BLOG: Hilltops IT attend Promota Promotional Merchandise Trade Association show

The Promota Promotional Merchandise Trade Association show is the annual show for promotional gifts industry supplier and distributor members to meet, network and do business.

Exhibitors commented on the quality of the contacts made over the two day show. The eye-catching Promota show bus in the centre of the hall gave members the opportunity to meet the service providers and find out what the association is doing to support your business in difficult trading times. Both new and long-standing members found ways to protect their company and reduce overheads.

Today representatives from Hilltops IT attended alongside Sourcing City to present and talk about the new and existing products and website services which we have been heavily involved in developing. Plus it was a good opportunity to meet and greet many of our own clients from within the promotional gifts industry.

The solution offerings which had the most interest from attendees include the imminent Sourcing City website development (the current version of which was awarded BPMA Website of the Year 2008), Dynamic Office - a QuoteWerks based software solution tailored for use in the promotional gifts industry, Sourcing Planet - a website optimised promotional gift sourcing tool for end users, plus miscellaneous queries on bespoke back office system customisations and website developments.

Note to non-promotional gifts industry readers: please don't think that our solutions are exclusive to the promotional gifts industry! Our solutions are fit for "any" business that manages customer or supplier relationships, sells products or services or requires a website.

For further information on our website and software development services, please do not hesitate to contact us on +44(0)844 357 7360 or +44(0)1782 564252 or email development@hilltopsit.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

DEVELOPMENT: Fortnightly digest - what's happening at Hilltops IT and the world of software development

Hilltops IT Developer's diary

Since last fortnight's post, most development activity has been on the following projects:

• Website development - development work on our Hilltops IT website for re-branding. This has been the main focus for us - bringing together the design work with the "nuts and bolts" of the mechanics of the site. there are still a couple of tweaks to make, but the site is looking really good. Everyone internally is really excited about being able to announce the launch.
• Business Intelligence reporting - continued work on a bespoke project reporting on 3,000,000+ rows of data from disparate data sources using SQL Server Reporting Services.
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM - minor tweaks to an existing customer's MSCRM system for additional summary information in their Accounts screen.

Plus! We've been looking at the feasibility of a new product in the ConnectIT range. More on that soon.

Industry News

Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta

Microsoft have released Windows 7 Beta as a free download

For more details on what to expect from Windows 7, see the home page here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

To download the free beta, see here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

For further information on our website and software development services, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on 0844 357 7360 or 01782 564252 or email development@hilltopsit.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

DEVELOPMENT: Fortnightly digest - what's happening at Hilltops IT and the world of software development

Hilltops IT Developer's diary

Business Intelligence reporting - continued work on a bespoke project reporting on 3,000,000+ rows of data from disparate data sources using SQL Server Reporting Services.

ConnectIT-Sage - work on an interim release for a particular client's requirements. this feature will be rolled into a future build release for all users.

Website development - design work on our Hilltops IT website for rebranding.

Website development - prototyping work on our ConnectIT website for advertising using image banner ads.

Industry News

SQL Server 2005 SP3 released
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3) contains all the cumulative updates for SQL Server 2005, and fixes to issues that have been reported through our customer feedback platforms. These include supportability enhancements and issues that have been reported through Windows Error Reporting.

Download the service pack here.

The read about what's new, click here.



Sage CRM Solutions 2010 Strategy
A very interesting insight into Sage CRM Solutions's thoughts on CRM and CRM solutions generally, plus future development roadmap plans.

INTRODUCTION
Since the inception of CRM, the balance of power has shifted dramatically between buyers and sellers, with the rate of change accelerating in the past five years. Today, companies must
offer extremely cost-efficient, differentiable customer experiences to acquire and retain profitable customer relationships. In our highly globalized economy, CRM is critical to enable businesses of every shape and size to fulfill the needs and expectations of their customers.

See the full article here.

For further information on our software development services, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on 0844 357 7360 or 01782 721301 or email development@hilltopsit.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!