BT and Microsoft Team Up to Offer Broadband in Scotland

BT and Microsoft are trialling a new service in Scotland that offering software and broadband to small and medium-sized businesses. Connected And Complete is a package consisting of broadband installation, Microsoft Office Small Business Edition, twice yearly health checks, a help desk and tools for making a website.

Jerry Thompson, BT’s head of business broadband, said: “There are well developed IT and financial services sectors in Scotland and we think they will be early adopters.”

If successful, the service will be offered to businesses throughout the UK.

BT are doing quite well out of broadband at the moment – year end results show a 30% jump in turnover for their new services, bringing in UK£3.4 billion (€5 billion) in revenue.

Nice to see something nice being tried out in Scotland for a change, since other trial runs in the past have included nuclear waste, intercontinental ballistic missiles, the poll tax and Malcolm Rifkin.

Microsoft on Connected And Complete

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people. Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon. At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC. After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video. These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?