Thankfully, the days of computers the size of a microwave oven and file servers requiring their own ‘computer room’ are long gone. You may not love modern technology but IT is one of those industries that evolves at breathtaking speed as it tries to satisfy our desire for computers to be both smaller and faster.

Then of course, there’s our increasing enthusiam for an ever more dynamic interaction with cyberspace. Our ‘need’ to have information, social connection and entertainment with us continually by simply touching a button or swiping a screen, means that electronic devices such as laptops and tablets have become an essential part of our daily lives, not just for personal use but for business too.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the operations director of a high street furniture chain who needed to provide secure storage for laptops issued to its staff. Obviously, laptops are valuable and the company wanted to encourage their staff not to leave them unattended.

The range of laptop storage lockers we supplied to their twelve sites, each had the doors colour matched to the company colours and the inside of each compartment was equipped with a 3 pin plug socket to permit easy charging via the laptop’s own power lead. Vents fitted to each compartment allow for heat dissipation and the whole locker is powered by a simple kettle lead that plugs into the mains and for added security and durability, each door has piano hinges fitted.

As laptops need to be moved from room to room or site to site, having a secure place to store them is a fantastic and cost effective way to keep company or personal property safe. Storage lockers can be used purely for storage without the additional cost of a fitted power supply too, which makes them ideal for many types of businesses or organisations, such as:

• NHS. With doctors and consultants working around the clock and very often not having a dedicated office or workstation, the ability to access a laptop quickly and update information on the go, is critical -  wasting five or ten minutes trying to locate a free laptop is simply out of the question. Having a secure, designated locker designed specifically for the purpose that has germ active paint technology to help combat the spread of infection, are just two of the factors as to why the use of these lockers within the NHS is helping management deliver a better and more efficient NHS.
• Schools and universities. Students are likely to have their own personal laptops for taking notes and carrying out research … it’s part and parcel of studying. For those at university, student life often means living in shared accommodation with people they don't know. Hiding their laptop under the bed really isn't the most secure place for such a precious item, so providing a dedicated locker within the campus or halls would be very useful.
• Construction sites. These are generally busy places with a continual stream of ‘traffic’. Site workers, sub-contractors, delivery drivers and third party agents will be visiting the site all day which means that they’re not easy to secure or somewhere you’d like to leave a laptop unattended … having a laptop locker would be a real deterrent to the opportunist thief.
• Gym/fitness classes. More people than ever are going to the gym before and after work and many will have their laptops with them. Supplying a secure place to leave it whilst working out would remove the worry associated with leaving it in a car or simply in a gym bag.

As you can see, the laptop locker can be used in many diverse environments. Specifically designed for laptops and having a slim, stylish look but an incredibly small footprint, makes them the ideal solution to the question of how best to keep laptops safe and helps to elevate any worry about losing this most valuable of assets.

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