Aimless Ramblings from a Blithering Lunatic . . . : Small Biz

Which RMM?

cgross — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:38:31 GMT

Ah, the great debate in the SMB Managed Services realm: what is the better Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) solution? I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked this question by SMB providers, so I decided it would be beneficial for a no-holds-barred comparison of the products I know. Obviously, it will not be a comprehensive comparison of every available solution, since I am only going to compare the products I know and have worked with first hand: IT Control Suite, Level Platforms’ Managed Workplace, and Kaseya.

This will be a multi-part series, with each entry focusing on one aspect of RMM functionality (monitoring, patching, scripting, remote access, etc.) and providing a comparison of how each of the three solutions approaches the functionality and how well they deliver, noting gotchas to be aware of.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with me, I have been involved with providing managed services in the SMB space since mid-2003. In mid-2004 we were one of Level Platforms’ earliest customers. In early 2006 we added Kaseya and started running it side-by-side with Managed Workplace. Finally, in mid 2008 we began working with IT Control Suite as well. I spent two years as CTO of MSPSN, and during that time MSPSN offered vendor-agnostic NOC services, allowing SMB MSPs to use whatever RMM product they wanted. Part of my duties included administering multiple RMM installations to keep them in sync with MSPSN’s standardized monitoring and ticketing configuration, but also training NOC staff on these products as well. As a result, I have in-depth first-hand experience with these products. I know each one’s killer features, what they do well, what they could do better, and in some cases what they flat-out don’t do.

Before we dive in with the series, it is important to note that if you are providing Managed Services, and do not have any RMM solution in place, any one of these is a viable choice that will enhance your offering(s) and help streamline your service delivery. There is no wrong answer – just a potentially better answer depending on your needs and priorities in an RMM solution. Just be aware that no RMM is truly “set it and forget it” – they all require on-going administrative effort to keep doing their job well, although some do require less admin overhead than others.

You do know about GroupBoard?

cgross — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 06:12:13 GMT

Just like they did with SharePoint Services 2.0, Microsoft has released application templates for SharePoint Services 3.0, which can be found here. And while you're there, take a minute to read through the list of Server Admin Templates that are coming soon . . . there's several things in there that I can't wait to get my hands on.

So far, the most exciting of the offerings is the GroupBoard template:

This single template has standard many of the most popular functionality requests that I've had from clients and end users over the last couple years, including:

*   In/Out Board

*   "While You Were Out" messaging

*   Resource Grouping / Organization Chart

*   Timesheets

Definitely worth taking a look at.

Moving to QuickBooks 2007

cgross — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 19:51:00 GMT

Anyone who has spent any time with me is familiar with my complete and utter loathing of everything Intuit. But instead of ranting about how it's an inferior, bloated, poorly-coded application that ignores both IT and accounting best practices, I'm going to provide some hopefully useful information on how to get QB 2007 to work in a network environment when you're moving up from QB 2006.

Like most of us in the SMB space, we have a lot of customers running QuickBooks. We were eventually able to get virtually all of our SBS customers who purchased QB2006 running with the data living on their server. Of course, this required installing the complete QB2006 app on the server - which I wasn't exactly thrilled about. As you may know, with QuickBooks 2007 Intuit has actually started making some progress towards a network friendly app. Now, I don't know if someone at Intuit started thinking - or if maybe Susan's 2x4 finally hit home. Regardless - with QuickBooks 2007 it now has a server install option (we no longer need to install the full app on the server), and it also supports running as a non-admin. Who'da thunk?

So, I've now moved three different clients from QuickBooks Pro 2006 to QuickBooks Pro 2007. Since I didn't like having the full QB app on the server, and I now no longer have to - I decided to completely uninstall QB2006 from the server, then run the server install of QB2007. However, when I installed QB2007 on the clients, they couldn't open the company files on the server. After digging around for a little bit - I found the culprit: Intuit. Believe it or not, the QuickBooks 2006 uninstall routine did not remove the QuickBooksDB service. Of course, QB2007 installs its own new data service (QuickBooksDB17) - so I was left with two QB data services running and not playing nice with each other. Since I've seen this with every upgrade I've done so far, I figured there is a chance someone else might run in to it

The simple solution is to stop both services, remove the old QuickBooksDB service, then start the new QuickBooksDB17 service and you're good to go.

If you need a refresher on removing Windows services - download the Windows 2003 Resource Kit Tools here. Once you've installed the reskit tools on your server, click on Start | Programs | Windows Resource Kit Tools | Command Shell then enter the following command:

INSTSRV QuickBooksDB REMOVE

Start the new QuickBooksDB17 service and voila!

The Winds of Change . . .

cgross — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 22:30:47 GMT

Can you believe that this Wednesday, October 25th - marks the 5 year anniversary of the launch of Windows XP? 5 years! Wow, no wonder things have been pretty comfortable and cozy on the help desk front - work with an OS for that long and you're bound to know it inside and out.

But alas, progress marches on and we're in for a whole new learning curve on the desktop (or more accurately, our users are in for a whole new learning curve, and we're in for a completely revamped traning ciriculum)

First, IE7 RTM'd last week - and there's a bit of a learning curve there as well (honestly, how many of you cussed like a sailor the first time you tried to install a self-signed cert?) I've been running the beta for several months now, and have become addicted - especially with the full-screen functionality when using web apps. And I will admit that yes, IE is not only my primary browser, it's the only browser I currently have installed. Sure, I've read Vlad's rants - but what can I say, I actually like IE (yeah, I know - I'm sick & twisted).

With IE7, Microsoft has been pushing out tons of add-ins, and free little applications, all using the Windows Live branding. One of which being the Windows Live Writer, that I am actually using for the first time to compose this post. So far, I have to admit that I'm impressed with this. If you want to take a look, you can get it here - or read Vlad's thoughts on it here (after all, we all know that Vlad has a clear-cut opinion on EVERYTHING )

And then we have Office 2007. Of course, with what I do on a daily basis, Office for me is pretty much defined by Outlook, with Access and FrontPage (oops, SharePoint Designer) being a distant second & third . . . I've also been running the Office beta for several months - and was totally sold until a few hiccups with the Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR) - which resulted in Outlook crashing when I tried closing it, and getting a corrupt OST every time I opened Outlook . . . this has been resolved - but more on that later. So far the built-in RSS capability in Outlook, combined with the new kick-ass shared calendars view, the To-Do bar, and ease of adding Exchange accounts (users only have ONE choice to make - then it automatically detects the username, email address, and finds the Exchange server on the LAN - no more having to walk users through typing in the internal FQDN of their Exchange, blah, blah blah . . . (at least, it worked that slick on a domain PC on the LAN) Of course, there's much more to Office 2007 - but those are the tidbits that affect me on a daily basis

Finally, our biggest change right around the corner is Vista. Again, I've been running beta builds for quite some time - but admittedly on my home PC that I rarely ever use for anything besides the occasional web browsing. Well, I was a few builds behind, and decided to take a serious plunge into the Vista experience - so I reinstalled my primary machine (Acer TravelMate C314XMi tablet) with the Vista RC2 bits yesterday . . . I did download & run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor before starting the process - which was great for identifying what hardware and software I might have issues with. So far, I have to admit that based on my previous experience with various Vista beta builds, I am very impressed. The installation was painless - with all of the required information being entered up front, and the rest of the process being completely automated - reboots and all.

After having lived through the migration experience from Win98 to 2000 Pro, and then from 2k to XP - I'm still scarred from application incompatibility, and driver issues (most notably a glaring lack of drivers) . . . But, that doesn't appear to be the case with Vista. So far, I'm only having a couple hardware issues - most are pretty insignificant, but one - while not necessarily a show-stopper, is close. My integrated Intel 2200BG wireless adapter is not cooperating. Vista includes drivers for this wireless adapter, and it is installed, and when enabled it detects available wireless networks. However - it refuses to connect to any secured network (WEP or WPA-PSK) - and while it will connect to an unsecured network - the connection only holds for ~5 minutes until it's dropped and the adapter reports that there is no signal for that network any more. Tad bit annoying . . . especially since I only ever work wirelessly at home. But on the flip side - my Verizon Wireless aircard works flawlessly. As for the minor hardware issues - my function buttons to enable / disable things like WLAN & Bluetooth, or shortcuts to email, web, etc. are not working - neither is the On-Screen Display for these buttons, or my generic function keys (so I need to figure out how to disable NumLock when I'm in a remote assistance session ) And finally, while my sound worked - Vista kept complaining that the audio drivers were not compatible with Vista - so I downloaded the Vista beta drivers for AC'97 audio from Realtek's website - and I'm good to go. (Of course, dealing with Realtek's slow download site was a bit annoying in itself - almost 2hrs to download 26MB)

What really surprised me was that there were drivers for our printers here at the office. Granted, they aren't anything overly special or bleeding-edge - but again, I remember the issues obtaining print drivers in the past. Adding our HP LaserJet 4200tn was a snap - I entered its IP, and Vista did the rest - queried the printer, determined the make/model and selected the appropriate driver and voila! Now, it wasn't quite that simple installing our Okidata C5150n color laser - Vista tried querying the printer - but wasn't able to get the info it needed - so I had to select the driver the old-school way. Now, the driver list didn't include a driver for the Oki C5150n - but it was available via Windows Update - so all is well.

On the application front - so far just about everything is behaving itself. Naturally, Office 2007 B2TR is playing very nicely with Vista - but the latest versions of other necessities like Adobe Reader, Java engine, Flash player, etc. all installed and ran without a hitch. Notably, some of the little things that I use and depend on daily are working without issue. The AutoTask for Outlook add-in installed and is running perfectly (which is a huge relief since that would have been a show-stopper for me if it didn't) - and the AstTapi driver (that let's me dial out from Outlook using our Trixbox phone system) is working nicely as well.

A few applications required a workaround to cooperate - most notably the Firewall Client for ISA 2004, and the connectcomputer wizard for SBS 2003. You can get the details on getting these to work over at Sean's blog - here and here . . .

The only application that is throwing me a bit of a fit is QuoteWerks - which is throwing an error when it tries to log in to its back-end SQL database - so I can't really do anything . . . but if I absolutely need to access a quote, QuoteWerks is installed on our Terminal Server - so I can get to it there.

Finally, performance-wise - I have to say that this machine boots up and shuts down WAY faster than it did with XP Pro - and overall performance seems to be right on par, if not better than XP Pro.

So, here's to change !

The Mobilize SMB Tour . . .

cgross — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:03:00 GMT

Here at Mobitech, we started engaging in Managed Services a few years ago, and have learned a lot of valuable lessons while migrating our business to this new model. Last year, we started the SMB Managed Services Yahoo! Group to provide a resource for SMB VARs who are looking at moving their businesses into a Managed Services model. In 2006, we're expanding on that effort with our Mobilize SMB^©Tour:

Mobilize SMB^©: Taking the SMB Community to the Next Level

Coming to a city near you! This half day workshop will provide the information and support you need as an SMB IT solution provider to help you build a solid SMB Managed Services Business Model.

What are the pitfalls to avoid?
How do I pay my technicians under this model?
How do I know how many technicians I need in this new model?
What are the stages in moving into a Managed Service Model?
How will this affect my vendor relationships?
How do I measure, and why does it matter what my technician utilization rates are?
How do I sell managed services?
How do I construct my service level agreements?
Who wants these services?
What or who is my competition and how are they doing managed services?
Are there any vendors out there that understand my business?
What tools are available?
What skills do I need?

June 5 Chicago, IL To register click here

June 7 Detroit, MI To register click here

June 9 Cincinnati, OH To register click here

June 12 Louisville, KY To register click here

June 14 Atlanta, GA To register click here

June 20 Tampa, FL To register click here

This first leg is targeting the eastern US - but have no fear, we are planning on hitting the west coast in August and September. Those dates are still being finalized, but we'll let you know as soon as those are available . . .

Making sense of Best Buy's push into the SMB space . . .

cgross — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 01:43:00 GMT

Ok, for those of you who are either outside North America or simply have been living under a rock lately, Best Buy is making a move into the SMB solution space. Specifically, they're rolling out a Best Buy for Business program, and naturally using their Geek Squad as their troops on the ground. Since it seems like just about everyone has an opinion on this topic, I figured I might as well dive in myself ;^)

Now I know that most of us SMB partners have the same initial reaction when someone mentions the Geek Squad - and it usually consists of a bit of a smirk, a shake of the head and a little laugh to ourselves. But before you shrug this off and discount this whole thing as a non-event, you need to sit back and take this seriously . . .

It is too early to be forecasting doom and gloom, as well as the utter demise of the traditional SMB var. However, you'd be very naive to think that Best Buy can't grab a piece of the market solely on their marketing might. And they are making a solid effort, with their techs going through an intensive 2 week training course on SBS. Of course, the providers this will affect at first are the part-time one man shops - the ones who have a couple clients that they work with at night and on the weekends. Not to generalize, but it has been my experience that the majority of these guys have skills on par with your average Geek Squad member. Basically, Best Buy will be able to capture the price-sensitive portion of the market without much effort. Will they implement ideal solutions that follow best practices right away? Probably not. But depending on how Best Buy manages this will depend on how much of a threat they become. If they implement their own internal knowledge base, have knowledgeable senior-level techs that support issues can be escalated to, and do simple things like training their techs how to plug into this amazing SBS community we have out here, they could easily move up the stack and start getting more business from the section of the market that isn't necessarily price sensitive, but isn't aware of their other options.

I don't doubt that the Geek Squad will never be as reliable as the SMB var, and will never enjoy the level of trust that we have with our customers. But just because they can't be as good as us, doesn't mean they can't take business from us.

So, what do you need to do now to ensure you successfully weather whatever storm this might generate? In all honestly - nothing that you shouldn't be doing already. You should be constantly working on your sales effort. The point here is to not only drum up new business, but to constantly increase your name recognition. Sure, most of the people you call today probably won't be interested in your services today . . . but the more they see your name around town, the more likely they're going to call when they are interested in your services. Next, review your SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats). What are your strenghts as a technician? as a business? What sets you apart from your competition? For example, with Best Buy we're different because first and foremost, we're service providers. We're not looking to sell a PC or a router, or a printer, or whatever. Also - we're often hardware agnostic - where the likes of Best Buy will be pushing what they have in stock. Our biggest strength is that we're small business owners ourselves - and can relate with our customers. Regardless - find what sets you apart and determine how you can exploit that. Then communicate that to your leads - maybe put together a sell sheet on what makes you different than the rest. You may also look at focusing on a few vertical markets, where you can provide experience & expertise on their needs as well as various LOB apps their industry uses.

So - take a look at your organization and what you need to do to grow your customer base and increase your name recognition, and try to stay one step ahead, and offering services that Geek Squad either doesn't or can't offer. One way you can stay ahead is by making the move to managed services. The bottom line is the last thing you want to do is sit idly by with your head in the sand thinking that Best Buy isn't a threat. Granted, they may not be a big threat to you today - but who knows what the landscape is going to look like in a couple years? Maybe SBS Longhorn will be super-simple to install & setup. And what if Best Buy hires more & more truly capable technicians? And what if they make the move in to the managed services realm - maybe even purchasing an MSP software company like Kaseya, Level Platforms or N-Able? Next thing you know there is a strategic alliance between Best Buy & Dell, where the Geek Squad provides Dell's onsite installation & warranty services. Best Buy also becomes a Dell partner - they get better-than-web pricing based on their volume, but they don't have to stock anything. They configure and sell Dell stuff on demand, and Dell keeps their direct model by only building machines when they're ordered . . .

And we all know that when it comes to SBS sales, Microsoft is focused on one thing, and one thing only - new sales. There is only a very small percentage of small businesses that currently have a server - and Microsoft is drooling when it looks at the tens of millions of small businesses without a server - a market waiting for them to conquer. It only makes sense that Microsoft would do a huge co-branding advertising campaign / blitz to drive small businesses to Best Buy, because next to the OEMs, Best Buy is going to be in the best position to push SBS.

So now in our hypothetical scenario, we're a couple years down the road with Joe the small business owner seeing newspaper, billboard & TV ads about Best Buy for Business. He also sees Microsoft ads pushing him to either Best Buy or a number of big-box retailers that have put in their own Geek Squad like service offerings. He can have a Best Buy Business Technology Consultant (BTC) come out to his business, assess his needs and provide a written proposal. If he wants Dell hardware, the proposal includes a link to a saved cart that the BTC has already configured. He signs the proposal to accept, pulls up the Dell cart online and plugs in his credit card number. The Geek Squad finishes the 15 minute OEM installation on the SBS, brings it out and installs it complete with their monitoring software. Their managed services agreement is automatically billed to Joe's Best Buy card every month, and they have a handful of data centers across the US where a team of engineers are watching the multitudes of monitored systems. When something comes up, they either take care of it remotely, or if it requires a visit contact the customer and either have the customer bring the system in (hey, it's still Best Buy ;^) - or for a higher fee, schedule a Geek Squad member to go out onsite.

You have to admit - it would be a little harder to sell against that offering . . . and it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination to see most of that hypothetical situation come to pass.

So . . . now about that sales effort of yours . . . :^)

For some interesting reading on the topic, check out these posts of Vlad's:

Best Buy for Business to End SMB IT Consultants?
http://www.vladville.com/2006/02/best-buy-for-business-to-end-smb-it.html

Best Buy vs. SMB IT Consulting: Part 2
http://www.vladville.com/2006/03/best-buy-vs-smb-it-consulting-part-2.html

Best Buy now Gold Certified Partner
http://www.vladville.com/2006/03/best-buy-now-gold-certified-partner.html

The compromise of SBS . . .

cgross — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 02:58:00 GMT

I'm sure that most people here are aware that there are circles in the IT community where SBS is a punchline. One of the most common assertations is that ISA on SBS is a security compromise. So I figured it was time to address this head on.

Is ISA on SBS a security compromise? Completely - because the mere notion of a firewall on Windows is a security compromise at best . . . we should all be running a SonicWall or Cisco Pix if we really want security. Sorry, I couldn't resist a little jab :^)

Seriously - is ISA on SBS a compromise? Absolutely - because SBS itself is a compromise. Which is why it fits so well in the small business space, because each and every small business is a living, breathing example of compromise on a daily basis. You can't truly appreciate or understand Small Business Server if you don't understand small business. And you can't understand small business if you haven't experienced it.

I can't help but wonder if the people who look down on SBS with disdain have truly experienced small business. Have they laid awake at night worrying about making payroll - knowing that their employees have families to feed and mortgages to pay? Do they realize that for many small businesses, money could be spent in several different places - so that server upgrade often relates to not being able offer the raises or bonuses we'd like, or offering additional benefits. We have to take care of our employees and our customers, but we also have to invest in our businesses to insure our long-term ability to take care of our employees and our customers. We can't afford an imblanace either way - literally. So each day is a compromise.

Would I love to be able to follow 'best practices'? Absolutely. But look at the average small business with 25 users or less . . . how would I be helping them by deploying a DC, a secondary DC, an ISA server, a front-end Exchange box, a back-end Exchange box, a file & print server, a Sharepoint box and a LOB server? Not only would there be extensive cost at deploying that sort of solution, but extensive cost to maintain and administer that set up.

Let's face it - SBS customers aren't shopping for ISA server any more than they're shopping for Exchange. What they're looking for is a solution that let's the work smarter. Does the small business owner care about running ISA on their DC? Nope - not in the least. The fact is that it isn't realistic to sell that client a separate ISA server - simply put, the costs outweigh the benefits.

Is ISA on SBS a compromise? Sure - it's a compromise between the benefits of the full product and great pricing of an integrated bundle. I will be the first one to admit that in a perfect world ISA would always run on its own dedicated box. In the small business arena, that just isn't going to happen in an overwhelming number of cases. So the question facing most small businesses isn't whether or not they should run a dedicated ISA box in addition to their SBS, but whether they should run ISA on SBS or stick with their $39 Linksys router.

So what's the bigger security compromise and risk for the small business - running ISA on their SBS or sticking with a low-end nat-ing router? Because down here in the trenches - that's the reality.

Goodbye HP . . .

cgross — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 22:04:00 GMT

I think I might be at a point where I will never sell another HP laser printer again.

Ever.

Recently (since early this year), we've been selling Okidata color laser printers. We have a couple customers with C7350n units, and a few more with C5150n units (we're using the 5150 ourselves) and everyone has been thoroughly pleased. Well, we just ordered our first B&W Okidata laser printer for a client - a B6300n. I installed this thing and was immediately impressed. Power-on to Ready to Print in under 5 seconds. And it prints so fast - not only PPM speed, but just as important a very low time to first print (official number is under 9 seconds - but so far I've seen it around 3 seconds).

We currently have an HP 4250tn in our office - and I have to admit that the Oki B6300n is every bit as much the printer as the HP 4250tn. The 4250tn does have a higher sheet capacity than the Oki - (1,000 vs 700), and is has a higher PPM rating (45ppm vs 35ppm). But for the average small business environment, the difference isn't even noticeable. What is noticeable is the price difference: $1,499 for the 4250tn versus $839 for the B6300n

So going forward - I'm recommending the Oki printers for our customers when they ask . . .

SMBTN

cgross — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 18:10:00 GMT

So, it appears that everyone has survived the first SMBTN Summer Conference. I've got to take my hat off to Roger, Jim and everyone else who put in tons of effort to pull this off.

I thoroughly enjoyed the entire event - and the best part is being able to just sit down and visit with everyone else about what we're all doing, what we'd like to do better, and what sort of solutions we've done for our customers.

Several people asked me about Sharepoint resources - so here's the two sites I enjoy the most:

www.wssdemo.com
www.wssfaq.com

Also - if you've got a specific quesiton, don't forget Google & Google Groups!

Free upgrade to Windows XP 64-bit Edition

cgross — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:11:00 GMT

Eric Fleischman posted this on his blog . . .

Eric Fleischman's WebLog : Go from 32bit Windows to 64bit for no cost? Really?:
http://blogs.technet.com/efleis/archive/2005/04/25/404133.aspx

How Microsoft Is Going To Win The SMB Accounting Battle

cgross — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:01:00 GMT

(Disclaimer: I am part of the Small Business Accounting beta - but all information provided in this post is publicly available from both Microsoft's web site & various technology 'first looks' reports)

If you haven't already heard, Microsoft is prepping a new accounting package aimed at businesses with up to 25 employees. Small Business Accounting as it is called will be a key part of a new Microsoft Office edition tentatively scheduled to be released later this year - Microsoft Office for Small Business Management.

The SMB Accounting market is pretty fierce, with several key players releasing new versions annually. With Microsoft being the new kid on the block coming into the small end of the market, you may initially wonder how they're going to compete against entrenched products like Intuit's QuickBooks & Best Software's Peachtree Accounting. Admittedly, Microsoft has an uphill battle in front of them in this aspect - but Small Business Accounting is going to be a much needed blast of fresh air into this market.

So just how is Microsoft going to win the battle for keeping small business' books? Well, there are actually two answers to this question. First and foremost, they're giving small business users something they aren't used to having: native ODBC access to their financial data. No proprietary data format, no closed database schema, no having to spend extra money on a cumbersome 3rd party product to access their data. Since Small Business Accounting uses Microsoft SQL Data Engine (MSDE) for its data store, users have the ability to access their financials from any ODBC compliant application, allowing for advanced reporting and analysis using the entire Office suite, including Excel, Word & Access. IMHO this in itself is huge.

The second part to this answer is that Microsoft is giving Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) the tools necessary to quickly and easily build a wide array of 3rd party solutions for Small Business Accounting - from add-ins that operate within the Small Business Accounting application itself, to industry-specific LOB applications that directly integrate with Small Business Accounting - allowing the 3rd party solution to focus on the industry-specific stuff while depending on SBA for the accounting end. So how does this compare to what is available on the market now? It blows it away - plain and simple. Sure, Intuit provides a Developer SDK - but it's very low level, requiring the developer to code most of their own functions for manipulating the data. Best doesn't provide any sort of SDK for Peachtree, but MultiWare, Inc.'s PAWCOM has long since been considered the best solution available for accessing and integrating with Peachtree. PAWCOM is a top-notch product, but the one major disadvantage it has compared to Small Business Accounting is that it is a 3rd party product. Microsoft's Small Business Accounting team has built extensibility & accessiblity into the product from the ground up, with a complete .net solution - with key business logic functions exposed for developers and ISVs to leverage.

The combination of open data access and ease of integration for ISVs is going to be the primary catalyst for Small Business Accounting. ISVs will be more likely to develop add-ons and vertical market solutions for SBA than other accounting applications because with SBA being based on open technologies such as .Net and SQL, ISVs will have a diminished learning curve. That combined with the presence of already exposed business logic functions will result in a significantly shorter development time thus resulting in lower development costs which in turn makes their solution more profitable. Users already familiar with Office will appreciate the familiar, intuitive interface. Admittedly, many users may not realize the benefit of having and open data store, but I would think that most advisors (accountants and IT partners) would bring this to the small business owner's attention.

One things remains certain: whether you love or hate QuickBooks or Peachtree (or other SMB accounting applications), the introduction of Microsoft's Small Business Accounting is going see a flurry of competition that the market hasn't really seen in a very long time - which can only be good for the small business customer.

For more info on Microsoft's Small Business Accounting / Microsoft Office for Small Business Management:

Office for Small Business Management:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/prodinfo/smallbusiness/accounting/default.mspx

PCWorld.com - First Look: Microsoft Small Business Accounting:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118495,00.asp

The .NET Show: Small Business Accounting Platform:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/episode048/default.asp

Microsoft Small Business Accounting:
http://www.sbadeveloper.com/

What about the SMB space is so hard to understand?

cgross — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 01:39:00 GMT

So, there is a product I like - ok, I *really* like. The only problem is that they don't quite 'get' small business. They were really close. They had a fair price per license on their software - but they required a minimum purchase of 25 licenses. But - they did have a free version. It had the same functionality as the full product - the only difference was that it was limited to supporting 10 clients. The free version was great for so many of our customers, that were within the 10 client limit. However, as soon as you passed 10 clients, you had to purchase the full, 25 license version. We have several clients who are sitting at 11-15 seats that could benefit from the software - but they can't justify paying for 10 licenses that they're probably never going to use, so they don't buy it. I've emailed the company several times asking for them to consider removing the license minimums and letting us by exactly the number of licenses we need, no matter how small.

Well, just tonight I noticed that this company had released a new version of their software. So I went to their download site, downloaded the free version and registered for a license key for the free version. I received the email message with my license key, and as I read it - I discovered a significant shift from the previous version: Specifically, the free version of the new release is still restricted to only 10 clients, but now it is only valid for 45 days as a trial. No more free unlimited-use version for up to 10 clients. So where does that leave my customers with under 10 clients? Well - they aren't going to buy 25 licenses - I know that. So for one, we aren't upgrading :^). Two - we're going to have to start looking at our options for replacements.

I'll admit that I'm stumped. I just don't get it. The SMB market is the hot target market now for technology. Yet so many big players are trying to penetrate the SMB space, but they can't seem to 'figure out' SMBs. At a basic level, the SMB space is actually pretty simple: provide fair pricing, don't make us buy stuff / licenses we don't need, and don't hold us hostage by making it impossible to migrate to a different product down the road. I don't know if that goes against everything that was drilled into the enterprise managers and marketing directors during their MBA courses, but so many of the big players just can't seem to be able to grasp the simple concept of TRUSTING THEIR CUSTOMERS AND TRUSTING THEIR PRODUCT. That's one thing about SMBs - you don't market to the SMB space by traditional means. We aren't going to seminars - we have a business to run. We aren't going to take your cold call - we've got three paying customers on other lines. We're not going to notice your direct mail campaign - it's going to get pitched along with the random catalog, mortgage offer & pre-approved credit card application. No Thanks.

So just where do SMBs learn about solutions, and who do they listen to? Other small business owners, of course! The people who know and understand the unique challenges we face every day, because they're dealing with the exact same issues.

So for those companies that want to crack into the SMB space - just what do they need to do? First - most need to change their pricing structure / licensing. If you could chose between selling 1,000 widgets for $100 apiece, or selling 100,000 widgets for $20 apiece . . . would you rather $100,000 in sales or $2,000,000 in sales? Take my product above. We have two customers with between 20 & 25 clients who have purchased the full 25 client version of the software for over $600 (approx $25/seat). At last count, we had approximately 17 customers using the free version (representing approximately 130 clients). I know that I could sell the software to each and every one of those customers if they could buy the exact number of licenses they needed - or approximately $3,250 in sales for the software vendor - and that's just from the customers who are using the free version. I could sell it to my customers with between 10 & 20 seats as well. However - with the 25 seat minimum purchase requirement - I'll be lucky to be able to get one customer to buy it.

The problem is that most companies require minimum purchases (blocks of 25 / 50 / 100 licenses). If you're a small business with 10 users and no plans for growth - are you going to buy a solution that has a minimum purchase of 50 licenses at $30 each? No way - you're effectively throwing away 40 licenses that you're never going to use. And what is it with minimum license purchases anyway? That type of requirement does not benefit the customer in any way - the only possible benefit is to the vendor in forcing the customer to buy more licenses than they need. What so many larger players don't realize is how much business they're losing because of those minimums - especially where the SMB market is concerned. Throw those minimums out the door - let customers buy the exact number of licenses they need - regardless of how little. Let that mom & pop business buy the 3 licenses they need . . . and when they add another employee a year down the road - let them buy a single license - don't force a 5 pack on them. Software vendors are painfully aware of how much software piracy costs them. Are they aware of how painful it is to their small customers when they force them to buy licenses they don't need???

Provide fair pricing. Retire minimum license purchases. Support your product!! We're all human - we make mistakes. If there is a problem with your product - admit it, fix it and move on. Take care of your SMB customers, give them a good product at a fair price, and you'll effectively be hiring a whole new sales force. SMBs talk to each other - and they talk shop. They talk about what products they love - and they talk about the products / vendors they dislike. Get them loving your product - and they'll talk to each other, and the sales will start coming to you. Keep your head stuck in the enterprise model of minimum licenses, forced support contracts, etc. - and you'll stay on the outside looking in at the SMB space.

Community, Bobcat Ears and Canadians, eh?

cgross — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 03:40:00 GMT

So let’s talk about Toronto.

Susan already blogged about the hats Cal had made for all of us. We definitely have winter in Omaha, and I’m seriously considering wearing it when I get home. I know several of our customers will absolutely love it J

But what about the trip? It was great – but then again, Harry’s events are always really good. But you may be wondering why would I spend my own money to fly into Toronto for less than 48hrs when there is no financial / business benefit from it? The reasons why I am here are very simple: friends & community. And it is funny how closely inter-twined those two reasons are.

Friends. Grey, Jeff M, Cal, Les, Andy, Harry, Javier, Jeff L, Dave, Frank (and toss in a dash of Susan Tues. night via IP Phone J). I cannot stress how humbling and honoring it is to be in the presence of this group, and to be able to call them friends. Their knowledge, dedication, passion and commitment to community are a testament to just how remarkable each and every one of them are.

Community. If you’re reading this blog, then you’ve most likely been exposed to community. Tues night was the inaugural meeting for the SBS special interest group of the Toronto Windows Server User Group (TWSUG), which Cal organized, and it was a pleasure to be able to be present and help Cal demonstrate the power of community. And just what is the power of community? The power of community is being able to always have a helping hand a few clicks away. The power of community allows us to help each other by learning from other peoples’ mistakes, and letting them learn from ours. The power of community allows us to connect with other people professionally and use our own special skills to provide each other’s customers with the most benefit.

Imagine being a small IT provider – maybe a one man shop, maybe another tech or two. One of your primary motivations for serving small businesses is to truly help them – to do everything in your power to give them the greatest possible value in terms of stability, security, productivity and functionality for their budget. Our goal is not to be simply an IT provider for our clients. Our goal is to be a key member of our customers’ organization – to be able to give them the best advice and provide the best solution for their long-term goals. We’re invested in our customers’ success, and there is nothing more rewarding than helping them succeed, and hearing that sincere “thank you – we couldn’t have done it without you.”

Now imagine finding other IT providers around the world who share that mentality, who are just as invested in their customers’ success as you are invested in your customers’ success. Now imagine they do a lot of work with CRM, and you have a client who wants to deploy CRM. The ability to contact this IT provider for assistance with providing your customer with the most value in this solution is priceless. You can provide your client with the value they deserve, without having to invest excessive time or resources into learning the product or solution they need. Furthermore, I’ll argue that a group of small IT providers who share this commitment to their customers can better serve their customers than a larger organization, who most likely doesn’t have that level of commitment.

That is the power of community. And that is more than enough reason to spend a couple days in Toronto in January (which is definitely saying something! J).

Thanks Tucker!

cgross — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 05:27:00 GMT

Earlier this week, we were contacted by a prospective client who wanted us to check out their relatively new SBS install and make sure that everything was up to snuff, and get Exchange working. Now, when Steve relayed to me that we needed to get Exchange working, that bothered me - because this was supposed to me a Dell OEM install - and even after the infamous 15 minute install, Exchange works. I feared that the box had been set up entirely wrong by someone who didn't know what they were doing . . . and I've been doing more and more of these type of SBS cleanups lately . . .

So anyway, something new happened to me this morning. Amy & I arrived at the client's office, and we do our introductions. Tucker (the client), shakes my hand and says that he's really glad to meet me, as he feels like he knows me already. Mind you, I've never met Tucker before - so my initial reaction was 'Gee, I hope that feeling doesn't have anything to do with VooDoo dolls & full-moon rituals! ;^) But seriously - he tells me that he found my blog and has been reading it. Yep - this very blog. He's the very first person I've met who has read the blog before I met them. Granted, I know there are many out there that fall into this category, but Tucker was the first . . .

And I want to thank Tucker - not for reading my blog, but for being an informed individual. It turns out that his SBS is actually in very good health - there's a few scattered errors in the Event Logs, but nothing major by any means. Tucker deserves kudos because he read up enough on SBS to know about it's wizards and integrated install - so that when the IT Service Provider he was using was trying to install the various SBS components manually, Tucker made them go back and use the wizards . . . If he hadn't his server and network would be in considerably worse condition. Tucker had the quote of the day - he mentioned another provider who had provided them a bid for a few hosted services as well as remote monitoring of their LAN. Tucker said that they didn't go with them because from what he's heard, “[they're] worse than carpenter ants. Once you let them in and they get their VPNs set up, you'll never be able to get rid of them.“ :^)

And as for Tucker's Exchange not working? It's not that it isn't working - it's just that they aren't using it yet :^) One of the first tasks on our To Do list will be to get everyone's PSTs pulled into Exchange and get them rocking with shared calendars & OWA - then move on to Sharepoint and Remote Web Workplace :^)

What concerns me the most with Tucker's experience is that it is far from unique, with the exception of the client putting the provider on the right track. And that's the problem. There are great small biz IT providers out there. They do exist - I know several . . . and I'd like to think we fall into that category. However, there are apparently many providers out there who are far from qualifying for this category - and that is what we need to change.

I think the single most important piece of techno-mis-information that the average small business subscribes to is the concept that cutting-edge technology is for the big guys, and the small guys take the table scraps and piece something together. In reality, the exact opposite is true. Small business is much more agile - the big boys are trying to turn the Titanic, while we're running around on Jet Skis . . . Also - small businesses have the most to gain from embracing technology and making it work for them. However, small business usually doesn't have the necessary expertise in-house, and thus require the assistance of an IT Service Provider. The unique challenge for the small business is to find a provider who can become a trusted advisor - a firm that has the necessary business skills to anticipate future needs, analytical skills to evaluate potential solutions, communication skills to relate the pros & cons of each option to the business owner and the technical skills to implement and maintain the solution. In the end, small businesses need and deserve an IT Provider who can align themselves with the organizations needs, and always keep that organizations' best interests at heart.

The biggest problem facing the small IT shops is a combination of pride & fear. Too many small providers are too proud to ask for help from others. Let's face it - there's way too much information out there for us to know it all. If a client has a problem that isn't your strong point - don't make the client suffer while you hack and try to figure it out yourself. Finding someone who has the knowledge and experience in the problem area who can help will be much more rewarding in the end - and the customer will be much better served by having their issue resolved as quickly as possible.

The answer here is very simple - focus on doing whatever it takes to meet the customer's needs. Work to give them every advantage possible, and always keep their best interest at heart. Only once we all start doing this will we be able to finally break down the misconceptions of our industry and be able to truly help our small business clients excel and succeed beyond their wildest dreams!

And thanks again Tucker - this time for reminding me why I love this business - there's nothing better than being able to truly help a small business by taking their percieved IT liability and make it an undeniable IT asset . . .

Anyone up for some Office Automation?

cgross — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 03:41:00 GMT

Ok, I'm going to try to make this quick. After I left the office this afternoon, I stopped to check out the new Best Buy that opened up close to home. While I was there, I picked up the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (great movie - but the book was WAY better.) I want to watch it yet tonight, but I've gotten caught up in some email, and I want to get this post out since it's been in my head all day. So . . .

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Microsoft Office is probably one of the most under-valued application suites in the small business space. Come on - just take a look at all of the functionality available under the hood. You can do more with Office than most small businesses could ever imagine. Let's take Excel as an example. We've all seen what most small businesses use Excel for - it can usually be boiled down to lists of some form (maybe for a mail merge), or using the built-in functionality in Peachtree or QuickBooks to dump a report to Excel and sort it differently. You do have a few that may use some basic formulas to sum columns, etc. - but not much else.

There is SO MUCH we can do with Office that it isn't even funny. I myself am an Access junkie - and spend a lot of time messing around with VBA in both Access & Excel. I'm working with one client where we've built some reports in Excel that save them so much time & effort it isn't funny. I'd normally do something like this in Access, but they had a previous solution that was using Excel, and that's what everyone was used to. They upgraded their accounting system, which required that the solution be recreated since the entire underlying data connections weren't valid anymore (and the previous individual who created the original solution had key functionality embedded in XLAs that were locked down and inaccessible to edit - and he was long gone). This particular client has extended the functionality of their accounting software by creating a Project Status Report (PSR) template. Whenever they are awarded a job, they enter their itemized breakdown of cost & revenue estimates, and also list each subcontractor with the subcontractor's contract amount. The PSR also allows for Change Order information to be added. One of the custom solutions we have pulls all of the job data out of the accounting solution and organizes it according to their job designations. This results in a single Excel workbook with multiple worksheets - one for each job class (A Jobs, B Jobs, C Jobs, etc.), one for only the active jobs for each class (A Active, B Active, C Active, etc.) one for each Project Manager, and a summary sheet that provides statistics by Project Manager (total projects, % of total revenues, markup estimated, markup earned, etc. In addition, as this custom workbook is built, as it is processing each job from the accounting system, it looks to see if there is a PSR for that job. If so, it opens the PSR and updates all of the individual line items (cost incurred to date), and updates the total billings from each subcontractor for that job. If a subcontractor's total billings exceed their contract amount, another workbook is opened with adds a worksheet for that subcontractor and builds a custom Account Ledger for all activity for that subcontractor / job, and adds the job, subcontractor, total contract amount, total billings amount and total overage amount to the summary sheet. They have a lot of data, so it takes this about 7-8 minutes to run. (70% of that is due to the lackluster performance of the ODBC driver for their accounting application). When it is all said and done, they have up-to-date performance numbers for each of their Project Managers, PSRs give an exact picture of how a job is evolving, and the subcontractor workbook gives a single report of all subs who have overbilled their contract, as well as a custom ledger for each subcontractor showing exactly the information / activity our client wants to include to help their sub reconcile the discrepancy . . . Cool huh? And it's all thanks to the built-in functionality of MS Office.

Passwords vs Passphrases - Part 3

cgross — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 05:07:00 GMT

Ok, I blogged a couple weeks ago about part 2 of Jesper Johansson's 3 part series in comparing passwords and passphrases. Well, the good Dr. J's 3rd & final installment is now available:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/secnews/articles/itproviewpoint110104.mspx

Poor Man's CRM - Update

cgross — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 05:07:00 GMT

Ok - so I'm overdue with updating everyone on the status of this. The bad news is that I don't have anything concrete for you yet. There's just not enough hours in a day to get to everything that I want to get to - and unfortunately, work has been taking a priority followed closely by getting the house & yard ready for winter (although I did finally get my house painted).

Here's where I'm at: I'm working on getting a download ready - I'm currently editing all of the InfoPath forms, etc. so that they reference companyweb - so that you can actually be up & running in a matter of minutes. That is the current task - and one that I hope to have done in the very near future. From there, I've got a few different items on the task list regarding Poor Man's CRM - but I'm pretty sure that my next step is going to be working with Project Server 2003 and tying in its web parts. In order to do that, I'm probably going to end up moving the current site to my own server, which will have multiple benefits (including being able to allow anonymous access to the site).

So no, I haven't forgotten / abandoned this. Far from it. As a matter of fact, I've been talked into presenting on Poor Man's CRM tomorrow night - it's a LiveMeeting simul-cast to the San Diego, Orange County & San Francisco SBS User Groups. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to present - but I'll get something put together :^)

Anyway - my next post on this should be to announce the availability of the download.

Prepping Users for a Network Install

cgross — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 04:36:00 GMT

Yesterday, Susan blogged about James who asked about what types of email to send to a client's employees to get them excited about an upcoming install. I started to post a comment on her blog, but decided it warranted a post of its own.

Whoa James . . . back up the truck and take a look at where you're going . . .

First - scrap the idea about email. Call me crazy, but as far as I'm concerned email is not - I repeat NOT - a relationship tool for the smallbiz space. Not only is it too impersonal compared to a phone call or face-to-face encounter, but with spam and increasing amounts of legitimate messages, email is losing some value in the users' eyes.

Second - what is your motivation for wanting users to be excited about the install? I would guess that the underlying thoughts here would be to make the overall transition go as smooth as possible. So how can you go about this?

When engaging users prior to the install, think PERSONAL CONTACT! Engage as many users as possible face-to-face. Whatever you do - don't try to sell them on the install - the project has already been bought. Work on understanding what are the most important aspects of each users' computing experience? What applications dto they depend on daily? What are they looking forward to with the migration? What are they worried about with the migration? The idea here is simple - engage the user, show genuine concern for their issues and concerns. You'll be able to put together a better plan-of-attack for the installation so that the greatest number of user issues & concerns are addressed up front, which will allow for a smooth transition for all. Besides aiding the migration itself, you can't discount the relationship-building aspect of engaging the users. The ultimate goal is to have your users feel comfortable enough to approach you with any questions and/or issues they may have at any time, and to use your technology expertise to truly help the client.

Speaking of helping the client - I cannot overstate how important I think it is to take the effort to learn the client's business - how they work, the information they depend on and the places that could use improvement. A network upgrade shouldn't just be putting in new hardware & software - it should be part of an overall business upgrade that looks at all aspects of their business needs, determines what points can be addressed with technology and what processes can be streamlined. One point that I think is often overlooked is how much of this discovery process should happen before the migration. For most of us in the smallbiz space, SBS is going to be the solution for an overwhelming majority of our clients - because of just how flexible it is and how extensive its feature set is. However, I think this has the potential for us to fall into the trap of offering the same solution to each client. While most of our installs will be centered around SBS, that doesn't mean that each solution can't be unique for the individual customer's needs. The whole process of getting to know the customer's needs and their users' concerns also gives you a roadmap for training - what features and functionality to focus on that will benefit the customer the most. (And yes - extensive training on Outlook is always a hit . . . shared calendars / contacts / tasks / etc, recovering deleted items, customizing views, rules, etc. etc. etc. )

So, that's my view - forget email as an effective engagement tool and never underestimate the value/benefit of personal contact and a handshake.

It's about time . . .

cgross — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 05:15:00 GMT

I may be a bit behind, but I just noticed today that Symantec has finally released an update so that Norton Anti-Virus will play nice with the Security Center in XP SP2 . . . needless to say, it's about time - there's nothing I hate more than having to tell a user “oh, it's safe to ignore that warning that your PC may be at risk . . . “ Unfortunately, the entire world doesn't use Trend . . . ;^)

Selling Sharepoint Customizations . . . .

cgross — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 04:12:00 GMT

So I'm at SMB Nation, and was visiting with someone (who shall remain nameless) about Sharepoint. They were just starting to see just how flexible and robust WSS is, and they commented that they thought they'd try to go in to the client next week and customize their Sharepoint site to give them some cool features.

What's wrong with that statement? What was wrong was that nothing was said about the client's needs. You guys want to get your customers exited about Sharepoint and get some billable hours from customizing it for them? DON'T show them the “cool” features to do the sell. Most smallbiz customers really don't care that you can pull RSS feeds into Sharepoint, or that you have the MSNBC web parts for news & weather. Many won't see the value of a Sharepoint contact list (after all, we've already sold them on Outlook / shared contacts), etc.

I suggest starting off small - use Sharepoint to solve a relatively simple problem for the client. Something that may be simple enough that the client doesn't see it necessarily as a problem - but you see it as at least an inefficiency. Here's an example: we have a client who had an Excel spreadsheet they used to list their job numbers. These job numbers are classified depending on what type of job they are, so the client has A-jobs, B-jobs, C-jobs, etc., and they had set up a separate worksheet in the Excel file for each job type. The problem was that there were 10 people who needed to access this information to either create new job numbers, or lookup job numbers for POs, time tickets, etc. They had configured the Excel file for sharing, but were getting repeated corruption. While the Volume Shadow Copy was nice, it was still a pain to determine what changes everyone had made since the last VSS snapshot. So, our solution was to import this information into their Sharepoint site as a simple little 6 field custom list. They haven't had a problem since, and now we're looking at adding additional functionality for them.

Most small businesses have some sort of data that it seems several people need, but it almost always ends up that they have the receptionist or whomever be the keeper for that data. So you've got people either calling the receptionist or coming up to their desk to ask for some sort of info from this data. Another example are those customers who have the notorious whiteboard that has some sort of list / data on it, which may be either static or dynamic - but whenever anyone needs that info, they've got to go to the whiteboard to get it. This is the stuff that you should be moving into Sharepoint for your clients. The great part is that it is very easy to train users on this - out of all of your computer applications, the web browser is arguably the environment that all users are familiar and comfortable with, and basic lists are very intuitive to use, especially with the filter & sort options. Once you're able to introduce Sharepoint to many of your customers as an effictive tool to solve a problem / increase efficiency, they're going to be much more apt to look at it, and you're going to get more business on customize Sharepoint than you ever would simply by showing them the “cool” stuff.