Happy Christmas from Atlas Business SSM

The Atlas Wheel of Fortune

‘Fortune favours the Brave!’
FT.com/Business Life Why fortune favours the business brave 30 April 2006

‘A wise man will maketh more opportunities than he findeth’
Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

‘All is safely gathered in ‘ere the winter storms begin … … …’
Henry Alnod (1810-1871)

As luck would have it, the annual festive winter celebration coincides with the end of the first half of the Atlas financial year. This year it is particularly poignant because Atlas and C2 are departing to a secret location for their Christmas Party on the afternoon of Thursday 22 December (mobile cover for emergency support!) … … … and then we won’t be seriously back in the office until the New Year.

Until that time, we are all still frantically gathering the harvest home … … …
The implementation and development teams have been rocking round the clock to ensure that a healthy clutch of new fledgling projects fly successfully on time … … …. the sales team have been testing their tyres on the motorway network … … … back at the bunker, the technical and marketing teams have been stoking the infrastructure furnaces, while over in the relative tranquillity of Globe … … … accounts, Atlas Applications and C2 Internet support, have been balancing … … … the former the books and the latter pair keeping the customers up, running and happy.

So taking the crystal ball off the shelf and wiping away the dust, what of 2007, after the party’s over … … … Well, we return fresh-of-eye and light-of-step (after all the sun will be over the Capricorn yard-arm and have started to wend its way back to us) to face our first challenge … … … the company Year Start Meeting on 5th January – the annual convention at which we count how well we have done with that harvest in the first half of the financial year, and set out our strategy for 2007.

Rumour has it, and it is only a rumour because these things are kept a closely guarded secret until the doors open, that this time around the agenda is likely to focus on the essentials of customer relationship, the secrets of systems security, and the new Vista’s of Microsoft’s latest gift to technology … … … but who knows? Like I said it’s a closely guarded secret. Anything can happen and probably will.

So a Merry Christmas to you All, and watch this space for my Atlas New Year Horoscope predictions.

Dell recalls 4m laptop batteries

Dell have revealed they are to recall 4.1 million of their notebook computer batteries because of a fire risk.

Most batteries are in computers sold in the US but more than 1 million are thought to be elsewhere.

Dell says it knows of six instances since December when the batteries, made by Sony, overheated or caught fire.

The US body responsible for consumer safety says it is the biggest recall of electrical products in its history.

A spokesman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Scott Wolfson, said users of affected laptops should only run the machines on a power cord.

The Sony lithium-ion batteries were placed in laptops shipped between April 2004 and July 2006.

They were included in some models of Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XPS and Precision mobile workstation notebooks.

"In rare cases, a short-circuit could cause the battery to overheat, causing a risk of smoke and or fire," said Dell spokesman Ira Williams.

"It happens in rare cases but we opted to take this broad action immediately."

Dell has already launched a - website - telling customers how to get a free replacement battery.

No injuries had been linked to Dell laptops with defective batteries, the company told Reuters news agency.

The CPSC has identified 339 incidents in which lithium batteries used in laptops and cell phones - not just Dell products - overheated between 2003 and 2005.

Some incidents involved minor skin burns or actual injuries as well as property damage, Mr Wolfson said.

Access Accounts Horizons 4.00H Release

Atlas Business and Supportive are pleased to announce the release of Access Accounts latest verion of Horizons... Horizons 4.00H. This is predominately a maintenance release, but a number of new features/updates have been included. Below is just a brief snippet of soome of the important new features/updates:

- 4.00H has the capability to electronically submit your EC sales report to HM Customs and Excise. Please note the paper report submission approach will no longer be accepted from the 31st of July 2006.

- There has been an update to the Access Crystal Design (ACD) driver. This brings it up to date with the latest Business Objects releases and fixes some error messages users may have experienced if printing using a pcl driver.

- The EU list has been updated with some of the newer entrants such as Malta.

Access have put a lot of time and effort into replicating, fixing and testing the fault reports that we as your dealer have been submitting on your behalf. The software industry is particularly fast moving, and Access being a very innovative company regularly embraces the latest technologies and as a Gold Partner tightly integrates with new Microsoft releases. We all know that being on the bleeding edge of new exciting features can sometimes introduce the odd “unexpected knock on effect.” To tackle this Access has invested £80,000 in their QA software and have a strong full time team who are dedicated to checking the software. On release of a new version Atlas also internally 'kick the tyres 'before making it available to you our end users. All these things happening hidden behind the scenes are all designed to ensure that you, our customers, have a frustration free, user friendly and enjoyable experience whilst using the software.

Any users wishing to upgrade should contact support on 01270 613000.

Important Notice - Placing Calls With Atlas Business Plc

We are dedicated to providing our customers with the superlative response and support that you have come to expect from Atlas, many of our long standing clients will be aware that we have changed our support and enquiries telephone number over the last few years from 01270 613000 to 01270 615000 and then back again!

We are now continuing to use the 01270 613000 number, and although you will find the 01270 615000 number will still put you through to the Atlas offices, this is now on a call forwarding system and so response times will be slower.

If you are not doing so already please use the 01270 613000 telephone number when contacting Atlas to ensure the quickest and most efficient response and service to your query.

Macintosh Client... Tiger Operating System

If you have upgraded your Macintosh client machine up to the Tiger operating system you may have experienced problems with connecting to your Access Horizons / Foundations datafile. There is an easy solution to this issue - simply download the required patch.

Should you still experience problems please feel free to call 01270 613000 and speak to the support hotline or alternatively email your query.

If you would like to know more about the benefits that Tiger could deliver to your business please telephone and ask for sales or alternatively email.

Upgrade to Citrix Presentation Server 4 before 15 September 2006

Are you still with Citrix WinFrame 1.x, Citrix MetaFrame 1.x, or Citrix MetaFrame XP?

If so, now is the ideal time to upgrade to Citrix Presentation Server 4. Atlas Business Plc are offering you the opportunity to upgrade your current Citrix product, regardless of age or release version before September 2006.

Not only will you save significantly on the standard license fee, but included in the price is also a fresh Subscription Advantage agreement - giving you access to all product updates for the following twelve months.

What’s more.. you no longer need a minimum order of 20 concurrent users to take advantage of this excellent opportunity.

Citrix Presentation Server 4 - benefits!

Citrix Presentation Server 4 is the most scalable, flexible and powerful version ever - with more enhancements than any previous release.

- Faster, more user-friendly printing

- Better support for applications, PDAs and peripherals

- Enhanced performance and usability

- Improved smart card capabilities

- Up to three times more users per server

Find out more about Citrix

So now is the time to enhance your Access Strategy.

MetaFrame 1.x and MetaFrame XP are no longer on sale and maintenance for MetaFrame 1.8 has been discontinued. So there’s no better time to upgrade to Citrix Presentation Server 4.

If you are interested in upgrading please contact Steve Webster for a quotation on 01270 613000 or email