The North East – A great place for digital and creative media businesses to grow

Over the past few years, the North East of England has developed a thriving digital and creative media industry that the region can be proud of. Part of the reason for this success is down to the local hubs that have sprung up across the region. From Boho and Digital city in Middlesbrough, Sunderland Software City and the Ouseburn creative hub in Newcastle, the region has provided an excellent level of support to it’s growing and established creative and digital media businesses.

Created by One North East, the University of Teesside and Middlesbrough Council, Digital City has the aim of generating and sustaining a fast growing, high level economic base in the creative and digital sector for the Teesside area.
Digital City essentially consists of two main elements, The Institute of Digital Innovation and the Boho Zone. The Institute of Digital Innovation is located within the Phoenix Centre. It aims to provide support to digital academics allowing them to develop into successful entrepreneurs.

The Boho Zone provides space for new creative and digital businesses to “grow, network and do business”. According to their website, “Everything we do is geared to making North East the best place to develop your digital media, digital technology or creative business. Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a business idea, an established business looking to expand, a start up, one that’s looking to relocate or an organisation needing product development or finance, we’d love to work with you.”

Sunderland Software City
Sunderland Software city has similar aims to “Digital City” in Teesside, with more emphasis on software development rather than the creative digital media. There aim is to ‘…inspire and encourage the growth of the Software Industry in the North East of England, and to make the area an attractive location of choice for software businesses..” They are a public-private partnership of the City of Sunderland, the University of Sunderland, the North East Business and Innovation Centre, One NorthEast, Codeworks Connect and the private sector software industry.

Sunderland Software City currently operates out of a number of buildings across the city, but are looking to create a new state of the art environment at the heart of the city centre.

Ouseburn Creative Hub
The Ouseburn area to the West of Newcastle city centre was the cradle of the industrial revolution in Newcastle. For a long time it has also been the home to some of the most creative businesses in Newcastle and was the former home to the world famous Maling Pottery. In recent more digital and creative businesses have been moving into the area, and a variety of developments have sprung up to support them. Three of the more prominent developments include The Media Exchange, Hoults Yard and Maling Court.
“Mere Mortals” are a fine example of a world renowned digital media company that has made this are of Newcastle it’s home.

With these digital and creative media companies comes a high volume of digital data that needs to stored, manipulated and transferred. For this to be carried out effectively requires investment in systems and networks that are up to the task of dealing with such high volumes of data.

Over the next few years it is hoped that the telecoms companies will be rolling out an extension of the fibre optic network in the region which will allow for easier and faster transfer of files between facilities. In the mean time it is still possible for businesses working in the creative and digital media sector in the north east to take advantage of cloud based services as a method of storing their data, backing it up and transferring it to and from clients and partners.

For more details of our services and how we can help your business, contact us on 0845 862 4410 or info@eastquayit.com.

Ouseburn Valley firm delivers green solutions to creative industries

DOWN in the Ouseburn Valley, EastQuay IT is benefiting from rubbing shoulders with the area’s creative companies.

The Newcastle firm offers a number of services including website hosting and cloud services, but it’s also attracted a bit of attention for offering green IT solutions that can reduce the amount of energy companies use.

“It’s usually not about the big things,” said EastQuay IT partner Ian Fraser. “It can be something like buying lower power consumption computers instead of the normal Dell and HPs.

“It could be using the cloud and allowing us to host rather than buying a lot of servers.”
EastQuay says some clients have even managed to cut energy costs by up to 80%, and the eco-friendly approach appeals to a number of clients in the creative industries.

The creative sector is a big part of EastQuay’s client base, and it works with many of the largest advertising and design agencies in the region.

“It helps that we support both Apples and PCs and tablets, but creative companies are also interested in pushing boundaries,” said Fraser. “Our customers like us to be quite proactive and to ask them if they want to do this or if they’ve seen that.”

The company opened an office in Leeds around six months ago, and says business across the UK has exceeded its expectations in its first year. It is looking to expand its client base into other industries such as engineering and industrial in the upcoming year.

It recently worked with North Tyneside’s Learning Disabilities Federation to develop its new “GreenHive” system, which saves power consumption by centralising most processes on a server. This approach is being developed by Sheffield’s VeryPC. EastQuay IT partner Giles Wright, a former Canary Wharf analyst said: “As we are now one of the only firms in the region that specialise in working with PC and Mac systems, which creative agencies use day in and day out, this has helped us clear up this market and is something we are focussing on to help take us into different parts of the UK.”

The firm is hosting a free event at noon next Thursday June 28 in Ouseburn’s Toffee Factory to showcase new software. It will feature a prize draw.

Email info@eastquayit.com  to confirm attendance.

Adobe software sales and support: Eastquay moves south following new business succes...

Adobe software sales and support: Eastquay moves south following new business succes...: A Newcastle-based IT firm which has exceeded its targets and witnessed a year of high growth has opened a Leeds office following a surge ...

Eastquay moves south following new business success

A Newcastle-based IT firm which has exceeded its targets and witnessed a year of high growth has opened a Leeds office following a surge of new contracts outside the region.
Based in Newcastle’s bourgeoning creative quarter Ouseburn Valley, within its first year EastQuay IT has made its niche delivering greener solutions to the creative industries and has taken on four new staff after securing business in Yorkshire.

The firm, which has worked with some of the region’s largest advertising and design agencies and has helped many North East organisations cut energy costs by up to 80%, has seen a rise in new business after launching additional services including green computing, cloud services and website hosting.
It is also one of the only Adobe and Apple accredited IT firms in the North East that can support PCs, Apple Macs and tablets within a business environment.

Partners Ian Fraser and Giles Wright say the expansion is down to finding a niche market and serving that to the highest possible standards to gain business based on traditional word of mouth referrals.
Ian Fraser said: “It’s very encouraging that within just one year we have exceeded our expectations and targets in our first financial year.

“We are a friendly, local firm who can bolt on to any business as an expansion of their team. We are well known in the creative and digital sectors within the North East and are already starting to make ourselves known to this sector in other parts of the UK, which has led to our second office opening in Queens Square, Leeds.

“Our expansion is down to focusing on what we know best whilst still diverting into different service lines that help to reinforce our offering without diluting our core business of offering workable greener IT solutions. This has helped us gain recognition and credibility from our customers who have subsequently referred us on to their partners.”

EastQuay IT partner Giles Wright, a former canary Wharf analyst said: “As we are now one of the only firms in the region that specialise in working with PC and Mac systems, which creative agencies use day in and day out, this has helped us clear up this market and is something we are focussing on to help take us into different parts of the UK.”

EastQuay IT has also invested in a new brochure website, which incorporates a remote support service so the team can work on a client’s computer system from their office base.

As well as focussing on the creative sector EastQuay IT is also looking to expand its services into other mainstream industries such as engineering and industrial as its targets for the forthcoming year.

For more info contact us at :  0061295411338