The ThinkPad has been around for 25 years. Here’s some tech which, um, hasn’t.

As the Lenovo ThinkPad brand reached the ripe old age of 25, the brand has gained a reputation for reliability and high performance. With the red trackpoint button and eye-catching logo, a ThinkPad is instantly recognisable. Whether your customers are after a slim and light device, an ultra-powerful portable workstation or a versatile 2-in-1, there’s a ThinkPad for them.

To celebrate the huge 25-year milestone, we decided to reflect on some tech that, in contrast, hasn’t quite stood the test of time…

MiniDiscs and MiniDisc Players

Despite launching the same year as the ThinkPad, MiniDiscs couldn’t quite knock portable CD players off the top of the tree. When MP3 players launched, MiniDisc players were doomed.

A day at the Microsoft Surface Partner Briefing

By Sam Thrower

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of attending the Microsoft Surface Partner Briefing. A quarterly, first hand opportunity to hear from some of the key players within the Microsoft Surface team about the latest product information and the potential opportunities for the months ahead. It’s been a pretty incredible 5 years for Microsoft Surface on their device journey and from the sounds of it, this is only the beginning …

It was a great day at the Everyman Cinema in Canary Wharf and I came away feeling enlightened with lots of valuable insights into where we’re going next on this incredible Surface journey, insights which I will share with you below….

Westcoast Bolsters Cyber Security Solutions Business with Thinkmarble

PRESS RELEASE

Westcoast has signed a distribution agreement with information and cyber security specialist ThinkMarble.

The distributor will offer ThinkMarble’s full range of security solutions including managed threat and vulnerability monitoring services ATLAS:, and TITAN:, and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliance consultancy services Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus.

Mark Davies Westcoast’s Cloud Services Director, said: “We can’t wait to start working with the experts at ThinkMarble and helping our partners provide their customers - enterprise or SME - with the very best in cyber security services and solutions.”

“The most important part of our role will be around enablement. We want to make sure our reseller partners fully understand the cyber security solutions they are selling as well as the value within that solution.” 

2018 Juniper Partner Advantage – a change for the future

By David Siddall

The technology industry is, by its very nature, one of the fastest evolving verticals. Featuring a new, never before heard of buzzword trending on LinkedIn and elsewhere seemingly on a monthly basis; we throw the words: Wannacry, Petya and hybrid cloud (not to mention GDPR) around as though they were course slang at the pub. Such terms however are representative of the real ways in which our industry has changed the world of business forever.

Juniper Networks has a history of being thought-leading. Indeed, being a viable challenger brand means adapting and evolving to a level above the rest of the market oftentimes including the incumbent leader. Marketing slogans are meaningless on the frontline where incremental revenue is the truest test and at Westcoast we have seen demonstrations and sales of Juniper’s “Software Defined Secure Networks” take off with our Juniper sales specialists evangelising the Policy Enforcer, Security Director and Sky ATP (otherwise known as zero day threat prevention) licenses to help our customers leverage network intelligence for security enforcement. This level of innovation spreads now to the Juniper partner program.

HP ZBook 15u G4: Feature-Rich & Budget Friendly

Does anyone ever look back on IT hardware with fondness? Has a friend or colleague ever said to you, “You know what, I really miss my Dell Precision 380”? Yeah, that’s what I thought. We’re living in a technological boom, and it’s a great time to be working in IT and following the changes as they happen.

It doesn’t require a great stretch of the imagination to say that those who have benefited most from the constant advances in IT hardware are those who need the most power. For example, gone are the days when designers were using workstations the size of fridge-freezers with 1 gig of RAM in a desperate bid to keep on top of their workload (albeit slowly). Devices have simultaneously slimmed down, risen in performance, and gotten cheaper. And this means that designers are given more flexibility in choice of tech, and that they can finally use workstations that look as appealing as the content that’s being created on them.

Microsoft 365 – The enterprise cloud suite with teeth

For all their technical and creative wherewithal, it has to be said that Microsoft sometimes struggle with one area: product follow-through. They create genius products and packages, but then forget to let the customer know about them, which is why today we’re going to be discussing Microsoft 365… And it might sound vaguely familiar to some of you, because we’ve sort of been here before with Secure Productive Enterprise (SPE). But, while there are significant similarities, 365 has extra bite.

So, what is Microsoft 365?

Take all of the essential elements that make up Office 365 – Word, Excel, OneDrive cloud storage, PowerPoint, OneNote, the full works – add in Enterprise Mobility + Security for comprehensive identity, access and device management, then tie it all together with Windows 10 Enterprise for full access management across a company’s entire network. That, in essence, is it: an all-encompassing business suite for the on-demand generation… But obviously there’s more to it than that.

“Westcoast Have Made Us Invincible!”

There are some customer testimonials that just make you smile. The above from Mirus IT Solutions does it for us; it’s not every day that you’re able to bestow a super power on someone!

Technology is changing rapidly at the moment and any company offering IT support needs to stay ahead of the information curve. It’s not just products that need to be cutting edge; it’s the service provided by those both within the industry and catering for the industry that matters too. And to deliver what clients and end-users need, IT solutions specialists need to be able to act fast. It’s that winning combination of speed and service that has made Mirus feel INVINCIBLE!

Zeroing in on Advanced Cloud Solutions for the SMB

ZenZero began as a small business with big ideas. The plan was to deliver IT solutions to the SMB, so that their clients could rely on enterprise-level technology while working on a more modest scale. A personal, efficient and knowledgeable service soon won ZenZero fans and customers, but the team saw room for improvement.

Small and medium sized businesses have a very distinct set of needs. The likelihood is that they won’t have a dedicated tech department, or even managers, so everything – all forms of support and advice – will need to come from their external solutions supplier. And that’s what ZenZero specialise in; providing bespoke, customer-focused IT products, help and guidance to growing companies. Although already a gold-rated Microsoft partner, ZenZero were experiencing one major difficulty; an inflexibility in service delivery.

Find out how one vendor is changing the landscape of audio management

Everywhere things are getting smarter, from self-driving cars to supermarket shelves that analyse how we shop (yes, really), and everything in between. So why should headsets get left behind, especially when they’re so important to the business environment?

That’s where Sennheiser’s aptly named HeadSetup Pro Manager comes in. It’s a powerful cloud-based solution that lets an IT administrator manage, update and configure settings for every Sennheiser headset and speakerphone in the organisation, from one central location.

When unbeatable service meets improbable speed

The Westcoast CSP and Keybridge IT Solutions story…

Every client is different. Every one. It’s this understanding that Keybridge IT Solutions and Westcoast have in common.

Supplying IT solutions for the recruitment industry, Keybridge have very particular needs for their clients. Reliable, intuitive software; consistent, trustworthy service; and speed. In a sector where change happens constantly, Keybridge need the ability to react almost instantly, and that’s what they have found in Westcoast CSP.