The introduction of mandatory e-filing in all appeal cases heard in the Supreme Court of Canada on or after October 6, 2008 – which requires parties to file on CD electronic versions of notices of appeal, factums, records and books of authorities – is expected to give Canadian start-up No Panic Computing (NPC) an additional boost to its business model.

NPC was launched in June this year to help small businesses in Canada (defined as having 1-to-99 employees, so this includes a lot of law firms) address the issue of potential data security breaches and business disruption caused by the loss of laptops, when such organizations typically have little or no resources to handle the problem inhouse.

What NPC therefore offers is an HP Compaq laptop loaded with Microsoft Office plus automatic data backup, security and encryption (these elements are provided by Iron Mountain and ESET) on a 24x7 support package.

The result is that if a laptop is lost or stolen, not only is the data on the missing device unavailable to 3rd parties but the business gets a free replacement laptop ready loaded with all their data. And all for C$129 a month – which is actually a lot less than many business already pay for security solutions that do not include the hardware component.