Supporting Digital Skills in the South West

Two of Lineal’s youngest team members recently featured in an exciting video project aimed at introducing young people to careers in technology.

The Digital Skills Series is a joint project by Devon County Council & the Heart of the South West LEP which interviews ‘Digital Pioneers’ among some of the South West’s most innovative tech companies, and aims to get Key Stage 3 students interested in the amazing opportunities that are available in the digital sector.

It is hoped that the scheme will help promote apprenticeships, degree apprenticeships, work experience and other kinds of placement that help promote much-needed technical skills in the sector.

 

One recent survey of tech companies in the South West suggested more than half of businesses struggle to find recruits for technical roles, and that the region needs to do more to work with schools, local and central government to overcome the skills shortage.

Lineal have supported apprenticeships for over a decade, and are featuring in this video project for the second time in recent years. The short video-interviews will be shown to school children across the area as part of a series, and we hope it will help inspire the next generation of digital pioneers.

Our thanks to Alex, Harry, and Ocean City Media for their hard work towards this fantastic educational project. You can learn more about the Digital Skills Series here: https://skillslaunchpad.org.uk/ks3digital/digital-pioneers/

 

For IT support and expertise, please contact our team here.


Jurassic Fibre and Lineal Sign New Partnership

Lineal are delighted to announce our new partnership with Jurassic Fibre, bringing faster broadband to South West businesses.

Exeter-based Jurassic Fibre are a regional connectivity provider rolling out new ultrafast full-fibre infrastructure to thousands of addresses across the West Country.

At time of writing, Jurassic Fibre’s £250m investment in a new fibre network already includes numerous towns and rural communities such as Barnstaple, Bridgwater, Bude, Exmouth, Honiton, Okehampton, Sidmouth, Sowton, Taunton, Wellington and Yeovil.

Lineal Software Solutions Ltd. are a Barnstaple-based IT support and software development company assisting businesses and organisations across the UK and beyond.

Lineal’s Managing Director Mike Matthews said: “Thanks to Jurassic Fibre many businesses will finally have the option of true ultrafast, ‘pure’ fibre broadband at low cost, provided over cutting-edge infrastructure that simply hasn’t been available from any other provider.”

“We’ve been impressed by what Jurassic Fibre have built. Every day Lineal’s Technical Support teams encounter businesses depending on ever more cloud-based technology, and requiring faster connection speeds – together we’ll help deliver the connectivity options many so desperately need to run their businesses effectively.”

Jurassic Fibre said: “We are proud to be serving both business and residential customers across North Devon with our ultrafast full-fibre broadband services. Our partnership with Lineal enables businesses to take full advantage of their new bandwidths by providing the platform to utilise new technologies to serve their customers better.”

Jurassic Fibre is available in a range of speeds from 100Mbps down (20Mbps up) up to gigabit grade, and via private-fibre ‘leased line’ gigabit ethernet, for businesses needing exceptional quality connectivity.

 

For find out how faster connectivity options could help your business, please contact Lineal today.


Lineal on Tech South West Podcast!

Lineal’s Mike Matthews and Huma Mahmood-Khan recently featured on the Tech South West Podcast (‘Tribe Tech’) – to discuss the post-lockdown recovery, women in tech, and Lineal’s new SQLWorks MRP software.

It’s nearly a year since Lineal was shortlisted for Tech Company of the Year, and won a 2019 Tech South West Award (North Devon Cluster). Members of our team were invited to discuss recent developments, including Covid-19 and other issues facing the technical sector, alongside other award-winning tech businesses from across the region.

Listen now for the story behind our response to the C-19 crisis, the importance of more women exploring a career in tech, and the latest developments for our hotly-anticipated new SQLWorks software release.

Tech South West exists to champion the area’s growing number of technology businesses, showcase innovation and suport STEM skills across the wider South West region – partnering with a number of more local Tech Business Groups to advocate for the sector.

You can learn more about their mission on their website here: https://www.techsouthwest.co.uk/

 

For IT expertise and support, please contact our team today.


Lineal Wins Tech SW Award

Lineal Software Solutions Ltd recently won a Tech SW award at the 2019 Tech South West Awards.

Held at the Exeter Mercure Rougemont Hotel, the Tech South West Awards recognise technology excellence across the wider South West region of Bath, Bristol, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Awards celebrate talent, creativity, business success, education, leadership, diversity and more.

Each ‘Cluster’ Award celebrates fantastic organisations and technical initiatives across different parts of the South West. This could be a company achieving fantastic growth, an organisation or partnership delivering a big positive difference to their community, a learning initiative, innovative programmes, novel ways of encouraging and celebrating tech heroes, diversity, best practice or local tech successes.

This year Lineal won North Devon’s Cluster Award, and also narrowly missed out on winning ‘Tech Company of the Year (Revenue under £5m)’.

Managing Director Mike Matthews and Naomi Williams (Business Development) were proud to collect our Tech SW award, and our glass trophy now enjoys pride of place in our office!

“We were honoured to be the recipient of one of the first Tech SW awards” explained Mike: “It’s a real endorsement of our team’s hard work and our commitment to delivering brilliant technology solutions for businesses and organisations across the South West.”

Lineal will continue to grow and develop – we look forward to next year’s Tech SW awards, which you can learn more about here: https://www.techsouthwestawards.co.uk/


Lineal officially turns 30 Years Young

North Devon IT support and software company, Lineal Software Solutions Ltd, has celebrated 30 years’ success in business.

First founded in 1988, our company, which supports businesses and organisations across the UK and beyond with a range of IT services, are preparing to move to larger offices in central Barnstaple in the Spring.

Managing Director Mike Matthews thanked staff past and present for all their hard work over the last 30 years:

“Technology (and hairstyles) have changed considerably since 1988, but for us the best is yet to come. I’m proud that during that time, we’ve played a role in the success of some of North Devon’s best-known companies.”

We have doubled in size in the last two years, now employing over 20 locally-based staff who work in IT support and software development on behalf of other businesses and organisations across the UK and, increasingly, overseas.

Lineal also now includes staff from disability social enterprise Pluss, apprentices and degree apprentices, training in cooperation with Petroc.

The company has been recognised as one of the South West’s few Microsoft Gold Partners, helped to launch the Barnstaple Town Centre Wi-Fi project, and is part of DigitalND – a new group designed to promote digital connectivity and skills in North Devon.

Mike added: “The South West still has important connectivity and IT skills challenges to address, but public internet access didn’t even exist thirty years ago. Now the small company we originally started in my back room supports trusted clients as far afield as Australia. Ten Years from now? Watch this space.”

 

For IT Support and expertise, get in touch with our team today.


South West Among Worst Regions for 3G / 4G Mobile Signal

4g mobile signal

New data has suggested the South West is among the worst regions in the UK for poor quality 3G / 4G mobile signal.

Research by OpenSignal, in a pioneering coverage study using data crowdsourced from phones across the UK, reported the South West as among the worst three scoring regions for both 3G and 4G mobile signal availability (alongside Wales & Scotland). All three regions reported 3G availability below 80%.

Average 3G speeds of 11.48Mbps also placed the South West as one of the slowest in the UK, although 4G speeds were significantly better, possibly reflecting less intensive usage by comparison to urban areas.

Indeed, high availability of 4G signal in London appears to have resulted in the worst average speeds in the UK at under 19Mbps. OpenSignal attribute this shortfall to ’higher levels of congestion’ from data hungry users accustomed to reliable 4G signals.

Unreliable mobile signal availability and slow speeds presents serious challenges to those needing to work remotely or overly-reliant on cloud-based services for business continuity, although the study notes that some networks have significant plans to boost capacity.

For now, businesses in the South West seeking more reliable signals for mobile working should consider the installation of enterprise-grade signal boosters (available for both buildings and vehicles) or the much anticipated release of cost-effective ‘Multi-net’ on the new Gamma Mobile platform: permitting business phone users to automatically jump networks to help obtain signal, at no extra cost.

 

For unified communications expertise and support, contact Lineal today: 01271 375999