• Little government money had been invested in designing furniture or room layouts which allowed schools to use computers to their best effect.
• Traditional classroom designs that allowed teachers to see pupils didn't always work so well when the teacher had to see computer screens as well, or wanted to be able to talk to the group without wasting classroom time in moving them away from their computers.
• Software systems which "spy on one / group of workstations" can be more effecive for network support staff than for classroom teachers with a whole class to supervise, and crucially do not show what pupils are actually doing or encourage pupils to get on with their work by giving them the necessary feeling that the teacher can see what they are doing.

The result was the development of the "Outward-facing Pier Design". It made such a dramatic difference to teaching and learning with ICT that it led to the formation of Comproom Limited to offer schools the same specialist design and installation expertise, and installations that look good, work well, and go on doing so.

The company has taken pride in providing innovative solutions.

Our Legsafes were designed to store computers off the worksurface providing: - more space for teaching and learning; tidy security which has defeated burglars as far apart as St Albans, Nottingham and Bristol; and excellent ventilation to avoid over-heating the computers .

Our connection plates bring just the connections you want up from the back of the computer and onto the worksurface for convenient access by students, and in a form which can be maintained at a tiny fraction of the cost of repairing a computer should you ever need to do so.

Our audio connection plates are punched in 1mm stainless steel making them far more durable than plastic plates, and feature real volume controls which let the user set the volume they want much more quickly than software volume adjustments ever allow.

Our outward-facing pier design for furnishing ICT suites has received commendations from teachers right across the country including: "The new design has made more difference to teaching and learning than new computers have ever done" (Head of ICT in the Slough area).

Our design of projector cradle for the innovative, mercury lamp free Casio projector range is so installation friendly that: - it dramatically reduces projector replacement installation labour costs - and you can even install it yourself using our step-by-step guide if you are confident that the existing ceiling column mount is secure and safe. This was developed from our experience that more and more schools were asking us to replace projectors that had come to the end of their life and that this frequently entailed extra costs in moving the projector mount slightly to accommodate differences in lens characteristics. The result is that more of the school's money can be spent on products for the school, rather than on the re-installation process.