Wayne Lanchester interview

Having joined Strident after leaving school in July 1993, Wayne Lanchester has been with the business since its inception. Wayne highlights some of the key changes over the past 25 years.

Wayne had expressed a keen interest in information technology to the business founders and was taken on the help the budding IT support team and the IT director.

“When I started, the use of IT was very limited with businesses having very few PCs. Smaller businesses often only had one machine which belonged to the finance department, with accounting being one of the earliest roles to adopt PCs,” Wayne explains. As well as building PCs and servers, support for Sage accounting software was a key service for Strident at that time.

“Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets and WordPerfect word processor were the common applications before Microsoft Office really came into businesses. Support was provided over the phone by attempting to mirror the actions of the client, or a site visit was necessary. As there was less reliance on computers at that stage, response times were also less critical.”

Networks come of age

By 1996, computer networks were becoming more common, with Windows NT file servers supporting a number of desktop users and the more graphical, user-friendly Windows 95 operating system taking over from the older Windows 3.1.

“Networked PCs were now making their way into more areas of business but the central server only really acted as a file server. We were offering more remote support by this point via a modem to the server. However, with four engineers and one phone line, we would have to take it in turns to dial into a client and data transfer was painfully slow by today’s standards,” adds Wayne.

Unsurprisingly, connectivity speed has been the primary barrier ever since, with ever-increasing speeds enabling ever more sophisticated remote support. “In 1998, Strident installed ISDN dial-up internet with 128k download speeds allowing us to support more clients effectively and over a larger geographical area. The Microsoft Exchange email system was now being installed on all client servers with computers on virtually every desk in a business, and email was now becoming the key business communication tool.”

What Millennium Bug?

The Millennium Bug was the disaster that never happened. “In the final months of 1999 we were busy updating all our clients to avoid the ‘Y2K bug’ but in the end it was a bit of a non-event.”

Strident upgraded to ADSL broadband in 2002 with greater connectivity speed enabling better support, a significant amount of which was now being done remotely. “Although we still build servers, it was around this time that we were supplying pre-built PCs loaded with Microsoft Office and we would configure them into a pre-existing network. By 2005, laptops had dropped in price, increased in performance and with Wi-Fi becoming more prevalent, more and more of these were giving business users mobility and flexibility to work from home.”

By 2007, BlackBerry had become a popular business messaging platform and this year it was joined by the newly launched Apple iPhone. Cue the slew of blackberry and apple crumble jokes. “Sending and receiving messages and email while out of the office had become an important business requirement. The rapid adoption of smartphones saw these services and others now becoming an essential part of the business IT environment.”

What does the future hold?

Over the past ten years increasing connectivity speeds, both for broadband and mobile, and device performance have seen more and more services delivered over the internet. Microsoft Office, for example, has gone from a CD-installed suite that users upgraded every few years, usually with a new PC, to a constantly evolving business platform that can be used on smartphones, tablets and desktops.

“In the past, we usually worked on a server life of around five years and a laptop life of three years. The recent trend towards software on monthly subscription and cloud-based file and software delivery means that changing devices has become much more flexible. In theory, a user can simply log into a new machine and instantly have full access to all their files and software. We’re not quite there yet but that’s where we are heading.”

Strident has always be focused on improving business performance using though IT. Using the latest Strident Advanced Management Software and sophisticated customer management software, Strident is able to rapidly and proactively support customers, ensuring security updates are applied promptly and customers technical issues are dealt with quickly. 

“Today we are creating flexible, powerful and productive business solutions that can be accessed seamlessly from a wide range for devices. We’ve seen dramatic changes in IT over the past 25 years but we’ve always provided outstanding advice, expertise and customer service to help businesses grow.”