Solis
Company: Ipswitch Inc.
Customer: SolisSubmitted by: MCC InternationalDate: September 1999Born out of two voluntary, community-orientated on-line information services, Solis is now a leading ISP for local businesses and Internet users in the Sheffield area, although it offers full co-location services in Manchester, Aylesbury and London. The company employs 22 members of staff and hosts around 300 commercial websites and 7,000 personal homepages, many of which have been uploaded to the world-wide-web using Solis’ FTP programme of choice, WS_FTP Pro 6.0, from Ipswitch Inc.”We have a clear business focus – we aim to make the Internet accessible and understandable for all of our customers, both commercial and home uses,” explained Martyn Bailey, founder of Solis. “When we began to charge subscription fees, it was important to provide software that lived up to our mission statement.
WS_FTP Pro, the registered and shareware version, is both stable and easy to use. It is also powerful enough for the needs of a growing ISP.”Martyn first discovered WS_FTP in 1994 when he was managing websites for a health charity. “The sites and files were scattered around on different servers all over the world, WS_FTP was a really handy find, and I’ve used it ever since.” Martyn currently recommends the software to all of Solis’ commercial and domestic customers, and he estimates that half of them are using the software on a regular basis.
“WS_FTP Pro 6.0 is doubly vital to Solis as we rely on it to update our own webpages, download various hardware and software updates and repair customer’s sites when they’re ‘broken’,” said Martyn “We don’t even think about ‘using’ the software, to us it’s an everyday tool which we know wont let us down.”WS_FTP Pro is a Windows-based file transfer client application that is used to transfer files between a user’s local PC and a remote FTP server connected via a modem and telephone lines or by a local area network. With WS_FTP Pro 6.0, users can connect to any remote FTP server on the Internet, browse through directories and files, and transfer files in either direction. In addition, users can create, change, and remove remote directories and view, execute, rename, or delete remote files.
WS_FTP Pro 6.0 also supports anonymous logons, which allows users to access the vast store of information on publicly accessible FTP sites around the world.One of the major benefits of WS_FTP Pro 6.0 is its ease of use. The registered version offers the user a choice of two interfaces, classic and explorer, and both simplify the act of moving and transferring files on the Internet to a click of the mouse – a feature that Martyn readily appreciates.”We can train anyone to use the software in less than five minutes.
It does what it should do without trying to think for us. It doesn’t give us silly jumping paperclips and useless messages before crashing the system. We know that we can reliably recommend it to colleagues and customers without them coming back to us complaining that it doesn’t work or they can’t use it,” said Martyn.WS_FTP Pro also contains a number of very useful functions that can make using the software even easier. Martin is blind and has recorded a series of short .
wav files – complete, connect and error – that tell him when something has happened during the FTP process.”For disabled users like myself, this function is really useful and it has a reassuring effect for new users, many of whom are usually based in an unsupported academic or medical environment.”Demonstrating even more flexibility, WS_FTP Pro is also available in a Software Developer’s Kit, allowing the creation of custom applications. With a choice of languages that includes C++ and Visual Basic, developers can create standalone FTP applications or add network file transfer functionality to existing custom applications. For example, developers can use the development kit to write applications that post frequent updates to Internet or Intranet servers or automatically download documents or programmes at separate times and intervals.”Overall, WS_FTP Pro has been a great product for Solis,” said Martyn.
“We have saved a great deal of time, and therefore money, by not having to double guess what has gone wrong. We provide telephone technical support to our customers and one glance through the call logs shows that in three years we have only had 152 calls related to WS_FTP issues, now that is a result!”WS_FTP is an old friend, it’s remained with me throughout my various Internet experiences and earned itself a great reputation. I make no secret of being a lifelong technology junkie. If only half the tools were as reliable and trustworthy as WS_FTP Pro 6.0 I’d be a very happy man!”
