THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

WHS addins

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:41:00 GMT

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/

If you are looking for Home Server add ins ... Grey recommended these:

http://www.asciiexpress.com/webguide/homeserver.aspx

http://www.andrewgrant.org/whiist

For more addins -- http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/windows-home-server-add-ins/ check out that web site

Going from Home Server to SBS to EBS

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:29:00 GMT

The question was asked if Microsoft has planned the migrations between Home Server to Small Business Server 2008 to Essential Business Server 2008

The answer is absopositivelutely -- check out this whitepaper from going to SBS to EBS as one example of how they are planning the migration

Download details: Migrating from Windows Small Business Server 2003 to Windows Essential Business Server:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=191b141e-3a1f-4c1b-bd2d-15623751e518&DisplayLang=en

Keep in mind that Home server can actually stay in that migrated SBS network and live side by side if you wanted to.

Fuzzy was drooling

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:18:00 GMT

I was in the vendor room with Ryan (Fuzzy) checking out the equipment and Fuzzy was drooling over the HP blade servers. There is an HP small blade form factor that is really really cool. Tomorrow at 2 p.m. (walk to the coffee room tomorrow at 2 p.m.) and you really need to check this out. I've never been a pizza box person but I'm running out of plug ins in my office in the server room. The solution is this blade server rolling container.

What is also cool about the HP systems is that they have Ilo's and Lights out feature in them so you can remote boot.

So ... if you want to drool like Fuzzy did.... go check it out tomorrow.

(I love my HP servers and desktops btw)

The days of poking pinholes and calling it good enough it over

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:47:00 GMT

Amy Babinchak and Steve Banks are talking about looking for a solution that does more

The days of poking pinholes and calling it good enough it over. The threat landscape is much more complex than it used to be.

Antispam/antivirus
Controlling/Internet Use/IM
Reporting Logging
Data inspection
Ease of Management/maintenance

They want to know where people are going, what people are doing, what sites they are viewing. Business owners are getting more savvy asking about employee productivity issues. What attacks are they seeing? Business owners want more than just protection, they want HR information as well.

A much broader picture of the business from an Internet world.

Where do we go?

Amy is looking for

Price
Cost of management and maintenance
Feature rich
Nimble
Responsble and trustworthy

Jeff warning system

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Handy Andy knew how much Jeff loves to talk.. so he sent a "Jeff talking warning signal"

This is "okay Jeff, you can talk now"

This is the "Get ready Jeff to stop talking"

This is "Jeff, you can stop talking now"

And there's a setting where the stop light can flash if need be.

(thanks again to Handy Andy for thinking of us ...and of Jeff)

Efolder at IT Proconference in New Orleans

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:27:00 GMT

http://www.efoldering.com/

http://www.efolder.net/

(Jan says that if give her card this weekend she'll sign you up for the partner trial version)

Jan is here at the IT proconference talking about efolder and she is talking about how they are channel only and allow you to do branding.

http://www.efoldering.com/overview

...and she makes the point that we don't have just one pair of shoes. So why do we have just one backup solution?

Use storagecraft to backup the local drive and then use efolder to do the online backup/storage of that storagecraft image. They create a branded product and channel friendly.

They even hide the fact that you are backing up to their servers.

"We don't want to make your customers our customers"

Join Us Today

Call us now at 800-352-0248 or click here. Not convinced yet? We'll offer you a 60-day free partner trial. No credit card required. We're confident that once you test drive our solution you'll want to begin offering it to your customers under your own name.

As Jan said.. if you are not offering online backup...someone else will....so you probably need to be looking at and investigating it....

Contracts and IT firms

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:53:00 GMT

Calling out Cindy's comment about how CPA and Attorney firms don't have contracts and so why should IT firms have contracts.

We do have contracts. They are called in the CPA biz "Engagement letters". Our malpractice requires that we have them.

They are called a different thing but they are the same goal. We set the expectation for the business relationship.

..p.s. as I discussed with Cindy afterwards, the IT and MSP industry is so young that from a business valuation standpoint that the impact of contracts would 'weight' a business valuation to a certain degree. Showcasing that you have a viable book of business would, in my opinion have impact. Remember that a sale transaction is a willing buyer and a willing seller and given that many of the transactions and deals are private, this information isn't known as well as is can be as a result.

Do you provide outsourced IT?

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:37:00 GMT

Remember that they are doing a User Research study session here in New Orleans to provide better tools to outsourced IT services. Email itvisits@microsoft.com to set this up or ask at the help desk about this.

(I already said that Microsoft needs to be a bit more Apple aware and not just Microsoft, and that they needed to do a cloud based SCE for SMB partners..so not wanting to stack the deck here...but... ;-)

(btw if the email bounces back, make your email longer and/or pull out the links in your email signature so it doesn't get caught by the spam filters)

Why can't a banker understand the IT services industry?

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Why can't a banker understand the IT services industry?

Is it that IT is still perceived that it's efficiency add not mandatory add.

Why can a banker understand the accounting or lawyer industries but has a hard time understanding the IT service industry? Is it because taxes have regulation. Lawyers have ...well lawyerdom.

I'd argue that what he's looking for is the business increase value. It's the same convince that you have to do with your client, the same justification of the business value.

He can't see it. Is it because we're not communicating that value add?

Is it the problem that we're not communicating well?

A bankers view of the IT world

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:12:00 GMT

A service industries assets go home every night. A banker hopes that the assets come bank the next morning.

More faith is involved in investing in a service industry.

If you want to grow your service industry, you need to grow a trusted relationship with a business advisor/banking advisor.

Inventory they can touch and value. Service industries are much much harder for the banking industry to deal with.

The IT industry changes dramatic. Velocity of change in an industry makes Bankers not like the industry. People hate change.

Service companies are inately difficult to invest in because the banker can't value the asset as it goes home at night. The Banker when looking at investing in a service industry "starts out with 'no' and convince me why I should say yes".

As more folks grow up with IT, the IT industry will be better understood as well.

And if bankers don't understand the IT industry, our clients don't understand the IT industry either.

"I cannot stress enough how important it is to develop the relationship with those people that help YOU increase your business and not just your customers".

How many of you have a relationship with your local banker? Do you know the branch manager?

Reevaluate your business, reevaluate your goals

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:01:00 GMT

Some of the nuggets of comments by Mike Boyd, Small Business Banker

You have to constantly reevaluate your goals, your management of your business to ensure that you are meeting the goals of your business.

You have to manage your time and ensure your personal relationships (marriage, family) gets the first priority.

Then you prioritize your business.

Your business model..

bradley — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:31:00 GMT

Are you an inventory model business? Or are you a services model business? Is there only one aspect of the services that you are valuable for? What value add do you do? As the industry changes, and Microsoft is more into the technology, maybe you need to think of the business side.

Do we approach our clients at technologists... or should we be approaching the customer from the business side, from business integration.

Jeff is now talking to a Small Business banker who is talking about talking to the small business owner about "what could happen". Do you talk to your customers about what "could" happen?

The life changing/business changing decisions in a business are still done by people. In order to stay up with technology have do 'tweaks'. Technology makes you more efficient, but it doesn't replace the person behind the technology.

When a life changing/business changing event occurs... are you one of the people that your client turns to for these life changing/business changing events?