OnQ : Pontifications

On Growth

eriq — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:07:00 GMT

This change in our economic climate is generating different reactions from different people, no huge surprise. Over the last few months, I've seen several different approaches from customers, peers, and other contacts. Some have chosen cut back their marketing and advertising spending as a way to save cash flow. Others have started spending more in marketing and advertising to generate more customer leads and referrals. Some have cut staff, others have added sales staff. Some are taking the same approach to business that they have for years, others are looking over their business models and seeing if change makes sense to them.

I'm not here to tell you that there's any right or wrong way to approach your business. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa. The same tactics that work in a large metropolitan area may not work in a smaller, more rural, closed community. The same approaches that are working well in Texas may fall flat in Michigan.

But one thing is constant - technology is constantly changing. Microsoft released SBS 2008 last year, and in case you haven't figured it out yet, it's not the same as SBS 2003. IT Professionals who make their living supporting customers who run SBS are having to learn the differences in Server 2008 from Server 2003, Exchange 2007 from Exchange 2003, etc., etc., etc. Windows Server 2008 Foundation was announced last week, and while it's based on Server 2008, it's got some key differences that will make it more of a niche solution than an across-the-board solution for many consultants.

So what are you doing to keep up with the changing technology? What are you doing to learn about new solutions or opportunities for your business? One thing I'm fairly certain of is that if you're not open to change, you're going to get left behind at best. So how do you keep up?

My background is in education. I started my career in the higher education arena, and I've always approached every job or business opportunity as an educational opportunity. Either as a way to learn for myself and grow as a person, or as an opportunity to help another learn and grow. In business, it's often referred to as continuing education. Many industries require people holding certain certifications to take a number of continuing education classes each year to maintain their certification. That's not the case in the IT industry, and while I'm not advocating any sort of formal continuing education system for IT service providers, I know that the good ones are always pushing themselves, keeping up with the latest trends, tools, technologies, etc.

Many of us will take the approach of trying to learn things on our own. That's my own primary method for education. I sit down in front of a new tool or a problem or a challenge and I work my way through it until I get to the other side. Others are book learners and gain their perspectives from reading anything and everything about a topic that they can get their hands on. Still others are visual learners and choose to watch others do things to pick up skills and techniques. And still others learn almost by osmosis, by being around others who are well-versed in an area and learn from interactions with them.

As you look to the challenge of growing your business or your personal skill set, let me offer two events that may help you learn in the short term so you can make decisions to help you in the long term. The month of May has two events geared towards helping IT professionals and their organizations grow by offering discussions and presentations on growing your business, learning about new technologies, and interacting with your peers. These are the SMB Nation Spring event in Montclair, New Jersey May 1-3, and the SMB Summit in Dallas, Texas, May 15-17. Both of these events have a number of speakers chosen specifically for their expertise in certain areas that are of interest to the IT Professional community these days. The SMB Nation Spring event is set more as a regional event, but the SMB Summit is intending to draw a national audience. If you're not already considering attending one of these two events in May, I would certainly give it another thought.

Why?

Check out the web sites for both events and see who the speakers are and the topics they are presenting. If there are not multiple sessions that apply to you or your business, I'll be very surprised. Think about the opportunities you will have to interact with the speakers outside of their presentations. Think about the opportunities you'll have to interact with your peers outside of the sessions and event activities. I will be speaking at both events, but that's not the primary reason I'm going to each - I'm looking forward to seeing the other sessions that are being offered; I'm looking forward to interacting with a number of the other speakers; I'm looking forward to the hallway conversations I'll be able to have with the other attendees. I expect to gain a great deal of insight into my own business and other ventures by interacting with the other people who will be at these events.

If your interest is piqued but you're still not sure, check out what other speakers for the SMB Nation event are saying: Harry Brelsford talks about the shift to becoming a trusted advisor in this blog post. Dana Epp of AuthAnvil fame talks about his presentation for the SMB Nation event in this blog post.

Of course, if conferences are not your thing (although if you haven't been to one of these events, you really don't know what you're missing) or if your travel budget won't allow you to attend these events, you still have a number of options open to you for continuing education. Check out the 5W/50 webcasts. Check out Karl Palachuk's SMB Conference Calls. And, of course, I have to mention the Third Thursday webcasts at Third Tier.

Bottom line, there are LOTS of opportunities for you to learn about new technologies, new business opportunities, new ways to market to customers, etc., etc., etc. If you're not taking the opportunity to update (or upgrade) your skills or your business approach, know that someone else out there is taking advantage of that opportunity. What's your plan? How are you going to keep up with, or better yet, stay ahead of your competition?

On Foundation

eriq — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:36:00 GMT

On April 1 (maybe not the best move), Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2008 Foundation, or at least that's the name of the product on the official product page. Sure, it won't be long before we're referring to it as "Foundation" or "Foundation Server" but I digress. The two important items I want to cover in this post are:

This product is not an April Fool's joke.
There is already a great deal of confusion about this product.

The first point is fairly self-explanatory. As to the second, yes, the official pages at Microsoft are a bit vague about the limitations of the product, and you do need to be aware that there are some specific EULA and product limitations for this system. Those details will be getting hashed out over time in cyberspace, and at least initially I don't think it's critical for the small business IT pro to get in a panic about knowing or not knowing what all of the limitations are. It's still going to be a bit before you can actually get the product from the OEMs (one of the restrictions), so you've got time to get the skinny on the details of the limitations. What is important to know up front, I think, is where this product really fits into the grand scheme of small business computing.

One common theme I've already seen hashed out in a number of forums is that Foundation is a direct competitor to Small Business Server and Windows Home Server. It isn't. In fact, it can be used to augment networks where Home Server or Small Business Server are already in place. One place where Microsoft does see a need to be filled is in the micro business space (if I can use that term, referring to the less than 5 user business or home business) where cash flow just doesn't allow for a business to implement Small Business Server. The micro business may not need all of the bells and whistles of SBS (perhaps they've already got hosted e-mail and/or SharePoint somewhere) but they do want or need a small server to handle a specific task, such as a central file server or print server, or even a LOB app server (especially if the app is not SQL based) or a small Terminal Server. While we haven't seen specific pricing on the software that the OEMs will be charging (as of the moment of this post), the idea is to have a small scale server available for a small business at a low price point. And in some cases, it makes sense. If a business is looking to purchase a small server in the $500 range, are they all that interested in purchasing an operating system that costs more than the hardware? Not according to the research that Microsoft has done.

So how can Foundation be used in a small business? Well, let's hit a few of the product specs and limitations up front to give you some background for this discussion.

Foundation is Windows Server 2008.
Foundation is limited to a single physical processor. That processor can have as many cores as possible, but Foundation will only be sold on single-processor systems.
Foundation is limited to a max of 8GB of RAM.
Foundation is 64-bit only.
Foundation is limited to a maximum of 15 users.
Foundation is only available through the major OEMs (Dell, HP, IBM, etc.) and not through the System Builder channel.
Foundation has no support for virtualization - it cannot be used as a Hyper-V host or guest.
Foundation can be a Domain Controller or a Member Server.

There are many other items not included in this list, but this gives us enough of a basis to discuss what roles Foundation could play as a solution for your clients. I'm going to limit the scope of the rest of this post using examples where the business has no more than 15 users.

If you already have an SBS server in place at a customer site, but you're needing to add a line of business application that you know isn't going to play well with IIS on the SBS server, Foundation might be a good fit. Since it's Windows Server 2008, it supports IIS (along with the other Server 2008 tools) and can be a member server in an SBS network. If the LOB application requires a SQL back end, it might not be a good fit for Foundation, thanks to the 8GB limit (SQL can be very memory-demanding).

Suppose you need to add a Terminal Server that will only be used by a couple of users in the business, and the applications they will be using on the Terminal Server are not memory-intensive. Foundation may make sense as a solution here. You will still need to purchase Terminal Server CALs and configure Foundation with the Terminal Services roles, but it will work.

Suppose you have a customer that has 4 computers in a peer-to-peer network looking for a server to centralize their shared data. They are happy with their current e-mail situation, and they're working on a tight budget. Foundation might make a good solution for them, as they can use it as a DC to use Active Directory for central authentication and file share security on the server.

These are just a few examples of how Foundation could be used to be a first server in a small organization or to augment services in an existing small network. In the new few weeks as the stories become clearer, I'll post some additional scenarios where Foundation could be used. In addition, I'm preparing for a presentation on Foundation server for the upcoming SMB Summit in Dallas in May.

Bottom line, Foundation can be a valuable addition to the small business IT professional's solutions catalog. In cases where the cost of putting in an additional 2008 server into the network has been financially prohibitive for the smaller customer, Foundation may now make that type of solution more fiscally reasonable. Stay tuned for more information.

On Customer Interaction

eriq — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:33:49 GMT

What kind of customer are you? If you have an interaction with a vendor that doesn't meet your expectations, how do you approach it?

I had two very different interactions with customers today, both involving invoices. I called a customer of ours this morning to check on the status of a support incident he had open, and after discussing the issue, he said "Hey, I've got a question about your last invoice." He brought two items on the invoice to my attention, I acknowledged that a mistake had been made, thanked him for bringing it to my attention, corrected the invoice, and resent it to him. Took all of about 10 minutes to go over the items in question, find the issue, and correct it. Both parties walked away happy.

I also got an e-mail from a new customer who had just received his first invoice from us. In the message, he pointed out how "outrageous" it was for us to have billed him the amount we did. His tone was condescending throughout, and his claims about the time spent working with him differ significantly from what was documented about his support issue.

Personally, I'm in the "honey" camp of the honey/vinegar approach. Having spent 20+ years in support management, I've heard all kinds of complaints (and yes, you get far fewer compliments than complaints) for all kinds of reasons. People who approach me in a calm and collected manner will get my full attention. People who approach me ranting and raving generally get blown off, depending on what the issue is (someone who's in a panic because they're server is down and they're losing business gets more of a pass than the person who is outraged because of a difference of $50 on an invoice).

Don't get me wrong - I am concerned when someone is not satisfied with the services we have provided. I do want to make sure that we are at our best at all times, whether trying to save a dying server or get a printer connected to a workstation. All of our staff have ingrained in them that we maintain a professional attitude at all times. In return, we'd like a little of the same.

I have always advised my staff that in whatever the situation, so long as they follow procedure and document everything they do, I have their back when it comes to a customer complaint. When I can go back to a customer and explain what was done, when it was done, by whom, and why, generally they come to agree with the actions and results. Not always, because you cannot please everyone, but most people can be dealt with logically. If my staff haven't followed procedure or fully documented their actions, however, and I'm right there on the customer's side, again, generally.

I understand frustration. I'm a small business owner in a region with challenging economics. I get stress. I get trying to "do more with less." Really, I do. But I also get that in many situations you don't have to resort to attitude, yelling, screaming, or obscenities to raise a concern with someone. Most of the time you can approach a party with reason and work towards a mutually satisfying solution.

So, if you're wanting to continue working with my organization as a provider of services, check the attitude at the door. Life is too short to deal with rude customers, so we don't.

On Mac Virtualization

eriq — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:43:28 GMT

I've been collecting data and experiences for this post for a little over three months now, so I can speak with some level of certainty on the topic. This is one of those long ones, so either grab some coffee and a comfy chair or bookmark for later review.

I've posted several times over the last couple of years about my experiences with VMWare Fusion and Parallels on my Mac. A quick historical recap: I acquired an Intel-based Mac Mini as soon as they came out and immediately purchased Parallels so that I could run Windows XP and Office 2003 on the system (Fusion wasn't available at the time). This combination worked really well for me for a long time. I was able to use Outlook for my e-mail (Entourage, while a nice e-mail client in its own right, hasn't had the level of Exchange integration that I needed for my business) and Internet Explorer for those sites that forced me to use IE instead of Safari or Firefox. I ran the occasional Windows tool in Parallels as well (GoToMeeting, LogMeIn Rescue, etc.) but as the bulk of work that I do is in e-mail or hosted solutions, I spent about half my time in Outlook and the other half in a Mac-based web browser.

When Fusion became available, I played with it, and the choice of the word "played" is deliberate - I never did any serious work with Fusion because of a couple of issues I ran across that basically made it useless for me. I've become so used to working with the Coherence mode in Parallels, where my Windows and Mac apps present their own application windows seamlessly on my desktop, including the Windows Task Bar across the bottom of my screen just above the Mac Dock, that I insisted on trying to use Unity mode in Fusion, but that either required me to turn off the Windows task bar (not an option since I access tools in the system tray on a regular basis) or to move the task bar to a different area of the screen (yes, I could have moved the Mac dock, too, but the point is I didn't have to do either with Parallels). So, Fusion never got a serious look.

The second factor in my aborted look at Fusion was that I was trying to see if I could get Vista to run well inside Fusion. That's at the point where I started to realize the limitations of the Mac Mini hardware. It just didn't have the horsepower to run Vista in Fusion or Parallels plus the Mac OS.

I also had issues updating to later versions of Parallels on the Mac Mini because of screen display issues in Coherence mode, and since the version of Parallels I was resigned to using to avoid those issues would not run at all on Mac OS 10.5, I really was running on "old" stuff.

Late last year, after updating to Office 2007, XP SP3, and IE 7 in my Parallels virtual machine, the overall performance of the system began to seriously deteriorate. I was waiting on applcations to load data, waiting on screen updates, and my efficiency began to suffer significantly. It was time to do something about it. So, in December, I welcomed my new Mac Pro into the fold. I overpurchased on the hardware, getting an 8-core 2.8GHz sytem with 1.5TB of disk and 10GB of RAM, but I knew I wanted to be able to run multiple virtual machines on the box for testing, including possibly sticking a virtual SBS 2008 on there for a standard platform.

That's when the first law of virtualization really hit home: Virtualization only works well when you've got appropriate hardware underneath. That ultimately was the issue with my Mac Mini. It was a great little machine for virtualizing a fairly basic XP system with Office 2003, but trying to load newer software and OS updates on it pushed the boundaries of what it could do in 2GB of RAM and a dual-core 1.6GHz processor.

Currently, my production PC is running Vista Ultimate under Parallels in Coherence mode (Fusion still doesn't have Unity working the way I wanted, but I did run Vista Ultimate for a week as a production system under Fusion before I just gave up on having the Windows taskbar anywhere on the screen except just above the Dock, somethign that Fusion surprisingly still isn't able to do). I've turned off the Vista Gadgets due to an odd screen artifacting issue in Parallels, but quite frankly I haven't found a Vista gadget worth having present anyway, so it's not a huge loss. I'm running Office 2007, IE8, Chrome, and a couple of support tools quite nicely in this configuration. Speed and performance are very nice, and I have 2 CPUs "dedicated" to that Vista system.

I should note that I'm runnign the 32-bit version of Vista Ultimate. I did load up the 64-bit install of Vista Ultimate under Parallels, but ironically it ran slower than the 32-bit version, so I moved back to 32. Plus I didn't have to fight any printer driver issues that I know I'll have to deal with ultimately.

I am also running Fusion, but in a different way. Currently, I have a Windows 2008 Terminal Server box running in windowed mode under Fusion, and I also have a Windows 7 64-bit box running in a Fusion window as well. One lesson I learned quickly was trying to run more than one virtual machine in Coherence or Unity mode caused great confusion to the operator. Also, Parallels has this annoying habit that when something happens in one of its virtual machines, it brings that machine to the forefront, and if you have multiple virtual machines running, the "alerted" machine jumps to the foreground, no matter what mode its in (windowed or Coherence) and no matter what you were doing in the other VMs. That got to be really annoying, really quickly. I had hoped to have my main production Vista running in Coherence along with another Parallels VM running in windowed mode, but that quickly proved impossible.

Interestingly enough, when I initailly built the 2008 Terminal Server that's now running on my Mac, I had created it as a VM under VMWare Workstation on a 2003 server I have as a test platform. Performance on that platform was pathetic, so I shut down the VM, copied the files from the 2003 server over to my Mac, and loaded up the VM in Fusion. It loaded right up, did a couple of platform conversions, requested a re-registration of the OS with Microsoft, but otherwise ran exactly as it had done under VMWare Workstation, save for being a WHOLE LOT faster. [Note: I ended up rebuilding the box in a new VM on the Mac for unrelated reasons. Had I not inadvertantly nuked something in the config, I'd still be running the same VM that I pulled over from VMWare workstation.]

Bottom line, I have a working system that is doing what I need it to do and more. I have a Vista environment that is very stable and runs very quickly. I have a Leopard environment that is very stable and runs very quickly. I've got a 2008 Terminal Server that runs faster now than it did before, and I'm spending some serious time with Windows 7. I will be testing a load of SBS 2008 on here at some point in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future, and fully recognize that I'll probably have to scale back some of the other stuff that I'm doing on this thing, but as my overall processor utilization is still under 10% across the board, I might not have to scale back too far. And I've learned a couple of good lessons about virtualizing on the Mac. It's certainly doable, and I'd say that you wouldn't even have to go as far as a super-decked-out Mac Pro to do it. My wife's iMac 20" has more than enough horsepower to run all the photo and video stuff she's doing plus running a Windows environment of some sort. And the new Mac Mini should be able to do virtualization nicely, but you'll have to probably go to the full 4GB to make it work. For me, though, Parallels is still the better solution, simply for the way it handles the full-screen integration with the Mac OS. If Fusion would ever figure out how to display the Windows task bar on top of the Dock like Parallels does, I'll be more than happy to give it another go, as in general I feel a bit better about recent developments from VMWare than I do from Parallels. But I'm running and not having any issues, so I'm not complaining.

On Blogging

eriq — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:27:11 GMT

As part of the marketing for the upcoming Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed book, I've been given the opportunity to have a blog space over at Network World for the next month. I'm excited about the opportunity to share my experiences with SBS 2008 with that audience, and hopefully the information will be well received.

The first post in that series went live today. You can read Small Business Server 2008 - Start Looking Now at your convenience. Enjoy!

On Callback Support

eriq — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:13:50 GMT

There has been a recent discussion in one of the mailing lists about Microsoft's new callback support model for SBS. This model went into effect on August 1, and was announced on the Official SBS Blog on July 2, 2008. Over the weekend, I had an opportunity to make use of the new callback model, and wanted to share my experiences with it here.

Caveat: as you may or may not know, I used to work in PSS (now CSS) on the SBS team in Las Colinas, and still keep in touch with several of the folks there. I was present on the lines when the switch to have first-level calls get routed to India went into play. While I have my own thoughts about the process, I have to admit that I get a bit frustrated when calling in and dealing with a first-level tech (no matter where they are located) who doesn't have the experience and background that I do. When I do call in, I have to be patient with the process and let it work, because trying to get around the process, in my experience, has just caused more problems. That said...

Over the weekend, I went into a customer's server to install the August security updates. As per our normal practice, I did a full restart of the server before installing any of the updates. Only the server did not come back up. I'm in Texas, the server is not. Once my client got on site, we saw the dreaded "Cannot load operating system" message on the screen. While I had him track down the install media to boot into Recovery Console, I placed a call to the Partner Business Down support line.

I placed the call at 12:15pm. Within 5 minutes, I was speaking with a call router. Even though the core problem was an OS load issue and I knew I'd get the best support by talking to someone in the Setup team, I could not bring myself to outright lie about the OS, and agreed to the callback plan for SBS support. We went through the severity assessment at length and she eventually agreed that this was a business down case. I provided my partner ID for the case, and even though I renewed my partner status on 8/21, that update did not reflect in their system. I spent 5 minutes on hold while she tracked down my partner status, and eventually came back indicating that she had updated my partner status in their system (even though my expiration date of 2009 shows on the partner web site), and she gave me the case number at 12:36pm. Longer than I would have liked to get to that point, but I can't really complain. She then advised that I could expect a callback in the next one to two hours, and I got ready to work on issues while waiting on the callback.

To my surprise, an SBS engineer called at 12:40pm, just 4 minutes later. I hadn't even had time to get my client through the next part of the Recovery Console troubleshooting. I was fairly impressed, no, let me be honest, I was completely surprised at how quickly I received the call back. I have to say that the call router did a good job of setting expectations, but I never expected to get the call back so quickly. I was very, very impressed at that point.

And that's where the good impression stopped. Over the next few hours, I got pretty much what I expected from first level support. Without going into detail on the problem or the troubleshooting or the resolution, I can only say that the MS tech provided exactly one valid suggestion towards an identification of the problem. He offered several red herrings that I refused to follow, because I knew they would go nowhere. I have to acknowledge that he did at least consult with someone on the Setup team (which is where I really wanted to go in the first place) to make some recommendations that I already had documented on my own to-do list.

As it turned out, I ended up not really needing the support from MS after all, as the problem didn't end up outside of my area of expertise, but when dealing with a non-booting system, especially one that I cannot get my hands on, I know what my limits are and when I will need the assistance of someone from MS. I don't know if I would have had trouble escalating that call to a higher level or how long it would have taken to do so, and fortunately I did not have to find out.

So my first foray into SBS callback support was a mixed bag. I ended up not having to call in as early as I did, because I got a callback immediately. But I still ended up with the same caliber of front-line support that I've unfortunately come to expect from Microsoft. I'm quite glad I didn't just turn my customer over to the MS support tech and walk away, which was an option, because the MS tech would have had him perform tasks that would have put the server in more jeopardy, not less.

Anyway, for those of you who have been complaining about the length of time it can take to get a callback from MS for SBS support, here's an example of when it can take very little time at all to get a callback. I'm not expecting that should I have to call in again any time soon that I'll get anything resembling that kind of turnaround, but it is nice to know that it's at least possible.

On RTM

eriq — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:41:08 GMT

Folks, in case you haven't heard by now (and if this is the first place you've seen/heard this, then I probably have a few other blog suggestions for you to follow), the SBS Development Team released SBS 2008 to Manufacturing today. This means that the product will be in the channel in some form in the next 6-8 weeks. This marks the end of several years of development by Microsoft, and nearly two years of testing that I've been involved with, along with a lot of other people.

I think the development group has done an amazing job with the product given the circumstances. Is the product solid? Based on what I've seen, I think so. Does it have some holes? Without a doubt. But given that the team was essentially developing against a deadline and not against a feature set, this is understandable.

What does this release mean to you? If you're a small business IT consultant (or at least play one on TV), it's time for you to get off your duff and work with the product so you get to know it and, therefore, develop your ability to support it for your clients. If you are a business owner, it's time to start thinking about if the upgrade makes good business sense to you.

I've already been seeing the arguments pro and con for the product out in the community, and for those that have asked about my take on it, my standard reply still stands - whether it makes sense to upgrade now or later depends entirely on the specifics of the client. Some people will need/want to move as soon as they can get their hands on the product. Others will wait until they have a clearer need for it. In my general conservative approach, I'm going to be taking a "wait and see" attitude for most of my clients. However, I have one that will be migrated pretty much as soon as we can get our hands on the software. It just depends.

Through this process, I've made some good friends on the Dev team, and I've been privileged to be involved in parts of the process that many people never get to see. I know they're all relieved to have finished this product, and they deserve whatever celebration is in store for them. The folks that have worked countless hours to bring you SBS 2008 definitely deserve major kudos - this was not an easy product to produce, and those of us on the testing team were not the easiest people to work with. But in the end, I think we're getting the best product that could be released at this time.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking more about my observations about SBS 2008 both here and on eOnCall. I'm also in the last stages of working on SBS 2008 Unleashed for Sams, due for release in November of 2008. But if you really want to know what the product is about, you have no choice but to get your hands on it and start working with it. No amount of reading blogs or sitting through web seminars or watching demonstration videos will give you the experience you need to run or support this product. Get out there and get after it!

On Migration

eriq — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:25:40 GMT

In the last few weeks, I've had an opportunity to give a presentation about the Migration options with SBS 2008 to a couple of different groups, one in Dallas and one in Detroit. As I went through the presentations, it became clear that the majority of folks in both rooms had not looked at the SBS 2008 migration document that's been produced by Microsoft, mostly because they didn't even know it was out there. So even though I will be giving the presentation at a few more groups over the next few months, I wanted to get my key point about Migration and SBS 2008 out there for those people who won't be able to hear about it from one of these presentations.

My talk focused on the MS Migration story for a variety of reasons. One, I know Jeff Middleton isn't ready with the Swing Migration process for SBS 2008 (but I also know he's working on it), and I really can't speak to a process I haven't seen. Plus, I'm not trying to take the thunder from Jeff about Swing when he does release the SBS 2008 edition. But I have gone through the MS migration process several times as part of the research for the SBS 2008 Unleashed book and the beta testing for the product, and doing the migrations uncovered for me what I believe is the most important thing you can do as a consultant to get ready for SBS 2008:

Learn the migration process. Period.

Whether you use the MS process or Jeff's Swing Migration, you will benefit greatly from starting to work with the migration process now. Don't wait until you get in front of your first migration for a client and try to review the white paper the night before. Don't download the Swing docs on the way to the client site. In fact, don't even schedule time with a client for migration until you've spent time learning how to do a migration.

There will be benefits and drawbacks to both migration processes. Learn what those are and understand why you are choosing one migration process over another. There will be times that a Swing will be the best migration method. There will be times when the MS process will be the best migration method. If you don't know both processes inside and out, you will not be able to make the correct decision for your client, which could end up being very costly for both of you.

We have what is supposed to be the final version of the Microsoft white paper on migration (in both web form and CHM (compiled help file) form) already available, so there is no reason you cannot start reading up on migration right now. You should, in fact. Then when Jeff releases the SBS 2008 version of the Swing Migration process, you can read through that and get familiar with it as well. Then you'll be well-versed in how to get your existing SBS 2003 customers onto SBS 2008 in the best way possible.

The other key reason I believe it's important to learn about migration is that it is the best way to learn about SBS 2008 in general. If you just join the beta and download and install the product, you'll get to see the surface of what's going on. But the migration process touches on every aspect of SBS 2008 - from Active Directory to Exchange to SharePoint to Group Policy and so on - so when you go through the migration process, you will learn about each of those apects of SBS 2008, and if you have not seen SBS 2008 yet, this will be a good way to get your hands dirty.

I will be up front, though. This will take time and effort on your part. The migration process is not easy, and not fast. If you try to skim through the docs or speed throgh a few trial runs,you WILL miss key aspects of the process and could run into problems down the road.

If you plan to be serious about supporting SBS 2008 as part of your business venture, start now to learn about migration so you'll be in a position to succeed when you are ready to move your clients, not in a position to fail miserably.

On Two Weeks with the iPhone

eriq — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:48:02 GMT

Last week, my eOnCall episode covered my first week with the iPhone. OK, yeah, I cheated a little bit because I recorded the episode on Wednesday, when I hadn't really used it for more than about 4 days, but who's counting. It made for interesting Internet Radio at least. So I thought it was time to do a little deeper analysis of my life with the iPhone thus far for the blog, for those who read this and don't listen to eOnCall.

When I decided in March that I was going to get the iPhone 3G (after Exchange support was announced for iPhone 2.0), I took a hard look at how I was using my existing Windows Mobile device and what features I could live without, if need be. Once I developed my list, and reviewed what should and might not be supported on the iPhone, I determined that the benefits still outweighed the odds, and since I had so many clients who were going to want me to support their iPhones, I knew I would be getting it shortly after the product released.

The fates were not in my favor on that last bit, however. A few weeks before the July 11 iPhone release date was announced, I booked a flight to Redmond for a work project at Microsoft, leaving on July 13. If I was going to have any semblance of support for my customers who were planning on getting the device that weekend, I knew I'd have to wait in line on Friday or Saturday, and given that there would likely be some problems that would need to be addressed the day after I got the unit, I decided it would have to be Friday.

I got up early Friday morning and made my way to my local AT&T store, a store that I had already checked with earlier in the week to ensure that they were on the list of stores that would be getting the iPhone. In my haste (and sleepless state) I neglected to eat breakfast before leaving, so I stopped at Sonic on the way to the store. When I arrived at the store, the line wasn't terribly long, but I got out my folding chair and parked myself at the end of the line. About 15 minutes after I arrived, and AT&T employee came through and was counting the customers in line. About 10 people in front of me, he stopped and started talking to them. Sure enough, they received 80 phones, and cut the line off at 75 people. I didn't make the cut. I only marginally wished that I hadn't stopped for breakfast at that point. Instead, I headed to the office, and started trying to reach the local Apple stores by phone to see if they were going to have enough stock for me to drive the hour to the store locations and wait in line.

I called the Willow Bend store, and not only did they assure me that they would have plenty of iPhones, they also said that the wait was about 2.5-3 hours. An hour drive time later, I found myself in line with the rest of the idiots.

Nine hours later, I made it into the store. That is where the 3 hour activation nightmare started. Yes, your math is correct. 12 hours in the Willow Bend mall to spend $300 on a phone. I left at 11pm to make my way home. I not only missed a bunch of billable work, but I also missed margarita night at Sweetwater. Five minutes after leaving the store, however, I had the phone configured to sync with my Exchange server, which was the #1 reason I wanted to get the phone, and seeing how easily that mission was accomplished, I was able to get some sleep that night, knowing that I'd be able to walk my clients through that setup easily.

What I didn't have was my old cell phone number active on the phone. That took a call to AT&T Saturday morning to get worked out, and even at the end of that call, it wasn't completely working. I was able to make outbound calls, and I could send and receive text messages, but I could not receive calls. All inbound calls continued to go to my Verizon voice mail. They did advise that it could take 24 hours to complete the switch, so I prayed for no emergency support calls on the weekend and went on my way to get ready for Redmond.

Sunday I still didn't have inbound calls, which made it difficult to take a call from a customer with a dead server, but fortunately my normal phone system, and my wife, took care of that while I was jetting over the western US. When I landed in Seattle, I attempted to call AT&T, but their service centers were closed on Sunday. Great.

Cutting to the chase, the phone got switched over on Monday and started working as expected. Now it was time to really put the device through its paces. In my spare time, however. And that basically brings us to today.

So what follows are the tasks I was using my Windows Mobile phone for and how I've adapted those tasks to the iPhone. And my take on how successful the transition has been.

E-mail

This is my #1 priority for a cell phone, besides making and receiving calls. Given that cell phone reliability and call quality really hasn't changed in 10+ years, I'm not even looking at that aspect of the iPhone, other than it works about like any other AT&T phone. It is what it is. But e-mail was key.

Windows Mobile: I had native Exchange ActiveSync on my device, and several folders that I read on the phone. I have dozens of mail folders in Exchange, but I only wanted to read a few of them on the phone. Sending e-mail was important, too, but my primary use was reading.

iPhone: Exchange sync just works. My Inbox (I almost typed iNbox, how silly) gets updated immediately when I get new mail, and I'm able to send e-mail easily. I have access to all of my mail folders, but the iPhone only syncs those when I open them, so if I want to read from some of my more voluminous mailing lists (which are automatically sorted into folders by Exchange), I can, and I don't have to worry about the phone syncing every time a message comes into one of those folders. That feature alone should save some battery (more on that later).

I don't like that I'm forced to read mail in the "newest on top" format, and there is no option for how to sort mail on the iPhone. I'm a "new messages on bottom" reader, and I'm really hoping that a future update will give me the option to read the way I'm used to. In the meantime, I'm adapting.

I also hate that the mail application shows EVERY folder in my mailbox, and there is no way to collapse folders and sub folders. There are only a few mail folders I really want to access on the iPhone, but they come at the bottom of the list, and it takes multiple pages scrolls to get to the parent folder where they're located. Again, hopefully an update will address some of this.

One thing I love about mail on the iPhone it that it's much easier to handle multiple e-mail accounts. I have several accounts that I can now follow on my phone, and I wasn't able to easily do that with my Windows mobile device.

But the last thing that drives me nuts about mail on the iPhone is that I have one, count it ONE, e-mail signature for outgoing messages, no matter how many accounts I am sending from. One signature, just not going to cut it.

Mileage tracking

Windows Mobile: The #2 task I used my Windows mobile phone for was keeping track of my car mileage in Pocket Excel for tax purposes. I had some nice formulas built into the spreadsheet to help calculate mileage, and at the end of the year, I'd sync that file to my PC, extract the data, and send it off to my accountant for processing. Easy, efficient.

iPhone: I have looked at a number of apps in the Apple Store, but have yet to find one that does what I want for mileage. Oh, there are several apps that help you track gas mileage, but nothing for travel mileage that gets as granular as I want. Right now I've reverted to pen and paper, but I'm hopeful that one of the developers I've contacted will add a module like what I've suggested. In the meantime, this is a big loss, but not a deal breaker.

Calendaring

Windows Mobile: In my business, it's key for me to have an accurate calendar with me at all times, and syncing my phone to Exchange is something I've grown really accustomed to. Windows Mobile handles this nicely, once you have all the DST patches in place everywhere.

iPhone: Ugh. Calendaring has a long way to go. Yes, the iPhone syncs all of my calendar appointments to the iPhone, but they all come over as REQUESTS, not as ACCEPTED appointments. So when the 15-minute reminder goes off, it's not a notification of a pending appointment, it's a "please confirm this request." If I click "Maybe" the appointment stays on the calendar and life goes on. This has become my default action. If I click "Accept," the appointment stays in my calendar, but whomever set the appointment gets ANOTHER "so and so accepted this appointment" e-mail in their box. 90% of the time, that's me, so when I accept an appointment I set for myself, I get an e-mail indicating that I accepted my own appointment.This has got to change in future releases.

I don't spend much time creating new appointments in my phone, much less for multiple people, but I do understand that there are issues with doing this on the iPhone. I don't want to belittle that fact, but it's not something I do regularly, so it's not been a major deal for me.

The issue that IS a major show-stopper for me, though I havent' had time to review it yet, is that calendar items are apparently not stored in GMT, but in local time. When I went to Redmond, a paltry two time zones away from my beloved Central, my 8AM CDT appointments showed up as 8am PDT appointments. The time on my phone synced with the local service providers, but apparently did not adjust for time zone. Fortunately, I had no appointments I was trying to keep while there, and I don't travel between time zones that often, but it was a major point of note and I will be looking into that as time permits.

Contacts

Windows Mobile: Syncing my contacts with exchange makes it very easy for me to have phone numbers for customers, family, and friends in my phone. And I can take pictures of those people with my phone and it gets updated to my Exchange server, so I can see their faces in e-mails in Outlook.

iPhone: the iPhone pulled my contacts down fine. I have heard there are issues with modifying contacts on the iPhone and those changes don't get sent back to the server. I have deleted contacts from my iPhone (former employees) only to have them NOT delete from Exchange, but actually get sent back down to my iPhone. Annoying? Yes. Cause for a revolt? No. Again, hopefully will get addressed in future updates.

Apparently the iPhone doesn't perform well with a large number of contacts, either. It takes a very, very long time to search through contacts in the Contacts app (which I never get into any more) or in the phone app.

Voice Dialing

Windows Mobile: I had to purchase a voice dialing software for my Windows Mobile phone a long time ago, and I got really used to using it, especially while driving. Made making calls a nice, simple process.

iPhone: No voice dial software. Sure, you can "voice dial" through AT&T's service, but you have to dial a number to get to where you can voice dial, and so what's the point? I've adapted to either not making outgoing calls while driving, or waiting until I'm stopped to find the contact and dial their number. Not happy about this, either.

GPS

Windows Mobile: I had purchased a bluetooth GPS receiver and Destinator software for my Windows Mobile device. It worked very well for tracking my current location and for turn-by-turn directions. I really needed to update my maps this year by purchasing the new version, but I held off on that given the GPS support built into the iPhone.

iPhone: yeah, it has GPS support, and it can do turn by turn directions, but it definitely works like a 1.0 product in that regard. Being able to search for local items in Google Maps is really nice, and much nicer than what I got with Destinator, because it's real-time querying the web. However, the maps always point North is Up on the iPhone, and that's taking some getting used to. Also, the GPS is prone to hanging up, and has been the main reason I've had to reboot the iPhone the few times I've had to reboot it. Some other apps make use of the GPS locator, and those get wonky, too, when the GPS drops off the planet. iPhone 2.0.1 supposedly has some GPS enhancements in it, so we'll see how well it works then.

Battery Life

Windows Mobile: Sucked. I was having to charge my battery every night. I know most of that was the constant syncing with Exchange, but it got old, quick. In some cases, I had to take a USB cable with me so I could charge the phone with my laptop, and a car charger was simply not an option.

iPhone: Yes, everyone hates that you can't change out the iPhone battery, including me. And I'm having to charge my iPhone every night, even after charging it during the day as well. And I'm not using a LOT of the iPhone features, either. I have WiFi and Bluetooth turned off, I've filtered more of my e-mail into sub folders out of the Inbox to keep Exchange sync to a minimum, and I don't listen to music on my iPhone at all. Car charger and secondary USB cables are an absolute must, and I have yet to get a car charger that actually works.

Internet Access

Windows Mobile: I hated Pocket IE on my Windows Mobile device. Access was slow, and the web was practically useless, so I hardly ever used it.

iPhone: Internet browsing ROCKS! Apple nailed the browser on this device. Granted, there are many web sites that use dynamic content that is not going to work on the iPhone, but I've already seen several sites redesign alternate pages specifically for the iPhone, and that's going to become more prevalent, I think. I look up lots of stuff on the web now that I never would on my WM device.

Applications

Windows Mobile: I had acquired several apps for my WM phone, including a couple of solitaire games. I tried several times to download apps directly to the phone from the Internet, but had very limited success. I resorted to primarily using only the native apps, save for GPS, voice dial, and games.

iPhone: I have yet to get through all of the apps in the Apple Store, not because I've not had time to look, but because there are so many. And more are added every day. I'll have a future post outlining my favorite iPhone apps at a later time, but the iPhone wins hands down in this category for me.

Twitter

Windows Mobile: I started updating my tweets via SMS messaging about 6 months ago, and it worked.

iPhone: I downloaded and started using Twitteriffic and won't look back. Not only can I easily update my tweets, I can see what's happening with the tweets of the people I'm following. Great app.

Touch Screen

Windows Mobile: I carried a HTC 6700 for the last six months and hated it. The touch screen was constantly going out of alignment to the point that I had to turn off my passcode to get into the phone because the screen just wouldn't respond in the correct locations. The 6700 was the worst implementation of touch screen in the HTC series of devices I've used for the last 4 years.

iPhone: Dude, it just rocks. The iPhone exemplifies what touch screen was meant to be, especially with the multi-touch capability. Other vendors can only attempt to copy what Apple has done here and hope to come close to the success of the interface.

So that pretty much covers what I had been doing with my old phone and how I've adapted to the iPhone. The stuff that's broken is way broken, but the stuff that works is solid. Overall, I'll say that I'm about even on productivity for what I was doing with my phone after switching. I'd love to say I'm more productive, but I can't. Maybe in a month or two, but not now. My productivity increase will likely come from updates to the iPhone software and new apps for the device. Time will tell, but that's where I am thus far.

If you stuck with me this far through the post, please note that I'm going to be trying out posting from a couple of different iPhone blogging apps in the next few weeks. Hopefully, that will allow me to blog more quickly those things I've been wanting to get out. And yes, I'll blog about that, too.

On Redmond in July

eriq — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:39:00 GMT

Be warned, this is a long post. But the payoff at the end may well be worth the read.

This past week, I had an opportunity to work on a project at Mothership Redmond. In addition to the fabulous weather (highs in the upper 70s compared to the 100s back home, yet sunny and clear skies, go figure), I had was able to catch up with some people who I don't get to see very often: Amy Babinchak, Steve Banks, Mark Crall, Chris Rue, and Oliver Sommer. And those were only the folks who were on the same work project. I was also able to spend some time with Terri Schmidt, documentation manager for WEBS, and Kevin Beares, a name that should be familiar to everyone in the community. and while I do not want to belittle the time I spent with these folks and the discussions we had, the highlight of the trip for me happened on Friday.

Dean Paron, Group Program Manager for SBS, invited me to sit in on a ship room meeting the team had Friday morning. Since I'm not an idiot, I accepted the invitation without batting an eye, even though I had no idea what a "ship room meeting" was. But after sitting in on the meeting, I have a much deeper understanding of the process the team goes through to develop the product and bring it to market. And after confirming the NDA line, I'm blogging about it to shed some light to others who may be interested.

Anyone who has worked on any type of software development project, whether large and formalized like what MS and other large companies use or smaller and independent, will understand some of the basics of the development cycle. In the case of SBS, the process is a little differnet than for other products, because what the SBS team is developing is the "glue" that will allow all the disparate MS component technologies to run seamlessly on the same box. Oh, and there's the management tools, too. But the development folks on SBS are not writing code for Windows Server 2008 or Exchange Server 2007, instead they are taking those products and writing integration code. In many ways, this is a more challenging process, because to meet your own design goals, you have to deal with the building blocks that have been handed to you. If the team found, for instance, that the User Management tools would work a whole lot better if there were a change made in Windows Server 2008, they're not going to be able to go in and modify code in that product. Sure, they could request accomodations from that team while the product is in development, but once Server 2008 shipped, that was what they have to use to build their code.

Once they get the product matured to the point that they're ready for other people to start using it, they make the code available to certain groups of external users. This comes in the form of CTP (community technology preview) releases and then the beta releases. Generally, these external releases start with a very small group of outsiders, then expands to a larger audience as the product gets closer to release. SBS just announced the release of the RC1 build late this week, and it will be available to beta participants early next week. Many more people will look at RC1 than looked at RC0, or Beta 2, or Beta 1, etc.

The goal, as I understand it, of these releases is twofold. Early in the process, the goal is to get feedback on the functionality of the product as well as identifying any problems (bugs) in the code so that those bugs can be fixed in later releases. Later in the process, the functionality aspects are pretty much set in stone and the team is more interested in finding and fixing the problems instead of adding or removing major elements. That's where we are in the process of SBS at this point - the feedback Microsoft is looking for in RC1 is "what doesn't work" and "how significant of an impact will it have if it's not fixed."

People who participate in the beta process access software and feedback through the Connect site that Microsoft has put together for this process. When someone finds a bug, they are expected to enter that bug into Connect, then it gets on the developers' radar and they can start addressing the issue identified in the bug. But just because you enter a bug does not mean it will get addressed by the team the way you want it to. There are several bugs (and suggestions) that I've entered into the system that have not and will not be addressed by development, at least not in this release of SBS. Am I frustrated about some of them? Sure. But I also know I've identified a couple of bugs that did get fixed, and fixed immediately.

OK, so that's what we see on the outside. When I sat in on the ship room meeting Friday, I got to see what happens on the inside. And I have a better understanding of how and why the process works the way it does.

After Dean introduced me to the team in the meeting (more to confirm that I was under NDA), Cassie Hicks opened the list of outstanding bugs and went through them with the team to determine which bugs would get addressed and have fixes entered into the system before the next build was done, which was scheduled for Friday night. As each bug was introduced, the owner of the bug identified the status of the bug, and if a fix was not imminent, there was a brief discussion about what the next steps of the bug would be. No, I can't discuss any of the bugs that were brought up in the meeting, but it was pretty cool to see the process in motion.

Following the ship room meeting, a pizza party ensued celebrating several teams that had releases that week, including the announcement of SBS 2008 RC1. I was invited to attend with the rest of the team, which was an honor, and got to listen to all of the thank yous to all of the related team members who helped with each of the releases. While everyone ate, I was able to talk a little with Boodhisatva Deb and Sean Daniel, as well as Cassie Hicks. But the icing on the cake, so to speak, was getting to witness Kevin Kean have his head dunked in a large bowl of whipped cream (and yes, you can just make out my face in the background of the video).

All in all, a great week in Redmond, but now it's time to return home and take care of important matters. After I deal with a 4 hour delayed flight, that is...

On Community

eriq — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:03:00 GMT

Last week, I had the honor and privilege of attending Microsoft's sometimes-annual MVP Summit. This year, there were over 1700 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) in attendance, which is only a portion of the thousands of individuals who have been recognized by Microsoft for their support and activity in the community. This event is hardly a love-fest, though, because in general, MVPs are not apologists for Microsoft. Benjamin Romano summed up the relationship well in his article covering Stave Ballmer's Keynote speech to the MVP crowd, referring to the MVP community as "friendly but also highly knowledgeable and unabashedly critical." In many of the hallway discussions I had with MVPs from other product groups, there was one theme that was echoed almost unilaterally - MVP interation with the product groups this year was wide open with feedback flowing fully in both directions. For some groups, this was the first time this type of interaction had occurred. Some MVPs finally had an opportunity to interact directly with the people (yes, people) responsible for planning, coding, and marketing the various Microsft products, and give those people their thoughts on product direction, functionality, problems, successes, etc. (I must admit, that as an MVP within the WESS product line, I've almost come to take this level of interaction with the SBS product team for granted, but even our group this year had, I believe, our most open interaction with the product team to date. And that's not something that i ever want to take for granted, because it could very easily be removed.

I have received the MVP award three times now, and I continue to be honored by the recognition. I have an opportunity to interact with some truly amazing people, and I continually wonder why I've been chosen to be a part of this group. These people have a passion forthe Small Business Server product and, if possible, an even stronger passion for working with other IT Pros and end-users who ply their craft while using the product. The wealth of knowledge, experience, and insight that this group collectively possesses is awe-inspiring, and Microsoft is fortunate to have collected this group together and sought their opinions and expertise to help improve the product and their relationships with the community. Not that they get it right all of the time, but that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that community exists with or without the presence of Microsoft. Whether I continue to be awarded MVP status or not, I will continue my activites in the community. I'm working harder to get more involved with my local SBS User Group, and after issues with my day job settle down a bit and I get further along with a certain book project, I'm looking forward to getting more involved in the newsgroups and the forums over at smallbizserver.net again. Right now my reality encompasses keeping my customers happy and keeping my publisher off my back for a little longer, not to mention keeping my home life in order, too. Working 70-80 hour weeks since the first of the year has put a strain on a lot of things, both in my personal and professional life. But while it would be easy to walk away from the community altogether, I simply cannot. Community has been an inspiration and resource for me for the last 20+ years, and I plan to continue working with and giving back to the community that has given me so much over time. If Microsoft chooses to continue to recognize that part of my life by awardin me with MVP status, great, but I'm not out to make a minimum number of newsgroup or forum posts, blog posts, user group meetings, conference appearances, etc., I see people who do, and that disappoints me, because I think theyre doing it for the wrong reasons. I'm not active in the community just to get an MVP award. I'm active in the community because I believe I have something to offer back, and that is what motivates me.

I will admit, though, that attending the Summit, despite the stress of travel, etc., was actually a bit of a break for me, and one that I needed to get myself re-energized to tackle the next 3-6 months. I have a book to finish, and when SBS 2008 gets released, I'll have a number of community members to help get adapted to the new product. That's going to take a lot of energy, and honestly I was reminded of the reason for it during my week at Summit last week.

For those who are interested, I've blogged about my week's activities on my personal blog, under the Summit2K8 category.

On Service

eriq — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:56:00 GMT

As a service provider (aka "vendor”) to my clients, I'm very cognizant of what constitutes good service and bad service. We strive to provide outstanding service, as I've been endeavoring to do in the 20+ years I've been in this line of work. Choosing to work in the SMB space has given me some new insight into the "service" we often put up with as small businesses or small business advisors. Some enterprise organizations who have entered the SMB space haven't yet figured out how to best provide service to the smaller customer, and it can get very frustrating to be stuck in the middle of the client who needs to have an issue resolved and a large vendor who doesn't pay as much attention to their smaller accounts.

So when I encounter notable service, either good or bad, I make the effort to provide feedback. When the service needs to be improved, I make an effort to reach out to the people behind the service process and share my experiences in a matter-of-fact way, trying to avoid a heated or angry discussion. When the service goes beyond expectations on the positive side, I try to provide feedback about that with the appropriate parties within the company, and sometimes share those positive experiences with the greater community.

Today I encountered service experiences on the extreme opposite ends of the service spectrum and I wanted to share a brief summary of each here.

A vendor I've been working with for almost two years has a great product that I continually recommend to the community, and is pretty much a required component for many of our customer's systems. However, my experience with their support department has not lived up to my expectations. This afternoon, I called my sales contact with this company and asked who was the appropriate person to share feedback with, and my contact gave me the contact information for another person within the organization. I left this person e-mail and voicemail explaining the crux of my concerns and why the level of response I've received was not acceptable. In the last year, I've had reason to contact their support organization three times. All three times I used the "support request" form on their web site, and all three times that request has effectively been ignored. The most recent was the request I put in this past Sunday. I received the auto-response immediately, and haven't heard a peep from them since. Fortunately, this particular issue isn't affecting performance, but four days without a response is simply not acceptable, especially since that's the only way they advertise to reach their support department. Tomorrow I will be calling the technical resources within the company that I've called on before when I had to escalate. I shouldn’t have to do that, and that's the message I'll be passing along to the individual who I attempted to contact earlier today.

On the other side of the coin is Scorpion Software, who provided a status update today on an issue that they've been working on with one of my clients who made a minimum purchase of their AuthAnvil system. This client has a single-purpose need for the AuthAnvil solution, and they've run into two major issues with the implementation. One issue was resolved by a modification to one of the components of the AuthAnvil suite, and that was turned around within a week. The other issue turned out to be a problem with the software they're trying to integrate AuthAnvil with, but Scorpion Software have taken it upon themselves to work directly with the other vendor to get a resolution. And even though it wasn't necessary, they've kept me in the loop through the entire process.

I've also encountered two issues with the AuthAnvil software in our deployment. In both cases, a quick contact with the company, and specifically with Dana, has turned into two very quick resolutions.

It's clear to me that some vendors "get" service while others do not. Dana and the rest of the staff at Scorpion Software get it. They have embraced the SMB market, and even though their product is head and shoulders above the competition, they've not developed an attitude about it. I’ve learned a few things in my interactions with Scorpion, and I'm going to try to incorporate a couple of elements of those experiences into the way we run our operation, so that we can continue to provide outstanding service to the clients we work with.

On Choice

eriq — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:36:00 GMT

People who prefer to use Macs and people who prefer to use Windows PCs don't always get along (big surprise). As someone who interacts with both communities, I get to see the good and the bad on both sides. Yes, discussions between the two camps can get heated and polarized (I think "religious war" is a term that gets bandied about occasionally), and so long as the discussion remains good-natured, I don't mind participating in a discussion, as I'm in a position to speak to the benefits and drawbacks of each platform. But when the discussion resorts to name calling or absolutism, I walk away and distance myself from the other parties. There's no value in continuing to participate in a discussion when it gets to that level.

Recently, I observed an interchange in a public forum where someone made a comment about a web post relating to Apple technology. Two posts later in the "discussion," someone threw out an absolutism that Macs are not viable business machines. And the remainder of the thread was jumped on by the "me too" crowd. I get so frustrated by the zealots on both sides (yes, even though the term "zealot" is usually bandied about by Windows folks referring to the Mac community, it does go both ways) who can't settle for expressing their like or dislike for a program/product/platform and instead resort to absolutism.

Those of you who fall into one of the two extremist camps, stop reading now and go elsewhere on the net. You're not going to like what follows.

I run my business on a Mac. Yes, I have an SBS 2003 box in the server closet, and I'm running a Terminal Server with Windows 2003, and I have a test box running Windows 2003 R2 x64. But my main workstation, the tool I use every day, is a Mac. And doing so doesn't make me less productive, less capable, or less efficient than if I was running just a Windows XP or Vista PC. Yes, I am running Windows XP on the Mac using Parallels, and before you Windows zealots (yes, I think there are probably a couple of you that didn't heed the warning above) say "ah HA! You DO have to run Windows so therefore your Mac isn't a good machine for you," there are exactly two tools I use under Windows, and quite honestly, I could run those tools on my TS if that box weren't as underpowered as it is. One is Outlook, which in reality I could opt not to use since I have Entourage on my Mac, but there are some pieces of Outlook 2007 that are nicer to deal with than Entourage 2008. The other is Internet Explorer, but I only use that for two specific web tools that require an ActiveX control to perform correctly.

For everything else, I'm primarily using tools on the Mac. While I have both Office 2007 and Office 2008 available, I regularly use Office 2008 for Word, Excel, etc. 95% of my web browsing is done with Firefox on my Mac. Why? Office 2008 is fully file-compatible with Office 2007, and the interface is solid (not to mention there's no ribbon bar). And I do operate at significantly lower risk of web-based threats by surfing on my Mac than in IE.

Note that I said "lower risk" not "completely free from." No, the Mac platform is not inherently more secure than Windows, per se. But is is targeted far less than Windows, and Windows-specific attacks simply have no impact in my Mac apps. I'm not naive enough to run my Mac without Antivirus protection (Sophos) and hardened settings in the network firewall in OS X. But if there's a suspicious URL I need to investigate, I'm less apprehensive about approaching that site with Firefox on the Mac than I would be, even with Firefox under Windows (which, yes, I have loaded also).

This arrangement works for me. It doesn't work for my current staff, but if I do hire in someone who prefers to work on the Mac platform, we'll make allowances. It's not going to work for every IT pro out there, and I'm not suggesting that it would. Nor am I suggesting that anyone who is not already familiar with the Mac platform would be more productive after taking the time to learn how to navigate the system.

But what I am suggesting is that displays of absolutism don't come across the way that some of the absolutists think it does. In this industry, I don't think you can really take a totally absolutist approach. When I see consultants brag about how they talked a client out of getting a Mac simply because the consultant didn't want to support it, I'm disappointed. Both for the consultant and for the client. Just because the consultant isn't comfortable with the Mac platform doesn't mean that forcing the client to work on a Windows box is going to be the best scenario for the client. Case in point: I dislike the Blackberry devices. Loathe them, specifically. Yet I have several clients who are using Blackberry devices, and we support them. Why? Because after discussing the pros and cons and looking at all the alternatives, in these cases the Blackberry is really the best solution for these clients. Same with the iPhone. Those who choose to stereotype will probably be amazed that I actually work very hard to talk my customers out of getting iPhones (since I'm a Mac-lover, I must want to see the iPhone take over the world, right? Wrong.) But I have two clients who carry them. One who purchased the device before consulting with me, but now he has learned the lesson about discussing technology purchases BEFORE making them, so it wasn't a total loss. The other chose to go with the iPhone after discussing the options with me for several weeks. In his case, it has turned out to be a benefit to him, even with the shortcomings the current iPhone has in the area of Exchange connectivity.

The bottom line is that there is no absolutely right and absolutely wrong technology. When I see my peers in the industry take stands about certain technologies, I cringe. I see consultants who refuse to support Blackberry. I see consultants who refuse to support Apple technology. I see consultants who refuse to support Linux. I see missed opportunities. My potential customer base is larger because we support Apple, because we support Blackberry, because we can work our way through a Linux box. This is one thing that sets us apart from our local competition. When you draw a line in the sand with a customer, you force them to make a decision. While some see the outcome as the customer choosing to go along with the trusted advisor, there will be some who will choose to find another provider.

I choose to run my business on a Mac. I choose to support Blackberry even though I wish they'd all just disappear overnight. I choose to be flexible in what we support as a company, because I choose not to artificially limit my potential customer base.

Customers can choose, too. And often do.