Last September, when Landscape Juice, my other blog, was in its infancy I began a quest to find relevant content to write about.

Conservation of the planet is a big thing with me and conserving precious resources is so important.

I wrote about Raintec and their rainwater harvesting products after finding their link on the Pandemia website. Pandemia produced the raintec site but also on their list of successful website creations was Complete Gardens.

This is where the story might get a little confusing but please bear with me.

I have been an investor for many years in a company called Tadpole Technology based in Cambridge. The company is not at all linked to horticulture but please forgive me for wandering about for a brief moment.

Tadpole Technology bought a company in the united states called Endeavors Technology which was an early leader in the Peer to Peer arena (p2p) - For this kind of technology think Napster and the highly successful Skype.

During this bumpy ride (from an investment point of view), Tadpole bought the intellectual property of a company called Omnishift. Omnishift had developed a technology which enabled the owner of an application to stream it using a high speed connection to the users desktop as though it was loaded on the users computer.

For example Dell might opt in the future to sell a license and and connection client already installed inside one of its desktops or laptops for Microsoft Works.

Once the pc is booted up and the user clicks on the Works icon the application would start. However, un be known to the user this command from you has been sent instantly to a server where Works has been installed and the application is then streamed directly to your PC.

In layman's terms, you have the skeletal framework of the application to make it work and as you demand a function like spell check for example, the tool is instantly sent to you - or 'streamed' to use the industry term.

The process is painless, instant and highly scalable. It also means that the owner of the application, in this case Microsoft can remain the owner and they are paid for the use of the license. Piracy for the software will become a thing of the past.

Google are really hotting up on its software as a service (SaaS) presence.

It provides huge savings to the IT manager who can upload any patch or fix instantly to his worldwide users just by uploading these changes to the server.

Endeavors cleaned up the IP from Omnishift, renamed it Application Express or AppsX and dramatically engineered the code to produce, what many believe to be the leading streaming client in the SaaS arena.

Citirix, another SaaS provider which users a server farm to distribute Microsoft applications has recently licensed the product from Endeavors after it agreed to settle a patent infringement suite that Endeavors had taken against it for illegal use of its software.

Microsoft, a Gold Partner of Endeavors have re-affirmed relations after it too settled an infringement dispute  in an agreement to license the software (financial details were not revealed)

Parsons, a large construction corporation have proved the success of this service from Endeavors, which is highly scalable up to 10,000 users on one server, by saving over $1 million in IT costs.

The technology also allows the IT manager to implement a user tariff and pass on a payment to any agencies involved. For example Dell would get a royalty payment from Microsoft.

Now this brings me onto the point of this post (eventually).

As a professional horticulturist I could see that there was a huge potential use for both the technology and a company like Complete Gardens who had an ongoing logistical task of working out its marketing strategy and distribution areas.

A bit about Complete Gardens.

Founded by Neil Bromhall a professional photographer and film cameraman. Neil is an 'Emmy' award winning photographer and Cameraman who worked with David Attenborough on The Private Life of Plants and was also nominated for a BAFTA for his work The Life of Mammals.

After featuring Complete Gardens on Landscape Juice as a product review I contacted Neil Bromhall and ran the streaming concept pass him. He was immediately enthused by the prospect of being able to attack the potentially lucrative North American market by merely advertising a link on his site.

This was the start of an international myriad of networking to bring the streaming technology and the plant software to market as a saleable package.

I introduced Neil to Peter Bondar the CEO of Tadpole and Endeavors and between myself, Neil, Peter and a host of engineers and technicians based disparately in the UK and California we have now released a streaming version of this award winning horticultural software for worldwide distribution.

It is certainly a bold move for Endeavors who have diversified into the consumer market in what is seen as its first 'Guinea Pig'  by working with Complete Gardens.

I extensively researched the garden software market before deciding on reviewing Complete Gardens because I found it to be superior in every aspect and although there are similar products we all believe that this is unique and can only get better.

I have been running a test version which has been hosted on Endeavors European server for the last 6 months and I have to say it is the state of the art in the way software can be used and delivered via the internet and of course, one of its major and key selling points for both the Neil as a creator and YOU as the user is the software (subject to any future licence agreement) will never be out of date.

When a new version or new photographs and details are added to the database or perhaps a description is altered, then it is available to the user instantly without intervention from you or the need for a new CD to be sent.

It is hoped that future subscriptions to this service can be varied so that you will be able to use the service as little or as long as you want but are only charged the time you are on.

For now there is a yearly subscription for £15.00 or a 24 hour license for £1.00.
A target of one million downloads has been set and a raft of PR set up so that the horticultural world is aware of this development.

I will be at Chelsea press day this May with Neil and Chris Beardshaw the BBC horticulture expert and after I will post the feedback and hopefully get views from the likes of Alan Titchmarsh or Monty Don.

Neil has been working on a 3,500 plant version of this ongoing mammoth project which will be launched at the RHS Chelsea Flower show.

To trial this software using this new and unique system click here