A MAJOR player in the world of Apple Macintosh computers has chosen Malvern as the place to base his business.

Stuart Wilkes lived in the town before moving to Canada in May 2001 to work for a major software company.

However, when he set up Iscentia, a consultancy service for Mac users, in January this year, he chose to return to Malvern rather than a business district such as London.

"It's a good quality of life here," said Mr Wilkes.

"You can get a very good work/life balance. You can get to Birmingham and London very quickly and with the role out of ADSL (high speed internet) you're as fast on the internet as anywhere else.

"We deal with small to medium businesses and there's an awful lot of those dotted around Hereford and Worcester."

Iscentia, which is based in Wilton Road, deals primarily with the transition from OS 9 to OS X, but also sells the full range of Apple products. The company employs four people, although not all are based in Malvern.

For more information,

see www.iscentia.com.