Dawn of a PC world for the web-free

A CHADDERTON company has won a national contract to supply redundant IT hardware to people without web access.

Positive IT Solutions Ltd, founded five years ago and now operating from the Falcon Enterprise Centre in Victoria Street, is working with Remploy and www.raceonline.co.uk to deliver 250,000 desktop PCs and laptops.

Millionaire entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox, the Government’s digital champion and the founder of lastminute.com, has devised a plan to deliver internet access to people outside the world of IT communications.

“The plan is to refurbish hundreds of thousands of redundant PCs and laptops from closed or about-to-be closed government departments and make these available to people in the UK who have never used the internet,” said Paul Milner, from Greenfield, who set up Positive IT Solutions in Hathershaw in 2005.

His company completed a huge home access programme and the experience, allied to existing links with the government-sponsored agency Remploy, has led to this new enterprise.

The first batch of PCs were due in Chadderton this week from the Remploy site at Heywood.

Positive IT Solution’s specialists will load the kit with user-friendly software which allows inexperienced users to use the internet.

Mr Milner, whose team has won a contract to support the equipment for the first 28 days after purchase, expects the work to last several years.

“Remploy will erase any old data and we will load software in a quick turnaround operation,” he explained.