Accessible Computing

If your computer is a desktop PC, what do you do when you go home at night but want to work? Take it with you? Some people have to and their life revolves around their laptop. At Cutter we don't think that's how it should be. You should be able to use whatever equipment is present where you happen to be and still get the services you need. Highly accessible computing is a young field making rapid advances and our customers are feeling the benefits.

Accessibility is obtained in a number of ways and these will change as the subject matures. This is a topic that has obvious technical solutions already, coupled with trends that will, in our opinion, lead to a generation of users who expect on-demand services independent of where they are located.

By centralising users' data and applications on high-reliability servers we are able to use modern techniques to make those accessible to the users wherever they are. Web browsers and network connections are ubiquitous now. Web based (sometimes described as 'Web 2.0') applications can easily be made available to users over the Internet so we support and encourage the use of Web based applications wherever possible. Our key supported mail and Virtual Learning Environment products are examples of services delivered in this way. We believe and expect that this trend will accelerate over the coming years.

Many older applications have no web-based interface and presume that users are running them on a classic PC desktop. These are made accessible using products like Sun Secure Global Desktop which provide transparent access to the users' PC desktops from web browsers anywhere in the world. In truth, once potential customers have seen what can be done with Secure Global Desktop we rarely have to show them much more, it's a truly astounding application and a deadly weapon in our sales arsenal.

These accessibility techniques aren't some kind of poor-performance substitutes for sitting in front of the 'real' PC. For a large proportion of users the experience is the same whether they are local or remote, the difference being that they don't have to travel into your site to work from home, or whilst travelling or wherever they may be. For schools in particular, this approach is perfect to meet the 24-hour availability requirements being requested by DfES.