By Rhonda A. Spears
July 1, 2002

During the Homeland Security Forum at the 70th Annual Conference of Mayors, Robert Knowling, CEO and Chairman of Internet Access Technologies, Inc., presented to the mayors, what he calls, revolutionary computer software, called SimDesk, that would provide cities with a unique form of disaster recovery and contingency planning. "Disaster recovery can no longer be an afterthought in any of our cities. Emergency preparedness is critical and the need to have unencumbered mass communication is a necessity as you move forward," Knowling said.

Knowling continued, "There is not a city in the country that has not talked about disaster recovery and what do we do if we lose our building, and if we lose our data center. With SimDesk you can back up city government anywhere, anytime."

SimDesk allows a city to have disaster recovery, contingency planning and complete recovery of its IT operation anywhere in the world and save a city millions of dollars with the installation of this software.

The city of Houston, Texas has already loaded this software and will save more than $2.2 million by using SimDesk and its internet applications instead of high-end computers. Once the software is loaded in a city, it will bridge the digital divide by giving its residents anytime-anywhere access to a free web-based virtual desktop. For Houston, that means two million residents can access this new technology and the global information highway from anywhere.