Welcome to the May Edition of "that's Correct!"

• Now that we have more details of the Federal Governments Tax breaks, we wanted to share our thoughts on how they could impact your IT Spend.

• This month, we turn our attention to Relationship Management.  It is always worth looking for ways to get in touch with customers, keep in touch with what they are doing and how they are doing it.

• Our virtualisation series continues. What are your options? What about licensing? What will it cost? We get the low down on these important considerations.

• In the current economy, it is nice to be able to offer a couple of traniees the opportunity to join the Correct Solution Team...read on to find out more.

Now that we have more details of the Federal Governments Tax breaks for Small to Medium Business and we know the Opposition will allow this to pass, we thought it would be a good time to look at the available options.  Below you'll find our thoughts on the matter and of course, you do need to seek advice from your accountant.

I am sure by now that you have seen many articles regarding the percentages and turnover amounts; in a nutshell...

If your turnover is less than $2 million then you can claim 50% depreciation of most capital assets over $1,000.00 in the first year of ownership.  If your turnover is greater than $2 Million per year, the first year depreciation claim is 30%, which is applicable on eligible capital assets over $10,000.00.

Earlier it was believed that each item had to be over the threshold, however in the latest statements items that are similar in nature can be grouped to take advantage of the benefit.  As an example, one of our clients needed larger external backup drives.  They purchased 3 new drives and can now take advantage of the grouping, which allows them to claim 50% depreciation in the first year!

In the last week we have had 6 clients call up wanting to move forward the purchase of new servers, computers and equipment before June 30 (or in some cases, have them under contract before the cut off, but installed later in the year). 

If you do want to consider the option of buying new equipment to take advantage of the Tax Breaks this financial year, then please contact us sooner rather than later.  As you know, we do like to specify equipment that is right for our clients situations now and into the future, and Correct won’t just sell something for the sake of the sale.

We Look forward to catching up with you in the coming weeks!

This month, we turn our attention to Relationship Management.  As the economy slows, it is worth looking for ways to get in touch with customers, keep in touch with what they are doing and how they are doing it.

We have widely publicised the fact that we use a Practice Management System called ConnectWise, which makes up both our Service Ticketing system as well as our central database for storing information about our clients.  ConnectWise however is designed specifically for IT Companies like ourselves. 

So, what would we recommend if a client came to us looking for a piece of Customer Relationship Management software?  The answer is a quick and simple one.  Legrand CRM.

Why Legrand?

Legrand CRM extends beyond sales management which is the focus of many traditional CRM systems. It records every customer dealing not just with your sales and marketing departments, but with other areas right across your entire company. The one application can help bring together and manage:

Inside & Outbound Sales, Marketing departments, Reception, Finance and Accounting, Administration, Customer Service, Management and Remote offices.

This powerful software has the ability to capture inquiries directly from your Website and turn them into sales leads, product inquiries or even customer service jobs.  In addition, integration with Outlook means that emails can also be used to create either a new sales opportunity or a customer service entry.  It is also possible to bulk import emails and other items such as Outlook Contacts.

Which version is right for me?

Legrand CRM comes in two flavours, PRO and CORP.  Legrand Pro is design for SOHO applications with less than 5 users and anymore than that will start to experience issues with speed of information transfer from the database.  Mobile users will also start to see issues with data corruption when syncing with the main database.

 We highly recommend Legrand CORP, which requires a SQL database but allows much greater flexibility;

• For mobile users...It is so much easier to sync to the database in CORP, which is designed to keep travelling staff in sync and minimise issues with data corruption.  It is an automated function rather than the manual process that PRO requires.
• For administrators setting up the system... One of Legrand PRO's biggest drawbacks for a company with more than 5 users is that each user's permissions and access rights need to be configured individually - role-based users makes setting up the system quick and painless.

While Legrand CORP licenses are more expensive than PRO, if the size of your organisation or its potential for growth calls for the CORP edition, it is well worth making the additional investment. 

Next month, we'll look a little closer at what goes into planning an effective CRM.  If you would like any further information regarding Legrand CRM or you wish to discuss which version is right for you, contact us on 02 8831 8200.

Wow – this series of articles on virtualisation has really stirred up a flurry of excitement which is great to see.   Many of you have wanted to jump right to the end of the story and implement it, now!  This issue we will look at what options Correct Solutions can provide for your Virtualisation environment.

In the spirit of openness with you, there are a number of potential solutions that exist in the market for virtualisation.  The two market leaders though are Microsoft and VMWare.  Both offer different feature sets, and compete with each other for business.   At Correct, we have chosen to focus on the Microsoft platform for the most part as it gives us the features that satisfy our client’s requirements.  In some circumstances we have opted to use VMWare when a specific feature is need that is not in the Microsoft platform.

The Microsoft virtualisation technology comes under a generic name of Hyper-V and is included in Windows Server 2008.  It is also available as a separate standalone product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008.  The Windows Server 2008 64-bit version allows Hyper-V to be a function of the server, whereas Microsoft Hyper-V Server is a dedicated product that can ONLY be a Hyper-V server.

For the most part, we are using the Windows Server 2008 64-bit version with Hyper-V, as this provides a great graphical management interface that allows easier management of the virtualisation environment.   Both products perform the same from a technical perspective, but there are considerations in terms of licensing and cost that determine what product we use in the end.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is a free product that Microsoft makes available for download on their website.  As with any free product, there are limitations to it.  They key ones are the management interface and the licensing model.  Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 requires all management to be done using command line options on the console, or external management tools. This means that it’s not so easy for one of our customers to do basic administration and that naturally is a concern for us.  Also, every operating system installed on top of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 requires its own license as there is no inbuilt license for Windows as part of this free product.

Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V is not a free product; however it does have a number of advantages over Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 which more than make up for the cost.  The first key advantage is that the management interface is all graphical.  When you need to manage the virtual machines you use a normal Windows user interface, which means you don’t need to remember complicated command lines in order to do anything.

The second key advantage is the licensing that comes with a Windows Server 2008 when you use it as a dedicated Hyper-V server.  In this respect Microsoft have allow a 1+1 or a 1+4 licensing model in respect to the number of physical and virtual licenses that the product contains.  This means with the Standard Edition of Windows Server 2008, you can install 1 copy of Windows Server 2008 on a physical machine and then 1 as a virtual machine on top of that physical machine (hence the 1+).  On the Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2008, you can install 1 copy on the physical machine and up to 4 copies as virtual machines on the same server.

This is great for customers that need to run a number of servers in a virtualised environment.  If we tie in the cost savings too of licensing via this method we soon realise some real financial benefits.  As an example, Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition sells for around $1,300 whereas Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition sells for around $4,200.  This means that if you need to virtualise 3 servers or more, then Enterprise Edition is a clear winner.

Many of our customers don’t use the normal Windows Server products; instead they use the SBS product range.  SBS 2008 Premium actually comes with a normal SBS 2008 server plus a 2nd copy of Windows Server 2008. This 2nd copy of Windows Server 2008 make a great platform for virtualisation as it allow us to run both the SBS 2008 server itself AND a 2nd copy of Windows Server 2008 on top of one physical server. The cost savings in this environment starts at $5000 (the average cost of entry level servers) and goes up.

We recently virtualised one client’s network where we placed 4 virtualised servers on top of one physical server. The cost savings for this client would be around $24,000 compared to purchasing an additional 3 physical servers.  There were additional savings in terms of licensing costs too as we used SBS 2008 Premium Edition as a base for the entire project.  Certainly there would be other benefits as well such as power and cooling savings and I’ve not taken these into account.

If you can’t wait for the next instalment and need to know more now, call us on 1300 COR SOL to discuss your requirements.

In the current economy, it is nice to be able to give you the news that we have employed a couple of trainees on the Administration side of things.  Over the next two editions of That's Correct!" you'll get to "meet" them both, but we'd like to introduce you this month to Natalie.

Natalie Bourke

I am one of two new Admin Assistants at Correct Solutions.  My role is to support the existing Administrative staff, with a view to working closely with Correct's Educational clients.

Some of my hobbies and interests are fashion, dance, music and I love summer and the beach.  I like to spend my weekends and spare time shopping, going out with friends to cafés, restaurants or clubs and I love to watch movies.  I have a twin sister, who I am extremely close to.

I am currently completing a Business Administration Traineeship.  The reason I chose to do this traineeship was because I have a desire to learn and gain skills and knowledge to succeed in an Administration career and possibly move on to a Personal Assistant or Secretarial role in the future.  My previous job was as a Sales Assistant at a clothing store, so working in an office is new to me.  It is going to be fun getting to know Correct's staff and customers; I'm sure I'll get to say Hi when you ring to speak with us!

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