SMB Nation Blog

We are excited about our tour this year; even more so as we are only two days away from the big kick off in Silicon Valley, CA! As a bonus, we will be hosting a special free pre-day in conjunction with Microsoft Community Connections. You can attend the “Capitalizing on Disruptions in 2014” event at the Microsoft Store located at: 845 Market Street, Suite 257 San Francisco, California 94103.

Here are the details for this week’s events:

We recently saw a community blog from Mary Jo Foley, Contributing Author, ZDNet that covered the recent announcement from Microsoft regarding the SkyDrive name change. Looking more into this, we found that the name change came about as the result of a legal trademark battle between Microsoft and British Sky Broadcasting over the use of the word “sky.”

snom today announced the addition of an IP Business Phone to its 7xx line. The snom 715 is an SIP phone with many of the same features as the snom 710, with the addition of a dual-port Gigabit Ethernet switch.

Today, Dell Software announced that it has released the latest version of its Dell KACE K2000 Deployment Appliance. Version 3.6 includes an updated task engine and multicasing features, and has been designed to better automate and accelerate operating system migrations (XP migrations, for example), or application migrations.

In fact, Dell explained that the Dell KACE K2000 v3.6 device was built to provide a full application approach to migrations and provisioning. Key features of this solution include:

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

One of the biggest challenges you might face in picking up new clients is that most of them are probably walking around in “ignorant bliss.”

The truth is, the vast majority of computer networks and devices out there are “sick” in some capacity or another – even ones supposedly under the care of professional managed service providers. And that’s because the clients have no clue what’s going on “under the hoods” of their systems, and even MSPs with monitoring tools are going to miss some of the ills.

Robert McCool, President of arielMIS, sees this all the time. Case in point (in his own words):

In the great SMB Nation tradition of letting fun find us, we are hosting a Super Bowl contest! Of course we’re partial to the Seattle Seahawks (in fact – SMB Nation employees are prohibited from playing) so I just wanted to put that out there up front!

By Alex Anderson, Contributing Author, SMB Nation

Seattle-based Symform, Inc. is gearing up to launch the next version of its innovative backup and storage solution, effectively killing rumours that had begun circulating in some industry circles, questioning the company’s future.

Those rumours, which were more than a little surprising given the fact that barely two years ago the Seattle, WA-based organization raised $11 million, bringing the company’s total financing to $19.5 million, were the result of a lack of public activity from the company, with announcements and social media channels being more or less dark since early last year.

Pictured: Mark Ashida, CEO, Symform

LogMeIn recently announced that the free version of its remote access software will be removed starting this month, January 2014. In fact, the company explained that it will instead be a unification of the existing portfolio into a single, paid-only offering that will include premium cloud, desktop and mobile access software. Current LogMeIn customers will have seven days to upgrade after the next time they log into their LogMeIn account.

Sam Saab of Results Software recently reached out to us with news about an open full-time Software Sales and Business Development position, located in Herndon, VA. Sam explained that this position is great for those with a flexible schedule, such as a parent with school-aged children or a caretaker for an elderly family member.

Something Microsoft insiders have known for a few weeks has now been made public. Microsoft has officially announced the end of its popular Cloud Essentials program. Moving forward, Microsoft Partners will garner the generous Cloud Essentials benefits from subscribing to Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS). Personally I’m sorry to see this decision, which I respectfully disagree with, for several reasons.

GFI MAX recently announced that it has released a new version of GFI MAX Backup, which includes support for Windows 8.1, Max OSX 10.9 and VMware vSphere 5.5.

GFI announced that the latest version of GFI MAX Backup features a Disk-to-Disk-to-Cloud hybrid system, available with either 128-bit or 448-bit Blowfish encryption. It also includes support for PSAs like Connectwise and Autotask, which allows for monitoring of the backup system directly from the PSA dashboard.

Lenovo recently announced that it is poised to acquire IBM's X86 servers. The definitive agreement, released earlier today will include the IBM System x, BladeCenter and Flex System blade servers and switches, as well as the NeXtScale, iDataPlex servers, and x86-based flex integrated systems. The two companies have had a collaborative agreement since 2005, when Lenovo acquired IBM's ThinkPad line of PCs.

Green Key Technologies, a Chicago-based provider of voice and trading infrastructure, recently announced that it has made two new hires in key positions within the organization.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

I’ve been around IT guys for over a decade now, and there’s always a spirited debate about whether or not to charge prospects for IT assessments.

Proponents of charging will generally justify their position by suggesting (and rightly so) that giving away the assessment diminishes the perceived value of their service. But those who advocate offering assessments to prospects for free will point out (and rightly so) that charging creates an unnecessary barrier to getting in the door of a new and potentially lucrative client.

It was a 5+ year love affair; I’ll never forget my first iPhone, which I got at the start of the recession. You comforted and amazed me during my darkest days. But today I’m leaving you. It’s not you, it’s me; I’ve changed and you haven’t.

When I received my first iPhone 3G as a Christmas present, I was instantly in love. It was a massive paradigm shift from other mobile devices I had used up to that point. And it was fast, which feels like a blast from the past before networks got clogged with mobile traffic. It was a time where people made more telephone calls than text messages. I submit that times have changed but successive releases of iPhone models have not inspired me with quantum feature and functionality leaps. To be honest, my current iPhone 5 isn’t that much different than my first iPhone 3G.

Pictured: A 12th Man Selfie!

D&H Distributing today announced that it has been recognized in the ASCII Group’s 2013 Distributor Survey. This marks the 5^th consecutive year that D&H has earned recognition as a top distributor, and, in 2013, it surpassed previous numbers by winning one more category.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

Spoiler alert: there are more than five. But I’ve interviewed literally hundreds of IT service pros over the years, and I keep seeing and hearing recurring themes among the successful ones.

Ironically, even knowing whether or not you are successful is one of the top ingredients. So many IT service companies are living from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, even year-to-year, without any clearly defined goals. Without goals, there’s no way to measure success. Tip 1: If you don’t have clearly defined goals for your business, establish them right now and put them in writing.

Thursday, January 23, 2014 10:00 - 11:00 AM PST/1:00 – 2:00 PM EST

Presented by: Jeff Dryall, Director, Business Development, VAR Dynamics, Kim Peyser Director, AMTEL and Harry Brelsford, Founder and Chairman, SMB Nation

The first 100 registrants to receive a FREE one-topping pizza*

Microsoft quietly posted a short blog in its Malware Protection Center on Wednesday afternoon that Windows XP malware updates will continue until July 14, 2015, an additional 463-days after the April 8, 2014 end-of-support (EOS) deadline. This amounts to “partial” extended support.

The move has caught industry influencers off-guard, as Autotask just held a well-attended Windows XP Webinar at 11:00AM Eastern on January 16^th, and our brand XP Migrations just held the New York City “Million Mile Migration Madness” workshop, featuring the Windows XP EOS matter, last night in Manhattan (see pic). In both cases, no mention of this latest development was made.

What does it mean?

Today, Unitrends announced that it has closed Q4 2013 with a strong performance, marking the company’s 20^th consecutive quarter of growth. For Q4 2013, the company saw a 69% increase in bookings, and an addition of 550 new customers.

“2013 was a milestone year for us,” said Mike Coney, president and CEO of Unitrends. “We far exceeded our financial goals and benchmarks for delivering cutting-edge technology, unrivaled customer support and industry-leading channel programs. Now, with Insight’s support and the PHD Virtual acquisition, we enter the next phase of transforming Unitrends into a data protection and disaster recovery powerhouse.”

This morning, IBM announced the debut of its sixth-generation enterprise X-Architecture for System x and PureSystems servers, designed to support analytics and cloud. I was able to discuss this news with Alex Yost, VP & Business Line Executive for IBM PureFlex, System x and BladeCenter, who filled me in on the updated system.

Birns TeleCommunications, Inc. announced today that they have introduced a new Cloud Hosted PBX system designed for SMBs. This new system aims to remove the installation, upkeep and hardware costs of a traditional PBX system.

We just received news that tickets for our SMB Nation Emerging Technology Tour stop in Dallas, TX have been picked up by sponsor, D&H! This means that the first 100 registrants are complimentary!

Tour Stop: Dallas, TX
Date: February 7, 2014
Location: Microsoft Dallas
Registration and Info: http://tour.smbnation.com/dallas/
Complimentary Code: DandHTicket2014

Karl Palachuk, President at Great Little Book Publishing Company, and well-known author, presenter and publisher, today announced the “Odd Tuesday” series. This series, which will air via webcast on the first and third Tuesdays of each month, will feature tips, best practices and community interviews for IT Professionals.

Today, StorageCraft announced two solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server managers. The first is the latest edition of the company’s award-winning StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange Software, version 8, while the second is the StorageCraft Granular Recovery for Exchange. This second solution can be used with any non-StorageCraft BDR software.

Robert Danese recently notified us of a short channel reseller survey to help his organization. He is looking for a few more qualified respondents, and he is giving away ten (10) $50 American Express Gift Cards and ten (10) $25 American Express Gift Cards to random respondents.

You may take the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KWTQJ3P. Winners will be notified via e-mail.

D&H Distributing today announced the start of a major initiative, titled “Make the Move from XP.” This initiative is driven by the fast-approaching April 2014 deadline for the Windows XP OS, and D&H has built a dedicated landing page with educational sessions, customer information templates, as well as stats and a comparison chart to help MSPs and VARs advise their customers in the move away from XP.

The educational sessions will be available starting January 23, 2014 and will include one full-length webinar, presented by Bill Hersh, Solutions Lab Expert at D&H, and three short-sessions presentations from Solutions Lab Member, Matt Allison. The session outlines are listed as follows:

Microsoft and GoDaddy today announced that they have entered into a long-term strategic alliance that would allow GoDaddy to offer Microsoft’s Office365 solution as its core business-class e-mail solution for its customers. In particular, this would allow GoDaddy’s SMB clients to have a professional, specially designed e-mail offering with their unique domain.

WhichVoIP.com recently hosted an article from Tony Campbell, a spokesman for the company, which covered the “10 Things you need to Know about Mobile Solutions for your Office Phones.” This list includes a specific distinction between Mobile Apps for business phones, Virtual Extensions and Mobile BYOD VoIP, as well as offering an answer to whether or not a company can (and should) go completely mobile.

Free Pass to the ChannelPro SMB Forum on April 8-9 in Orange County, CA. Limited time offer - you must register this week to reserve your free VIP pass.

We have opened up pre-registration for our Orange County, CA, event and urge you to reserve your spot ASAP. Our 2013 events were maxed out so now is the time to get on the invite list!

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

I was listening to a webinar the other day featuring an MSP talking about how he uses IT assessments to win new business.

And an interesting question arose: What if the prospects want to actually see the data that was collected (after all, we’re talking about their networks). And, even trickier – what if they want to show the results of the assessment to a competitor to get a “second opinion” on what was done?

The MSP was Bob Coppedge, CEO of Simplex-IT, and his answer might surprise you:

Date: January 31, 2014
Location: Microsoft Silicon Valley
Registration and Info: http://tour.smbnation.com/silicon-valley/
Cost: FREE for first 100 Attendees
Discount Code: DandHTicket2014

Here’s a look at what the Emerging Technology Tour is all about:

Today, ABI Research released predictions around the future of automotive technology, and in particluar, Ethernet-In-Vehicle. The research firm expects this trend to be in 1% of vehicles in 2014, and over 40% of vehicles by 2020.

We were recently contacted by Dina Moskowitz, CEO or SaaSMax with a new white paper she wanted us to share with our community.

The white paper, titled “Dos and Don’ts of Company-Wide SaaS Deployments,” is based on an interview between Corel CEO, Tom Berquist and SaaSMax/Prialto. Berquist has been refining his SaaS Deployment best-practices over the past four years, and this new white paper outlines his process.

By Ari Rabban, Phone.com co-founder and CEO

The start of a new year often is when people decide it’s finally time to start their own business, especially now that the economy is rebounding. A startup’s first year is an exercise in running lean, which includes using tools that wring the most productivity out of each employee.

Fortunately some of those tools are free. Often that’s because the companies behind them want to get users hooked so they’ll eventually upgrade to a paid version. That works great for a startup because those are opportunities not only to minimize overhead, but also to see which tools have the features that work well enough for their organization’s workstyle that they’re worth upgrading when the revenue starts flowing.

Here are six types of tools that startups should consider:

By Casey Morgan, Marketing Content Specialist, StorageCraft

Managed service providers can often make a higher margin for servicing clients in industries with specific needs. The legal industry is not only an industry that’s growing by the minute (legal services generated $240 billion in revenue in 2007 according to the US Census), it’s also one that has very specific requirements and almost no flexibility when it comes to downtime. According to a study by the International Legal Technology Association, around 40 percent of all IT budgets in the legal industry have increased compared to the prior year. A 2010 CompTIA study also noted that six out of ten surveyed law firms expressed interest in managed services. MSPs who know how to handle these clients could be in a position to cash in on business opportunities as budgets and the needs for outsourced IT increase. But there are a few things MSPs might want to think about when it comes to the legal industry.

Edgewater Networks, Inc. recently announced the expansion of is EdgeProtect Enterprise Session Border Controller series to include the EdgeProtect 4550. According to Edgewater Networks, this device was designed specifically for SMBs to provide a secure video conferencing solution within their workspace.

Yesterday, Novus, LLC, an IP-based telecommunications Value-added distributor, announced that is has received the Microsoft Partner Network Gold Communications Competency for its work with Microsoft Lync.

As the airplane from Seattle landed at the Tokyo Airport, Alan couldn’t help but smile at the thought of how much fun he would have with his son’s family in Matsumoto, a town three hours west of Tokyo. He had not seen his grandchildren for three years, and it was all Alan could do to contain his excitement when he received a text message—complete with a photo of his three beautiful grandkids—from his son saying they were eagerly waiting for him at the baggage claim area. When the flight attendant finally announced that the doors were open, Alan had to resist the urge to squeeze past the elderly gentleman ahead of him who was taking too long to dislodge his carry-on bag from the overhead compartment.

FedEx this week announced the start of is small business grant contest, which will award a total of $50,000 to ten small businesses. There will be a grand prize of $25,000 for one small business, while four 1^st place winners will receive $5000.00 each, and five 2^nd place winners will receive $1000.00 each.

Datto, Inc. recently announced that they have received the “2013 Best Channel Vendor Award” from Business Solutions Magazine. For these awards, the votes of over 4600 VAR subscribers were collected, and Datto was ranked alongside fellow providers on a scale of 0 to 5.Only the top 5% of each category received a “Best Vendor Award.” Datto reported that it earned a ranking of 4.39 out of 5, with high marks in the Channel Friendly and Product Reliability categories.

Perform scans accurately, with a low, predictable TCO.

QualysGuard Consultant gives you the industry’s leading cloud-based security and compliance solutions to use in your own vulnerability, configuration, and compliance assessments. With QualysGuard Consultant, you can scan, analyze, track, and report on issues throughout your clients’ networks, devices and web apps – all from a single web console.

By Brian Ferguson, Digium

Companies all over the United States are digging their offices out of the snow and employees are braving subfreezing, and often subzero, temperatures to get to work. Even with these extreme weather conditions in full force, there’s still time for you and your customers to make adjustments and winterize your offices. Winter storms and other year-round weather events cost companies millions of dollars every year in lost productivity due to failed IT infrastructure and bad planning. Here are 10 tips to help ensure that you and your customers are ready:

SMB Nation is very excited about the opportunity to bring events to you in 2014! Here’s a look at what the Emerging Technology Tour is all about:

What you get?

Okay, I’ll be the first to propose that no active living business person has been through what you and I have just experienced: the Great Recession. Think about it: considering the Great Depression, which started in late 1929 with the stock market crash, if today you were an active business person who is 80-years old, you were born on Monday, January 8, 1934. If you are a 90-year old business person, I question how active you are in day-to-day business today, not to mention that you probably would have had a lemonade stand in the later part of the 1930s (which I’ll discount as running a true small business).

We received news from Handy Andy Goodman that fellow SMB IT Pro, Dexter Southerland, is planning to start a new User Group in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area of North Carolina.

As of today, Dexter’s plan is for the group to be named: The Triad NC IT Pros for SMB & The Cloud User Group, and it will be composed of SMB IT Professionals who are looking to meet monthly for technical training and conversation. The group title is currently under consideration, however.

Here’s what Dexter needs from interested IT Pros:

This was a softball (errr…snowball) if there ever was one. Long-time SMB Nation friend Ken Thoreson posted up a joke early today from his mid-Atlantic residence about the Polar Vortex engulfing much of the eastern US. It’s cold out there, and Ken says: “it’s a good week to make cold calls”. I couldn’t let that one slide by without a reply.

Earlier today, Fora Financial announced the start of its “Project Small Biz,” a contest that will award $5000.00 to one small business. Fora Financial hopes that this contest will help them gain greater insight into what small businesses need in today’s competitive market. The organization, founded in 2008, has granted over $145 million to its 4000 customers.

LenovoEMC recently announced the global availability of two new px4-400 models at the International CES tradeshow in Las Vegas, NV. The two models, LenovoEMC px-4-400r and px4-400d are network storage devices designed to offer up to 16TB (4 by 4TB) of protected storage space.

I’m all about living theology, and as a West Coaster, I’m open-minded and believe that people find their “source” in many different ways. I get that. But my “State of the SMB Union” is simple: stay positive. I’ll explain that in many different ways with this blog.

RR’s Facebook Post:

I was recently able to have a chat with Joy Belinda Beland, Managing Partner, LA IT Girl, LLC, about her involvement in the SMB IT Community and plans for 2014. Our conversation started with the basics: How long have you been in the SMB IT Industry?

Joy explained that she has been in business for 17 years, and she has been an active member in her local community for the past 10 years. She started her business, not as an IT consultant, but as a business consultant, and quickly learned the ropes of the IT world due to her tenacity and dedication to perfection.

Earlier this week, Heavy Reading 4G/LTE, an independent telecom research organization, released the results of a report that show the importance of call quality to businesses. The main finding of the report is that, in 2014, businesses will begin to turn towards VoLTE and HD Voice to keep customers happy.

Yesterday, the Live Information Technology Consulting Group, LLC, a Fort Worth, TX-based managed services and cloud services consultant, announced that it has been named to the Microsoft Partner Network’s US SMB Champions Club.

The US SMB Champions Club is designed to acknowledge the hard work of Microsoft’s top-performing IT Consultants. LiveIT explained that most of the partners in the US SMB Champions Club are opting to take a “cloud first” approach to their consultancy.

Earlier today, the Consumer Electronics Association, or CEA, released the results of a survey centered on the future growth of connected healthcare and wellness devices. The report, titled “The Connected Health and Wellness Market,” was conducted by CEA and Parks Associates, a respected market research organization.

We just received news that SMB Nation Emerging Technology Tour sponsor, D&H, has generously picked up the event ticket cost for all attendees at the Silicon Valley, CA show on January 31, 2014! To register for this event, please visit the site at http://tour.smbnation.com/silicon-valley/ for the registration link and use the code: DandHTicket2014.

Here’s the agenda for the Jan 31, event:

Contact us at 206-201-2943 for any questions or concerns.

The SMB Nation Team would like to thank you for helping us make 2013 a great year! From Spring 2013 to Fall 2013, you were with us, and we thank you.

We look forward to bringing you an exciting ten-city tour and an SMB Nation Fall show that is more educational than ever in 2014! It’s a new day in the tech industry, and we are committed to staying by your side to offer in-depth training classes on the latest technologies you will use to further your business, as well as that of your clients!

Today is the last day of 2013 and I’ve used the afternoon to organize some old author materials in my home office basement. I bumped into a bunch of Small Business Server (SBS) resources and it instantly occurred to me. Today is the end of life (EOL) for SBS. After tonight when the clock moves to 12:01AM and the year is 2014, you can no longer purchase SBS from any official channel (tonight is the OEM channel deadline).

Earlier this week, Samsung announced the development of an eight GB, low-power double data rate 4 Mobile DRAM. According to Samsung, this is the first mobile DRAM device of its kind in the industry.

Key features of the Samsung 8GB LPDDR4 device include:

Trend Micro today released a list of five New Year’s Cyber Resolutions to help businesses and individuals have a safe and happy 2014. The driving force behind today’s announcement is the company’s prediction that digital threats will increase in both scope and sophistication next year.

The five resolutions released by Trend Micro are as follows:

We recently received news that former SMB Nation employee, Beatrice Mulzer, was married this past weekend. Beatrice served as SMB Nation’s VP, Operations between 2003 and 2007. She also served in training and writing roles within the company. In 2007, Beatrice left to start her career as a well-respected yoga instructor in Florida.

SMB Nation would like to wish Beatrice and her husband all the best!

Ahhh…it’s that time again, time for the old year-in-review article plus predictions for the year ahead. I’m shooting from the hip on this one, as I refuse to look at the other pundits’ prognostications being published in a year-end flurry in the partner community. You get the full Harrybbb with this one.

Avnet today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Germany-based MSC Group. This acquisition was a two-part deal, the first of which closed on October 1, 2013.

The MSC Group, founded in 1979, is a value-add distributor with a focus on electronic components, display solutions and embedded computer technology. According to Avnet, the MSC Group is an important distributor in the European market, and it reported a $450 million revenue excess in 2012, with 50% of sales in embedded computer technology.

Spiceworks, well-respected a community of IT Pros, has released a very interesting study on the Windows XP migration matter. As readers know, the end of support (EOS) for Windows XP (along with any Server 2003 and Office 2003) is April 8, 2014. Before I go one step further, it’s essential for you to understand the Spiceworks audience. It’s historically been over 90 percent in-house IT Pro from all company sizes. In recent years, it has made strides in reaching into the SMB IT Pro Community and specifically, the partner channel. Keep this in mind as you review the study results with me.

You’ll notice I placed an asterisk on the headline where I wrote Windows XP* and there is a very good reason for this. The Spiceworks study, released in late December, revealed that 76% of IT Pros have *some* devices running Windows XP today and that over 1/3 (36 percent) will leave at least one machine running Windows XP after the EOS date. This study marches to a different measure, as it’s not a whole number macro measurement that would reveal approximately 30% of the world’s fleet of computers that are still running Windows XP. “The data clearly illustrates how prevalent Windows XP remains 12 years after its initial release,” said Kathryn Pribish, Voice of IT Program Manager at Spiceworks. “The next four months will be a busy time for the majority of IT professionals migrating XP-based systems and for the vendors who can provide professional services and support for resource-strained IT departments.”

What I like about the study is that it sizes up the Windows XP migration opportunity for the SMB Nation IT Pro seeking consulting opportunities. It’s unlikely you’d walk into a small business that is entirely Windows XP devices today. Rather – you are likely to bump into an SMB that has “some” Windows XP devices in its fleet. For the sake of example, assume a firm with 30 PCs might have ten Windows XP machines. The other machines in this example are highly likely to be Windows 7. In fact, the Spiceworks study found that 96 percent of IT Pros have Windows 7 present on their networks (versus 42 percent having some occurrence of Windows 8.x and 30 percent running at least one occurrence of Apple’s OS X). In talking with Pribish and Peter Tsai of Spiceworks, the “breakage” to Apple and even Google wasn’t really surveyed for this study.

Migration Upgrade Paths

When allowed to select multiple options, the majority of respondents indicated they’d do in-place upgrades to Windows 7 (49%) following closely by the rip-and-replace option (48%) of purchasing a new machine with Windows 7. I’m in complete agreement that Windows 7 is the popular upgrade path. However – I’m suspect that such a high percentage would even consider an in-place upgrade. My research doesn’t align with the Spiceworks study, and that’s okay as it’s a free country! The figure below indicates how the number exceeds 100%, as respondents could do both an in-place upgrade and rip-and-replace at their business establishment.

Migration Schedule

I’d like to offer no one has studied the Windows XP migration matter more than the team at SMB Nation over the past year. What surprised even us was the slow rush to migrate away from Windows XP. The Spiceworks study was the first that I’ve reviewed to address the scheduling and duration issue. In the current 4Q 2013 timeframe, as the figure shows, the movement is in the single digits. This migration motion will essentially triple in Q1 2014 and still have significant legs after the EOS deadline. I concur and endorse this finding, based on my own research and the learning from the Lenovo-sponsored “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour currently crossing the US presented by SMB Nation.

Bottom-line is that it all amounts to an unexpected delay in upgrades. Reasons cited for the delay (procrastination wasn’t an allowed responseJ) include lack of budget, time and resources. Application compatibility ranked last on this excuse list.

Are you needed?

This Spiceworks study give mixed results here. On the one hand, it reveals that 2 percent of the respondents will use outside help (that’s you, the SMB Nation IT Pro) for help. A whopping 97 percent of the Spiceheads say “We will handle ourselves.” I disagree and here’s why: lack of time and resources. Even internal IT resources will need to augment with IT Pro partners once the scope of the work is clear. Also remember the audience. I started this conversation sharing that the Spiceworks audience is arguably 90 percent in-house IT so it’s data is going to miss the “S” of SMB. Agreed?

Resources

So I really liked the Spiceworks study. It’s one of the best I’ve found to date and very real world. Titled “Getting Over Your XP,” You can find it here: Getting Over Your XP. Enjoy the read as I’ve only shared about half of the research with you.

One more resource: I found this bonus conversation at the Spiceworks site to be engaging.

Plantronics today announced that it would be presenting its latest wearable technologies at the upcoming AT&T Developer Summit Hackathon and Conference in Las Vegas, NV, held Jan 5-6, 2014.

The company explained that for the annual AT&T Developer Summit Wearable Tech Hackathon, Plantronics will provide Wearable Concept1 devices to enable qualified attendee teams to study and develop unique applications using information from the device's sensors. First place at this year’s Hackathon will receive $25k as a prize.

SMB Nation’s own Harrybbb encouraged our community to participate in this year’s Computer Science Education Week, which ran Dec 9-13. We received a report last week from our contact at Microsoft Voices for Innovation (VFI) that this year’s Hour of Code event was the largest yet.

It’s that time of year again, and we would like to wish you and your families a very safe, warm and happy holiday season! We also want to thank you for a great 2013! We look forward to seeing you all at our events in the New Year.

Note that our offices will be closed on Dec 24 and Dec 25 in observance of the Christmas Holiday, as well as on Jan 1 for the New Year celebration.

WatchGuard recently released an infographic detailing its top eight security predictions for 2014. Chief among the predictions was the vulnerability of Healthcare.gov, primarily due to the large amount of code processed per day combined with the expected number of new site visitors/signups in 2014.

The remaining predictions, according to WatchGuard, are:

Some of our more bookish readers will recall author C. Wright Mills’ conversations about the power elite. When I studied political science as a young man, I can tell you that I was intrigued, to say the least. How do these people get to be power elites? Where can I sign up?

Some news that flew by earlier this week is a case in point. Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene (chief of Microsoft Office) has accepted an UNPAID position to take over healthcare.gov, the troubled web site most associated with the noun “Obamacare.” Why would he do that? As a successful individual, isn’t his opportunity dance card full? The answer is simple: POWER. There’s something about motivated individuals and their need to achieve. And it’s not just headlines and bright lights. Rather it’s about the revolving door.

StorageCraft today announced its ten-year anniversary. When the Utah-based company began in 2003, it was under the care of just five co-owners, all of whom are still with the company, and today the company has approximately 200 employees globally.

By Robin Robins, President, Technology Marketing Toolkit, Inc.

The most frequently asked question I get from IT services firms struggling to get more new clients is this: “What’s the ONE THING I should be doing to market my business?” *Sigh.* The problem with that question is that it presupposes there IS only ONE THING. There isn’t. Fact is, selling IT services is difficult.

Yesterday, Avnet Technology Solutions released a new suite of application-based solutions designed for the HP ConvergedSystem portfolio. This new suite will be offered to HP’s MSP and VAR partners in the US and Canada.

The new app-based offerings include two solutions for VDI Environments and Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, as well as an Avnet Technical Army solution. The VDI solution includes tools to help users properly size and deploy virtual desktops to their clients, and this particular offering includes instructions for the configuration, design and sizing. The Avnet Exchange Server 2013 solution enables MSPs and VARs to deploy large messaging mailboxes. This solution is flexible, and can be used with the pre-sized setting to work with the HP ConvergedSystem or it can be sized to fit the users’ needs.

It’s been a busy year for us here at SMB Nation and we have recently been featured in three channel publications for our programs, including Fall 2013 and XPMigrations. Check out these news items below:

On December 17, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall on the HP Chromebook 11 power supply/charger due to concerns with the unit overheating and possibly even melting while in use. The CPSC report states that, "Google has received nine reports of chargers overheating and melting during use. There is one report of a small burn to a consumer and one report of minor property damage to a pillow from an overheating charger."

Yesterday, Jabra announced that it has received the 2013 CDW Partner of the Year Award. This award was presented to Jabra on November 21 at CDW’s Partner Summit, held in Las Vegas, NV.

The CDW Partner of the Year awards ceremony is in its seventh year, and is based on feedback from CDW’s marketing, sales and partner management teams to reward outstanding partner service and growth of partner sales.

If you’ve ever defragmented a Microsoft server, odds are you dealt with Derek De Vette. The former VP Channel Development for Diskeeper Corporation (now Condusiv Technologies) was a staunch supporter of SMB Nation and attended numerous conferences from our earliest beginnings on the Microsoft campus. Few of us knew the once Channel executive was also a musician. And his band, Man Made Souls, has since taken off with a global debut on MTV Music Television and he now performs for audiences of thousands. I caught up with Derek for dinner a few months back in Los Angeles and asked him to talk about his new career and the impact technology plays in the life of a rock star.

(Pictured: Derek De Vette in performance. Photo Credit: Jessica Sterling Photography)

First off, congratulations on your debut on MTV and all the recent attention your band has been getting.

Thanks, man. It beats quarterly sales quotas (smile).

Do you draw upon your experiences in the SMB IT Channel to help you in your music career?

Yes, especially the knowledge gained from PC performance and optimization. Even storage devices, cloud and virtualization have come in handy. You can’t create an album these days without being computer literate. Music is composed and recorded completely in the virtual space of a PC with the majority of instruments, special effects and mixing tools all being software based. You also have to optimize the studio environment from hardware to software all the way down to the right drives used (in my case SSDs) to ensure no latency, delay or sound glitches happen. Most of these concepts I leaned from VARs doing Diskeeper server installations who wanted to ensure there was no performance hit on the production environments they’re responsible for. It’s the same with music. There are even specialized VARs who do studio installations.

What roles does technology play in the creative side of music?

Well it’s closed the physical distance gap on collaborations. For example, the bass player for Nine Inch Nails and Beck plays on our most recent album, Sleeping with Aliens. I never saw the guy. I paid him through PayPal, emailed an MP3 of a song, he recorded a few bass parts in his home studio, emailed them back to me as high res WAV files and we sync’d them up to the rest of the tracks in our studio. The song sounds incredible and we have a world class artist on our record as a result. For even larger projects, there are dedicated cloud storage sites for sharing huge music files back and forth between recording studios while albums are being worked on. This is the new norm.

In your opinion, how has the SMB IT Pro environment changed? Do you think this is for the better?

Better if you can keep up. Virtualization, managed services and some of the hybrid cloud offerings have brought incredible opportunities for VARs if they’re willing to step out of their comfort zones to learn and change old business models. Friends like Dave Sobel of Evolve Technologies are a good example of those doing it right. But the question is, what’s going to happen to the other VARs who are so used to the small consultant model of hourly billing and onsite management? I worry about them and hope they’re able to make the transition. Change can be bitter or sweet depending on how you view it.

On that note of change, what would you tell people who are thinking of changing careers? Any helpful tips?

I was mature enough to recognize that I’d given up a certain level of happiness for the security of a paycheck. I had a great Channel gig. But I realized it’s not where I wanted to be in five or ten years. So I made happiness my new priority. That’s the best advice I could offer. Make happiness your priority. I began consulting a research firm for income and made changes in my life which allowed me to operate out of my home office, spend more time with my gorgeous wife and concentrate back on the arts with my band. I’m the happiest I’ve been in years.

Any parting words for our readers?

Yes, buy the album or a song on iTunes—I have a wife to support guys! https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sleeping-with-aliens/id426730494. Seriously though, I love keeping in touch with the SMB Nation community. So if you know me, or want to know me, friend my band on Facebook. And if I’m touring through your town, I’ll hook you up with backstage passes. It never hurts to know the lead singer!

Check out Derek’s band, Man Made Souls, on iTunes or Amazon. Click on the music video here to see his most recent MTV performance, Sleeping with Aliens.

By Bob Vogel, B2Marketing

IT Security is an issue that impacts literally EVERY business that has a computer. I’m not just talking about virus protection and intrusion prevention and firewalls. Don’t forget about all the chaos that happens when internal people have access to files that they shouldn’t touch, add non-authorized systems to the network, fail to secure systems with passwords, and more.

GFI Max recently announced the release of GFI MAX ServiceDesk, a solution designed for MSPs to track and manage customer issues. In particular the ServiceDesk solution will integrate into the GFI MAX RemoteManagement portal and provide a single point of contact for all customers.

Additional features include:

The latest reports reveal that the FBI can, and has been, activating cameras on civilian computers, apparently for several years now. This has been confirmed by Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico, when he spoke to the Washington Post about various computer hacking techniques now being used by law enforcement in the United States.

The Washington Post also reports that the capabilities of these tech-based, law enforcement, teams is far deeper than just being able to grab a few snapshots. They have the ability to stream audio and/or video in real-time.

These FBI agents can also reach into a suspect’s computer to download files, photographs, and gain access to their email accounts. Once in, the rest is achieved with little effort.

It used to be a fantasy from Hollywood blockbusters: robots that can walk around like humans and mimic soldiers. We are getting closer and closer to making that a reality thanks to companies like Boston Dynamics, who has built the quadruped BigDog, and biped Petman, along with several other models of robots, some of which are funded by DARPA.

Google's Robotic Past

Google, which started off as an internet related services company, seems to be on a shopping spree of sorts. Boston Dynamics is its eighth robotics purchase. The acquisitions appear to point to the internet giant's determination in pioneering a future with robots. Google has previously developed the self-driving car, prompting discussion about the road legal status of a car that can drive itself, and Nevada to issue the first license allowing the operation of autonomous vehicles on its roads. Other robotics companies Google has recently purchased are Schaft, Industrial Perception, Inc, Redwood Robotics, Meka Robotics, Autofuss and Holomni, and Bot & Dolly.

Boston Dynamics Pioneering Spirit

from MIT; Marc Raibert and his colleagues founded the company in the early 1990's. Some of the current projects Boston Dynamics continues developing include BigDog, a four legged robot that can walk and climb through rough terrain, carry up to 340 pounds, and is the size of a large dog. Also in the quadruped category are Little Dog, which is small enough to fit on a hand, the LS3 which was funded by DARPA to assist soldiers walking on foot with carrying a load, and the Cheetah, a record breaking robot that can run at 29 mph.

Boston Dynamics also has created some bipedal robots, such as Petman which is used for testing protective clothing and Atlas, which is being developed to "negotiate outdoor, rough terrain."

Google Remains Quiet On Future Plans, For Now

Google has stayed fairly quiet about what its future plans are going to be, however it currently spends about $7 billion dollars per year in research and development.

Peter Diamandis posted on Google+ : "This internal robotics revolution is being led by +Andy Rubin, the Google executive who developed and ran Android, the world's most widely used smartphone software. This is being done with Larry Page's enthusiastic support, as he and his team continue to display their impressive "moonshot thinking" by investing heavily in the future."

Peter continued, " I think it will be the transformation of our society -- how we work, how we learn, take care of our sick, conduct our commerce, explore, handle disasters, fight wars... everything."

Datto today announced the availability of a customizable marketing Playbook for members of its partner program. This Playbook is designed to help MSPs and VARs easily present a hybrid cloud-based solution to their clients.

The company stated that they developed the Playbook to provide an alternative in a somewhat unsteady cloud market:

Earlier today, IDC released the report from its Worldwide Quarterly Security Appliance Tracker for Q3 2013. The report showed that overall, factory revenue rose by 6.5% to $2.2 billion, while shipments increased by 0.3% to 490,323 units. This particular IDC tracker follows the growth and evolution of new security models in the worldwide marketplace.

Microsoft recently announced the release of the US SMB Partner Center, a portal through which any US SMB Partner may access tools and resources. The portal currently has five sections, dedicated to cloud, training, offers, customer development and the SMB Champions club. 

The cloud center covers Microsoft's Cloud 1-2-3 program, which is designed to help SMB partners at all levels of cloud service provision. The training section of this updated partner portal allows SMB partners to view a schedule of live and on-line events concerning how to best serve SMB customers.  

Today at Dell World 2013, Dell released a series of enhancements to its PartnerDirect Program designed to strengthen Channel focus. These enhancements include three new initiatives, as well as updated partner opportunities.

(Pictured: Dell Executive Panel making the PartnerDirect announcement today at Dell World 2013. Photo by Joshua Liberman)

The Dell PartnerDirect Program is now in its 6^th year and accounts for roughly 1/3 of the company’s revenue. As of today’s announcement, the PartnerDirect Program has 143,000 global partners. As some of you recall, the company made an announcement in November that it was combining the channel and direct sales teams into one organization to foster collaboration and customer care, as well as improving the go-to-market model, which allows partners to increase predictable profits and decision-making speed.

Microsoft has announced that, as of the end of October, it has ended distribution of all retail copies of Windows 7. In addition, sales of PCs with Windows 7 on them will end on an undetermined date. Mainstream support, or updates, fixes, and technical assistance, to the original version of Windows 7, is expected to end on January 13, 2015 and extended support (for the latest service pack release of Win7) will end on January 14, 2020.

A Microsoft spokesperson told TheNextWeb.com, “We have yet to determine the end of sales date for PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled.”

By Alon Cohen, EVP/CTO Phone.com

Companies strive on innovation and die due to the lack of it. Steve Jobs, in a rare interview he gave, just after he was kicked from Apple, indicated that Microsoft was a good company but lacked passion. I think that lack of passion to innovate became evident to anyone looking at Microsoft products in the past several years. I hope they will be able to change some of that culture and get back in the game.

Innovation is sometimes defined as taking an invention to the masses, and that inventing requires a spark or a trigger in order to happen. Looking back on things that I have done and things that other people did I was able to identify some basic tools that inspired invention and innovation:

snom Technology AG recently announced that four of its business phone models have completed integration testing with the Elastix open source UC solution. This new technology partnership will allow snom to increase its presence in Latin America.

One of the most popular topics in our “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour concerns the economic motivations to upgrade your Windows XP, Server 2003 and Office 2003 infrastructure fast-fast! Here is why: Section 179. I start with a question:

What section of the US Tax Code, often called “The Hummer or SUV Deduction”, allows a taxpayer to elect to deduct the cost of certain types of property on their income taxes as an expense, rather than requiring the cost of the property to be capitalized and depreciated. This property is generally limited to tangible, depreciable, personal property which is acquired by purchase for use in the active conduct of a trade or business?

Earlier today, HP announced a series of additions to their personal computing device and printing lines to better meet the needs of SMBs. I spoke to Page Murray late last week, who also mentioned that HP has done a major overhaul of their partner program, which can be found here.

Earlier this week, Trend Micro Incorporated released its report on security predictions for 2014. “Blurring Boundaries: Trend Micro Security Predictions for 2014 and Beyond” outlines top areas of concern for cyberattack, particularly through mobile banking and targeting infrastructure attacks.

This morning, Kaseya announced the availability of a new BYOD Suite. This particular suite features three applications designed to keep both personal and corporate data secure. The company utilized technology from recently-acquired Rover Apps to build this suite.

“More and more organizations are looking to implement BYOD policies to drive cost savings and employee satisfaction,” said Yogesh Gupta, President and CEO of Kaseya. “This raises major new challenges for both corporate security and the balance between employee data privacy and corporate data control. The Kaseya BYOD Suite elegantly solves both of these challenges, offering IT organizations an easy-to-administer solution that provides IT peace of mind that critical corporate data is secure, while keeping employees happy.”

We’re nearly halfway through our current Q4 segment of the “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour that encourages you to migrate away from Windows XP, Server 2003 and Office 2003. I feel like I’ve seen extremes in the weather pattern, but that’s a whole another story. The other day in Denver, with the temps below zero, a handful of hearty SMB IT Pros braved the elements to attend our event in an empty southwest Denver mall.

Pictured: These folks traveling in -10F weather on a weeknight to attend the Denver workshop! It was a night fit for neither man nor beast.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Hour of Code is a way for you to give back to the world by sharing your technology knowledge with students. The idea is simple: you reach out to a school (perhaps your kids’) and offer to do a one-hour coding session. It’s not too late as the Hour of Code is part of the Computer Science Education Week (Dec 9-13). And I have a secret: you don’t really have to know how to program. I recently did an online Hour of Code webinar (watch it HERE) that had nearly 100 attendees, where I displayed our Salesforce CRM system. Perhaps you’d like consider programming with Microsoft Excel – it’s all good.

The youth of today can benefit greatly from your technical prowess via the Hour of Code!

Earlier today, D&H announced that is has seen an 11% growth rate in Q4 2013. Trends such as Mobility, and devices including tablets and servers have driven this high growth rate at D&H. The company is currently celebrating their 95^th year.

Earlier this week, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, or SIG, announced a series of updates to the Bluetooth Core Specification. This latest update, Bluetooth Version 4.1 is designed to increase usability for both consumers and developers, and to enable the Internet of Things (IoT).

Earlier this week, ThreatTrack Security released news that it is recruiting specialized security partners to add the company’s ThreatAnalyzer solution to their offering portfolio. The company explained that the new program is available starting Q1 2014 to VARs and MSPs, and will include sales, marketing and technical support.

Microsoft, recoiling from recent revelations about government tracking of user data, made an announcement on Wednesday of its plans to more closely guard its users from snooping eyes.

“Like many others, we are especially alarmed by recent allegations in the press of a broader and concerted effort by some governments to circumvent online security measures – and in our view, legal processes and protections – in order to surreptitiously collect private customer data,” posted Brad Smith, who is General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs for Microsoft.

He went on to add that the confidence of users’ private information and communications has been undermined to such a degree that Microsoft felt it must act to restore that confidence. The user data referred to here is personal information about the user and their activities, including address books, emails, video chats and more.

Encryption, Transparency, and the Law

Most of the action to be taken can be implemented immediately. In the post, Smith elaborates that Microsoft plans to expand encryption, reinforce legal protections of customer data, and enhance the transparency of the software code.

Microsoft already encrypts much of the information that passes through services such as Outlook.com, Office 365, Windows Azure, and SkyDrive. However, there will be an effort to strengthen the existing encryption across all of the services. With regard to reinforcing legal protection, Microsoft plans to notify a user if a legal order related to their data is received, and if a gag order is in place, to challenge it legally. For increased transparency, the plan is to take "additional steps to increase transparency by building on our long-standing program that provides government customers with an appropriate ability to review our source code, reassure themselves of its integrity, and confirm there are no back doors."

Smith concluded, “We all want to live in a world that is safe and secure, but we also want to live in a country that is protected by the Constitution. We want to ensure that important questions about government access are decided by courts rather than dictated by technological might. And we’re focused on applying new safeguards worldwide, recognizing the global nature of these issues and challenges. We believe these new steps strike the right balance, advancing for all of us both the security we need and the privacy we deserve.”

In our continuing effort to keep it real, we set Geoff Brelsford, a senior at Bainbridge High School, loose with the new Dell Venue tablet these past few weeks. Here is his report:

(pictured: Geoff’s entire world is Windows 8.1 with his Dell Venue tablet, Nokia phone and desktop. It’s total integration between devices.)

Read Part I of this article here

Least We Be Gods

As we watch little Johnnie and Suzie divine from the devices at hand whatever they are attempting to accomplish at the moment, we must realize that the majority of their actions are centered around navigation with the occasional "action" of Play or Attach or Send and so on. But I only mean to diminish such accomplishments in this light. If a caveman were to observe a human from our time utilizing a doorknob, such an activity would seem quite amazing. And let's now even dive into the shock of automatic doors jumping out of the way as one of us enters a supermarket! Certainly, to the eyes of our caveman, the human with the ability to manipulate a doorknob or command vast doors out of one's way would certainly be a god! But just out of view sits another observer. The builder that carved and hung the door, applied the hinges, and installed the doorknob. Perhaps the observer is the one that designed the technology that controls the sliding and timing of the supermarket doors. No matter how much in command today's human may seem to the caveman, the person that had a hand in the design and implementation has a real understanding of what is going on.

The door and doorknob represent a user interface. The same goes for the electronic eye and motors controlling the supermarket door. Even websites, databases, and complete applications for our phones and tablets (apps) are being "built" through the means of User Interfaces - UIs for short. And there is the real problem. UI on top of UI on top of UI. Before long, all originality is forgotten and new concepts for development become nothing more than a dream. The real control of all of these devices - from our personal computers to the extremely powerful phones in the palm of our hands - still resides at the level of understand - and writing - source code.

I watched a kid on YouTube dragging an image into place and selecting a background for the box the image was placed in. The teacher had the audacity to suggest that her class was Advanced Computer Skills with Web Design as part of the final stage of learning. They were all using a particular brand of user interface knows as WYSIWYG (wiz-see-wig - What You See Is What you Get). All of that is fine and dandy, but it was quite apparent that not a one of them - least of which the teacher - could have bolded, underlined, or italicized a word in HTML to save their lives! Perhaps the saddest part is that the age range for this class was 12 to 14 years old.

What REALLY Drew That Box?

Looking back at what those of us that started out in "the days of DOS" went through and the struggles of learning one language, only to move on to the next and the next, I can only see it for what it truly was - a rite of passage. Our accomplishments were a direct result of commitment and a genuine desire to learn more. For most of us, it was the first time in our respective lives that we could truly control something - even if in the beginning it were only characters on a monochrome screen. Fortunately for us, those characters, and how they were arranged, would become important to businesses in almost every market one could imagine.

So, given such a history, I am forced to ask the question, "What is it that little Johnnie and Suzie are doing?" Furthermore, what command and control do they really have of the devices we now decorate our lives with? Where is the commitment past the built in limitations of the user interfaces? Where is the genuine desire to learn more?

I know this seems like a nasty thought, but if you really want to help a kid into a far brighter future than that of a cubicle or over glorified tele-commuter, the next phone or tablet you get for them - brick it first! And if little Johnnie or Suzie has the where-with-all to get it back to working order - perhaps even better than it did the day it was purchased - then they will be on the path to truly deserving all the praise their well-meaning ancestors can toss their way!

Comcast recently announced the appointment of Paul Merritt to the role of Director, Comcast Mountain Region. Merritt brings to this new role over ten years of leadership experience in the executive sphere.

It’s a new month and we have another chance for you to win either a FREE Jabra Solemate or a FREE Jabra Revo Wireless.

To enter, please fill out the form here between Dec 1 and Dec 31, 2013! We will announce a winner on January 2, 2014. You can also visit our contests page here to learn more about our monthly sweepstakes.