Symantec's Enterprise Vault.
Bolton Wanderers
The club: Though you probably wouldn't call them the easiest club to watch in the Premiership,
Gary Megson has shaped his team to avoid relegation and still cause other clubs some trouble.
The tech: Towards the end of 2009, the club will be looking at virtualised desktop environments. Bolton already has a network management contract with Ipswitch for its comms system that identifies errors, understands where they have occurred, and notifies the user.
It has also migrated to a hosted email management system in Mimecast, which would have improved continuity, archiving e-discovery and security.
Hull City
The club: Thanks to an excellent start to the season, some spectacular goals by star forward Giovanni as well
as some hard-nosed wheeling and dealing by manager Phil Brown, they are in with an excellent shout of avoiding relegation this season though they are under a very bad run of form now.
The tech: The team play out of the KC stadium, named after key sponsor Kingston Communications, which manages much of the ground's telecom services as part of its deal, as well as much of the city of Hull itself.
Sunderland
The club: After the upheaval of losing their manager, the legendary Roy Keane, early on in the reason, it's been
a middling sort of season, with their prime goal of avoiding relegation still to be decided.
The tech: A major project to be implemented at the Stadium of Light is an access control credit card system that will get rid of paper tickets. Systems used for accounts, web, web sales and CRM are also used for scouting and player medical records.
Portsmouth
The club: As soon as Harry Redknapp left, it became very difficult for Portsmouth as it soon became apparent
that new manager Tony Adams was out of his depth. With new Portsmouth caretaker manager it will be a struggle towards the end of the season, but the squad still has some quality players.
The tech: The club's key priorities in IT look to be ensuring back-end efficiency and enabling flexibility with new technologies and solutions, with a big focus on disaster recovery. Most buying and strategic development is usually done in the close season.
Stoke City
The club: The promoted club were tipped like Hull to have a difficult season. They haven't done as well as Hull,
but they've done okay, although they face a battle to get out of the relegation places before the end of the season.
The tech: Stoke plays from the 28,000 all-seater Britannia Stadium and has a sponsorship deal with Tellcomm Plus, an independent telecoms broker which has steamlined the club's mobile telecommunications structure.
Blackburn Rovers
The club: It's been a season of struggle for Rovers, with the short-lived reign of Paul Ince being a complete disaster
for all involved. Sam Allardyce has steadied the ship and got Blackburn out of the relegation places, but they still face a battle to avoid Championship football next season.
The tech: Blackburn are looking toward virtualised servers, and this would address the need for disaster recovery provision should systems become damaged.
