New Orleans
27 June, 2008
If you didn't hear or didn't know about it, last month Ryan spent some time in the USA - New Orleans to be more specific - at an IT Pro conference about the new Small Business Server, migration strategies and the general outlook for smaller IT Companies. Ryan was also asked to be one of the panellists for two sessions.
The first session was on Remote Applications and teleworking, during this session Ryan demonstrated the software Correct uses to allow your clients or suppliers to easily and securely access Line of Business applications that don't have web inter-faces, or require full blown programs to access.
We have put systems in for 4 clients so far that allows either their customers or suppliers to access only certain programs and information as if they are part of the company.
The second session was called "Future shock" and highlighted the direction we thought IT was heading over the next 2 to 3 years and how we, as SMB IT Professionals and resellers should be positioned to best serve the needs of our clients as well as keeping up to date with the changes to technology that is happening at a rapid pace.
Overall the conference was good, and it was great to spend some time in New Orleans and experience the night life and the friendly people.
Catching up with like minded IT people from around the world and discussing what new ways we can make our clients systems work better, greener and more efficient also made the trip a very worthwhile experience.
Did you say Downgrade??
21 May, 2008
It is inevitable that at some stage, you will need to start doing more than just thinking about Vista.
Currently though, many of you either want or need to stay with an XP Pro operating system (OS) on your network's desktop PCs.
Incompatibilities with Line of Business applications and various versions of third party software, as well as hardware driver issues still persist and it is important that you keep this in mind when considering the purchase of new computers for the company.
Our strong recommendation is this; if you haven't yet run a Vista machine in a test environment on the network to make sure everything works smoothly, then you should not yet be purchasing Vista desktops or notebooks to run on the network.
Further more, it is of upmost importance to be aware of the fact that you cannot connect Vista Home Editions to a domain. This means that if you duck down to Harvey Norman on the weekend and buy a Vista Home Premium laptop, by virtue of its name, that is where it will have to stay - at home. You will not be able to connect it to the office network.
Nor is there a downgrade path offered for the Vista Home Editions to enable you to install XP Pro; you would need to upgrade to Vista Ultimate to connect to the domain. Again, unless you have tested Vista thoroughly this could still leave you with a headache trying to run your business applications successfully.
Some manufacturers offer XP recovery CDs with certain models of their Vista machines, but essentially it is best to chat with us about your requirements before you purchase your hardware. Even for those versions of Vista - ie Vista Business - for which downgrade rights may be available, you still need to consider that the hardware for that machine was specified for a Vista OS, and some compatibility issues may arise when you try downgrading to XP.
When purchasing new machines, it is much easier to start out with the operating system you intend to use long term. Meaning, if you want an XP Pro OS, you are far better off purchasing the machine with XP installed then you are trying to downgrade from Vista. Similarly - if you want to run Vista, you will find that it works more efficiently on a machine that was built for it, rather than trying to retrofit an older computer.
Avoid buyer's remorse! For the right advice about your next computer purchase, or if you would like to start testing Vista in your network environment, please call us to discuss further.
Small Business in Seattle
22 April, 2008
We catch up with Wayne Small at the Microsoft MVP summit in the USA...
I've just finished attending the MVP summit here in Seattle. During the event, I had presentations from Microsoft on the future of where things are going with the products that we specialise in. My specialty is Small Business Server.SBS 2008 is due for release in the 2nd half of this year and I've been in the beta program now for 18 months, testing and helping the SBS team fine tune the product for you - our customers. I'm pretty confident that SBS 2008 has some really cool features that you will all use. Much of what was presented to us was under a Non Disclosure Agreement and I can't talk about it at this time, but you can rest assured that I am doing my best to guide our team in the solutions we provide to you with these future directions in mind.
SBS 2008 will have some major improvements in the areas of Remote Web Workplace, Exchange 2007 and with the Premium version the ability to have a 2nd server in your SBS network at no extra software cost. This allows those of you that have specific business applications, to have them on a separate server, which helps increase performance with the end result of better productivity.
I can't say much more than this at the moment, but over the next few months watch out for further information here as we will be able to let you know more about this exciting product.
I've been to Seattle now a few times over the past few years and I've never seen such a variation in the weather here. When I landed over a week ago on the Friday, it was like a nice spring day with 26ºC temperatures and clear skies. That changed a lot though and when I flew out of Seattle to Houston, it was an icy 2ºC with snow in some parts of the city! I am yet to see snow in Seattle and apparently whilst I was in the air on the way to Houston, it snowed in the city center - just a few hours after I left! Houston reminds me very much of Sydney in early summer with sticky heat and beautiful skies.
I head home later this week and I'm looking forward to getting back to the team to implement some of the cool new ideas that I have in mind. Watch out Sydney, here I come!
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