TM has the widest range of online property searches available in the UK. The company's system also provides risk management tools and company-wide administration settings that ensure that its customers are following the latest in ‘best practice' and Law Society Guidelines.

TM's system reduces delays and administrative costs for busy solicitors. Comprehensive data and third party contact details can be downloaded quickly to a user's desktop on a pay-as-you-go basis. The company's system is known for its ease of use. Each professional in a typical practice can save £8,000 per year in time and processing costs.

Attenda has been managing TM's web infrastructure since it began trading in 2001. Payment, logistics, storage and customer service are all vital components of the system.

The company's rapid, intelligent and accurate services enabled it to gain a 10-12% share of the UK market in a short space of time. However TM Property knew that to maintain this level of success the company had to continually invest in new online services. One of these is an enhanced mapping service called MasterMap®. This is built on a very large dataset of the UK developed by the Ordnance Survey.

TM has a 10 year NLIS licence which allows it to access government-owned information on behalf of its customers. MasterMap® replaces earlier, cruder mapping applications which required users to manually trace the outline of a building with precision. MasterMap® users can simply point and click to obtain accurate information and easily identify a specific property.

TM recognised that the new service had enormous potential but the immediate challenge was how to operate and support it. As Steven Foster, Managing Director commented, "MasterMap® is resource hungry; we knew it would take a lot of processing power."

With its technical partners Intergraph and Laser Scan, TM had developed the software needed to manipulate the OS data, place it within a workflow solution and present it through a user interface. TM then prepared a brief specifying the type of architecture that this application would require.

Attenda worked with OS, TM, Intergraph and Laser Scan to ensure that the infrastructure it designed would meet all requirements. Attenda supplied all the hardware and installed the new equipment in its own secure data centre.

Attenda's solution enables all MasterMap® information to reside in an Oracle database on a Sun Solaris Platform. The MasterMap® application, TM Search, sits on 12 servers within a Wintel environment. There is resilience and redundancy across every layer with no single point of failure. Extra capacity gives TM Property plenty of room for future growth.

With these two distinct and separate environments within the same architecture the MasterMap® service has the best possible configuration.

"We work with Attenda because we know we are in safe and proven hands" commented Steven Foster. "We are confident that Attenda's high quality monitoring will pre-empt any issues. Attenda is also very keen on service, understands the needs of our business and works really hard to keep customers happy."

Attenda's M.O. platform helps to provide the security and reassurance which TM Property requires. The M.O. platform enables all Attenda's customers to receive the highest standard of infrastructure management and monitoring at minimal cost. The development work that Attenda put into M.O. means that one dedicated team can act on behalf of all customers. This allows the sharing of operational costs across Attenda's customer base.

Customer confidence is what matters most to Steven Foster. "From a user point of view the MasterMap® service is brilliant but it's no good unless it's consistently available and responsive. Working with Attenda we are confident that we have a robust service. Although we provide more overall functionality and ease of use than our competitors we are not the biggest in our market. Our customers depend on us to run their businesses and they would have to look elsewhere if we did not give them a reliable service. We know Attenda will provide that."

"We get 100% of our income from the web" he continued. "If our service was down for two days then we could lose the whole business. We need a partner who takes full responsibility for our user experience. This is what Attenda does."

TM Property's turnover in 2003 was £13 million with projections of £25 million for 2004. Steven Foster is pleased to have a partner that is also growing. "In the three years we have been with Attenda they've supported us through a difficult learning curve. Attenda gives us the flexibility we need as we grow. Something might not be in the contract but if it is a business requirement we get the help we need. This is really important when we do not know what our requirements will be in the future".