Third Sector now well served with latest cloud technologies from Star
London, 7th October - Star, a provider of on-demand computing and communication services to UK businesses and IRIS NFP Solutions, the leading UK provider of not-for-profit software and services today announced they would join forces to provide the most complete suite of NFP hosted applications on the market.
IRIS NFP Solutions, part of the UK’s largest private software company, supplies software and services to over 1,000 NFP organisations. Its market-leading software applications are in use by organisations ranging from the World Wildlife Fund to Medecins Sans Frontieres, The Institute of Directors and The Woodland Trust.
The collaboration with Star now means Iris NFP Solutions’ customers have an option to run their applications in the cloud, reducing on-premise IT infrastructure costs – which are increasingly under scrutiny despite evidence that UK charitable donations are holding up even in this tough economy. Through the partnership, hosting for Microsoft Office, Exchange and SharePoint will be offered to IRIS customers and powered by Star. Star’s UK-based data centres drive highly secure and available versions of IRIS NFP Solutions software that can scale rapidly as charities grow or in response to emergencies, special events or appeals.
David Pinches, Group Marketing Director, IRIS Software & Services, commented: “Our customers are organisations who primarily deliver for others every day. Just because they are not focused on profits does not mean they can afford to miss out on the latest cloud technologies. They care enormously about reducing costs, making it easier for donors and sponsors to give and organisations to deliver their services to recipients or members. We feel privileged that our new cloud-based services, powered by Star, helps them meet those pledges.”
Ricky Hudson, CEO of Star, described the partnership as ground-breaking: “This deal breaks new ground for Star and IRIS. Traditional Star customers value our ability to guide them to the correct cloud technologies and we are honoured to provide our breadth of experience and knowledge to support IRIS in their bid to create more value for their customers. IRIS also has a rich heritage which makes this partnership very beneficial to UK businesses wishing to select IRIS as their technology provider and in doing so leveraging the power of the Star cloud computing platform for this most-deserving of customers.”