[31.10.2007 first posted on silicon republic]
A two year deal worth €250,000 has been won by network infrastructure providers MJ Flood Technology to give onsite network and desktop support to food company Jacob Fruitfield, producer of the Fig Roll and Kimberly biscuits.

Under the contract, Jacob Fruitfield will be ‘insourcing’ an IT professional from MJ Flood Technology to deal with email filtering as well as a secure remote access infrastructure for mobile users.
Jonathan O’Rourke, IT manager with Jacob Fruitfield, said that in-sourcing seemed the more economical route to take given the inherent costs associated with keeping an in-house IT professional up-to-date.
“The hidden costs associated with in-house IT administration are substantial particularly in terms of ongoing training and development.
“Contracting resources from an external provider ensures that we have access to the most up-to-date skillsets and visibility of the latest technologies. As a result, our company resources can be channeled into more critical tasks of growing the business and extending our customer base,” he said.
This move is bucking the trend of IT outsourcing which is becoming increasingly popular in recent times, with outsourcing contracts up 78pc on 2006 according to TPI data management analysts.
Pat O’Neill, account manager with MJ Flood Technology noted that spam and junk email was not only a problem with Jacob Fruitfield but are prevalent in many Irish companies.
“We deployed SurfControl, a best-in-class email and internet filtering solution,” said O’Neill.
“Based on the concept of adaptive threat intelligence, SurfControl checks against daily updated databases of spam and junk e-mail.”
By Marie Boran