apricot-ITL, is set to achieve a yearly growth of 35%. The company believes that the reasons for such a rapid growth lie in the shortage of computer staff, and the difficulties and expense of housing computer operations. Apricot-ITL will provide staff to assist or take over a client’s operations, or alternatively, it can assume responsibility for a client’s existing computer staff, which it believes is especially appropriate where specific expertise is required. A third option is to move operations to ITL’s in-house Data Centre at Hemel-Hempstead. Apricot-ITL is currently managing the computer operations of ACT, Agricultural Central Trading, based in Cheshire. ACT’s operations are running on an ITL 9023X in Hemel Hempstead, linked to the Cheshire headquarters by private lines and 9600 V32 modems. The company did consider using British Telecom’s Kilostream, but the remote risk of losing data, and the higher costs of Kilostream militated against such a solution.
