Irene Watkinson, the company's marketing director, claims that the theft of computers has now overtaken hardware failure as the main cause of the company being called in to provide backup services.

"Hardware failure is a major problem in itself, and many customers call upon our services as a result of this problem," she told Newsbytes. She added that the scale of computer thefts is highlighted by a London Metropolitan Police report that showed around ú200 million worth of memory chips being stolen last year in the UK alone.

According to Watkinson, who claims that CDR is the largest company of its type in the UK, having been established in 1981, computer-related theft is the fastest growing category of crime in the UK, and no company or organization is immune from the problem.

CDR's statistics on computer-related theft shows that there has been a sudden increase in the number of customers experiencing chip theft -80 percent of whom called for CDR's assistance immediately, such was the potential damage to their business.

According to CDR, such is dependence of businesses on computers and information technology (IT) today that problems such as disk drive failure or computer theft has the power to render a company "totally ineffectual." This is where CDR's services, Watkinson explained, come into play.

Instead of charging companies by the hour or day for services when they need them most, and cash flow is probably at its worse, CDR charges customers, what it calls, an "insurance premium." This takes into account the degree of risk that a company might be struck down by a computer systems failure, regardless of its cause, and the premium is all that a company pays, no matter how serious the disaster.

CDR has disaster recovery sites in Leeds, Birmingham, and London in the UK, as well as sites in Brussels in Belgium, Paris in France, and Luxembourg. Its customers range from small businesses through to multinational corporations. "One of our major customers has company offices at 30 sites across Europe," Watkinson told Newsbytes.

As well as disaster recovery (DR) sites at set locations, Watkinson claims that CDR has a large fleet of mobile DR offices that can be shipped in, on-site, when disaster strikes. Using this approach minimizes the inconvenience to staff, as well as allowing existing telecoms facilities (if available after the disaster). The portable DR offices are equipped with computers, networks, and other devices, which can be customized to meet the needs of the company concerned.

(Steve Gold/19960614/Press Contact: Condor PR, +44-171-499-7324)