I was having a chat with Gareth today who helps run the Kent Group and over the last few months, they’ve really taken some serious steps towards achieving a respected and professional organisation that will help support small businesses in the local region.

The Kent gang didn’t do this overnight, it’s taken a lot of time, resources, and I’m sure a few tears along the way to put together their group so that those who can, do and those who can’t (yet) still have the means to connect and support the overall goals held by the group. As a result ICT Link was born and their collaboration with the local Business Link has meant that next month they will be co-hosting an event to support those who need ICT (Information, Communication, & Technology) help.

I’m so pleased for the group (I’m biased!) and it’s great to see that the commitment shown by potentially competitive businesses have joined forces to help improve life for SMBs who need assistance.

So, if you are based in Kent and are a small or medium business looking to understand how to protect and secure your business, then I recommend that you sign up and attend the event.

Event details:

• Wednesday 26th March, 09:00 - 13:00
• East Malling Research Centre, East Malling, ME19 BJ
• Click here to reserve your space.

In the last few weeks before I leave, I want to make sure that one of the products that underpins the Small Business Community is understood properly by the Channel.

I have had numerous meetings with the server teams at Microsoft to help understand where SBS stands in their market and how we can improve its position within the server family.

Hopefully, you can spare five minutes to complete the survey. I’ve composed it personally so if there is anything else you would like to add, please drop me an email. 

I’m not trading business names with anyone but I will be using the answers to show how the Channel can help you better. There has been some feedback used by Microsoft about the price of SBS being too expensive but based on my background and knowing many of you, I’m not so sure that this is the whole truth as to why SBS isn’t selling as well as it should be. In my view, it will help to have better internal MS support but I need some real data to start things rolling. This is where I believe you can help. 

Clear here to complete the survey. Please complete the survey only if you are based in the UK and sell Microsoft Windows Small Business Server.

Thanks in advance 

Susanne

p.s. you do not have to have a Westcoast account to complete this survey and you don’t have to tell me who you are when you complete it. I just want you for your data!

p.p.s. I will post some of the results (no personal data though) on my blog, so feel free to forward the link to any other partners so we can get a bigger result (thanks!)

For many years now, companies have been using short videos to help convey a message to their audience. It may be to announce a company’s ‘new look’ or get a feel for what the company is about.

I like watching these types of videos - I get to understand what I am looking at better and I feel that the company is really trying to gain my interest.

You may have a software application that you’ve developed or you may want to put together some brief training videos which you can give to your clients as part of their value add. Many people that I have spoken to of late, have been very interested in the online training available for Office from Microsoft - it means that they can understand in their own time. There are lots of people who just don’t get things if it’s only available in black and white - some of us are more visual…

I’ve just finished a video that we produced to show how to use our new Online Volume Licensing tool, it took a while but I believe it’s something worth taking time over. There are a few more to go up but already our customers find tools like these a useful way of understanding what we are trying to do as a business. You can have a look at it here.

There has been shed loads of information out there regarding this Wednesday’s launch of Windows Server 2008. Here are to name but a few:

• Wayne Small’s Blog (more information on Wayne can be found here)
• Susan Bradley’s Blog (more information on Susan can be found here)
• Windows Server Division Weblog
• David Overton’s Blog
• Matt McSpirit’s Blog (particular focus on virtualisation)

So that’s a few links for you to add to your RSS feeds so you can keep in touch with technical developments. But what about where you can go to train yourself and your staff? Our guys here will be training up on it this week (amidst their MLSS studies) so here are a few links for you to check out and use:

Windows Server 2008 - ‘Learning Snacks’

An ideal place to start if you are short on time. The Learning Snacks site features a number of short, interactive presentations on popular WS2008 topics using various media such as animations and recorded demos.

Click here to visit

Windows Server 2008 Readiness Events

Global Knowledge and Interquad Learning are running a few workshops in March which you may be interested in. Further information and registration can be found here.

Register for the ‘First to Know’ Windows Server 2008 Exam offer - be the first to certify with a 40% discount on the exams. Click here for the discount offer.

Availability of Microsoft Certification exams will closely follow the release of WS2008. There are three Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) certifications in development. To achieve any of these certifications, you must successfully complete one exam and demonstrate knowledge and skills in a key area of the technology: Active Directory, Network Infrastructure, or Applications Infrastructure.

Two job-role certifications, Server Administrator and Enterprise Administrator, will require a combination of MCTS and Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP) exams. In total, five exams will make up the Windows Server 2008 suite of exams. Learn more about Windows Server 2008 certification.

I’ve put together some facts for you which you might want to pass on to your clients over the next few weeks/months as you begin to talk about the new server technology:

• Just upgrading client PCs to Microsoft Windows Vista can yield throughput and time-to-completion improvements of up to 2.5x over Windows XP. Complete migration of servers to Windows Server 2008 can yield throughput and time-to-completion improvements of up to 3.5x over Windows XP/Windows Server 2003. (The Tolly Group White Paper 2007)
• Windows Server 2008 is ~45 times faster than Windows Server 2003 (source)

If you’re looking to show the customer what the biggest changes to Windows Server 2008 over 2003 are, then you could always start with these:

• Server Core: WS2008 provides a minimal environment for running specific server roles to help reduce the maintenance and management requirements as well as the attack surface for those server roles.
• Windows Powershell: New SMPS with Server 2008 has been specifically designed for IT administration to be used in place of cmd.exe and Windows Script Host.
• Terminal Services: Now supports remote desktop protocol 6.0. Share a single application over a remote desktop connection instead of the entire desktop.
• Hyper V: Includes everything needed to support machine virtualisation. Reduces costs, and creates a more dynamic IT infrastructure.
• Self healing NTFS

There are six versions available: Standard, Enterprise, Data Centre, Web Server, Storage Server, and Small Business Server 2008 (standard and premium editions).

However, if we’re talking solutions to the client, does all of this really matter to them? Probably not, so if I’m a customer and my IT consultant/reseller was recommending a new server infrastructure to me, why am I going to get excited about WS2008?

Self-healing NTFS file system - In Windows Server 2008, a new system service works in the background that can detect a file system error, and perform a healing process without anyone taking the server down. The only effect that an application would see is that files would be unavailable for a period of time that it was trying to access. The system never has to come down, corrupted files are healed automatically and therefore less pain.

Parallel session creation - Bottlenecks on large Terminal Services systems previously experienced by logging into more than one user at the same time have now been removed. Great news for those businesses who have a few hundred people logging on Monday morning to find they twiddle their thumbs whilst their sessions are initialised.

Clean service shutdown - In WS2008, the 20-second countdown you get when the system shutdown procedure is initialised has been been replaced with a service that will keep applications given the signal all the time they need to shut down (as long as they signal back they’re shutting down.) This makes for cleaner overall shutdowns even if there is a chance the new procedure gives too much power to applications.

Kernal Transaction Manager - No, not a character from the latest war film but a feature that developers can take advantage of to help greatly reduce, if not eliminate, one of the most frequent causes of System Registry and file system corruption: multiple threads seeking access to the same resource.

SMB2 network file system - SMB2 replaces SMB which was adopted as the network file system for Windows. SMB2 allows you to deal with media files which have reached sizes so large at times that a new system is needed. SMB2 on media servers delivered 30-40 times faster file system performance than Windows Server 2003 (that’s a 4000% boost).

Address Space Load Randomisation (ASLR) - No matter how many times you repeat this to your customer, they aren’t going to get it, or if they do, then I’m sure they won’t know what to make of it. However, this feature makes sure that no two subsequent instances of an Operating System load the same system drivers in the same place in memory each time. Okay, so this still probably won’t mean a thing, but when you explain that Malware can only work if it knows where the operating system service live then it starts to make a bit more sense. So if Windows occupies one of the 256 randomly selected locations in memory (offset by +/- 16MB of randomised address space) the odds of malware being able to locate a system service on its own have massively decreased.

Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) - Now that there is better standardisation across the hardware ‘ecosystem’, it’s easier to write an application that can report device errors and therefore better diagnostic and management of these errors.

Windows Server Virtualisation - Traditionally, customers have lots of servers for lots of different purposes (SOHO businesses excluded) which can cause constraints on space, power, plus the cost of management. By consolidating, buinesses could save up to 85% of CPU time for their under-utilised servers.

PowerShell - Allows IT professionals to gain better control of the automation of the server system. On the whole, I wouldn’t expect the general end-user to get very excited over this but I reckon if you can find a home for PowerShell on their system and show them how you’ve saved time by creating some scripting that gets the job done faster, then there’s your sales pitch for PowerShell.

Server Core - This feature is probably going to be the one that really starts to make a difference for Microsoft, but how does it help you and your clients? Server Core allows you to install a minimal amount of server options to create a low-maintenance server environment with limited functionality.

So, Windows Server 2008, is more efficient and easier to manage, but whilst many of these make it easier for you as the administrator, this obviously means less downtime for the client and therefore more time for you to focus on helping them grow their businesses.

Hat doft to George too for highlighting a recent post on the ”10 Coolest Features of Windows Server 2008“ (although I’m not sure how many customers will use the word ‘cool‘ in the same sentence as WS2008…

Oh, and one more blog to read: Mark Russinovich

Windows Server 2008 Automation and Alerting Technologies (find out what you can do with Vista and WS2008 straight out of the box)

Effectively selling solutions involving WS2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 (Australian Partners only)

I’ve posted before on the Microsoft Action Pack but a Partner contacted me recently to get clarification on who is allowed to apply and use them.

Firstly, what is a Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS)?

It is a kit that contains new software releases, as well as updated sales and marketing materials that are designed to help those who are eligible to receive it, stay competitive, meet your sales goals, and grow your business.

Okay, so who is eligible?

The Microsoft Action Pack Subscription is designed for all business whose primary function is to:

1. Sell, service, support, or
2. To build solutions on the Microsoft platform to provide solutions based on Microsoft products and technologies to independent, third-party customers.

Examples of qualifying businesses include:

• Accounting professionals
• Consulting service providers
• Independent Software Vendors (ISVs)
• Independent Hardware Vendors
• Large Account Resellers (LARs)
• Original Equipment Manufactuers (OEMs)
• Small Business Specialists
• Support Providers
• System Integrators
• System Builders
• Training providers
• Web designers
• Value-added resellers (VARs)
• and, value-added providers that sell more than 75% of their products and services to customers outside their own company.

Examples of non-qualifying entities include: nonprofit organisations, academic institutions, students, Government offices and businesses whose primary focus is not IT related.

Specific types of businesses whose primary focus is non-IT related but that have significant influence on technology purchases, may qualify to participate in the MAPs.

So that means nearly everyone can have a MAP and therefore won’t have to pay the full license price anymore?

No. For example, if you are an Accounting practice looking to develop a CRM solution for commercial purposes and it would pull through sales of Microsoft (i.e. they are planning to resell it once they’ve built it and it runs on Small Business Server) then that would class them as an ISV and eligble for the Action Pack. HOWEVER, if they are looking to create their own internal CRM solution then they would not be eligible.

I have a specific situation that I would like to ask about.

Email Microsoft at regmember@msdirectservices.com where the team will be able to help and advise if you find yourself questioning whether you are eligible or if you come across a business that you are unsure as to their qualification.

Please remember that all new Action packs not only need the Partner to agree to the Ts&Cs but also take an assessment. Microsoft can cancel any Action Pack Subscription if they believe a non-Partner has purchased it.

Microsoft Office Accounting will not be available in UK MAPs (unlike US) until the product has been officially released at the end of March/April.

Vista changes in the Action Pack

Order your MAPs (you must be a Microsoft Partner to access this)

Partner TV (Australia) What is the Microsoft Action Pack?

Mark Russinovich will be taking a live interactive discussion on adopting Windows Vista into a desktop infrastructure, and will discuss what Windows Vista SP1 means for you.

You can submit questions during the event or in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com where a panel of experienced professionals (including members from the Windows product team) will answer as many as they can.

Microsoft have also released the Springboard Series for Windows Vista which you may want to check out. It contains guidance, resources, and tools to help you understand the opportunity better.

The event takes place on March 5th at 09:00 Pacific time (GMT-8) and you can register for the event by clicking here.

Windows Vista SP1 here now for technical customers.

Vista SP1 install failure (including fix)

Have Vista SP1? Want your search back?

Vista Team Blog

A few things came up today which I wanted to post as reference:

Microsoft Office Accounting

I caught up with the product manager Gareth Arnold to find out what’s going on with regards to launching the product through the channel. It looks like boxed copies will be made available at late March/early April. I would expect Action Pack copies to also be available then.

If you are an accountant interested in Microsoft Accounting, it may be worth becoming MPAN (Microsoft Professional Accountants’ Network) accredited. The benefits of joining include a copy of Microsoft Office Small Business Edition as well as Office Accounting (1 license of each), as well as access to support and various training programmes and forums. For more information, please click here.

N.B. Already, 2,000 MPANs have been registered and I’ve already mentioned to Gareth that it would be a great idea to link MPANs with SBSCers. Think about it, I doubt many MPANs are going to be able to sell Office Accounting to a client AND be able to support a networked business infrastructure. I’m hoping that by me publically posting it, other people in the SBSC (and MPAN?) community will help try and pull this concept together? They do say that the accountant is probably the first choice for business advice…

If you are looking to test the product, there is a free version available or else, more information on how to purchase and download a copy from the Microsoft Website can be found by clicking here.

After March, you can purchase Microsoft Office Accounting through retailers or IT resellers such as Microsoft Small Business Specialists and of course accredited MPANs. Worth considering this option if you are looking for IT help and support.

Retailers and resellers can purchase Microsoft Office Accounting through their Microsoft Authorised Distributors at the end of March.

E&OE

With the recent announcements of Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008, they’ll be plenty of people swayed towards the bright lights of something new and shiney. However, the launch is expected in the second half of 2008, there’s plenty of time to look to what is currently available and understand the opportunity.

As luck would have it, a customer asked me where they should start in terms of understanding SBS and how they could begin to sell it. I thought I would post my email here so that perhaps it will help a few of you looking to get more involved in what I think is a very under-rated server product that is currently over shadowed by its big brother Windows Server 2008.

The key to selling SBS is to talk about solutions and not product. Of course the underlying goal of any business is to make a sale and a variety of Microsoft products combined with the appropriate hardware make this task easier to do. What SBS offers you as a business is a succinct way to approach any small business, identify their problems, and solve most of them with SBS and a range of complimentary products.

It’s easier to divide SBS into four areas in which you can pick and choose your focus when speaking to a client or prospect:

·         Team working

·         Communication

·         Mobile Working

·         Security

Breaking it down like so will allow you to show how SBS can enable businesses to do more with the technology and see their spend on IT as an investment as opposed to a ‘necessary evil’.

What Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2 can do for your clients:

Protect your business and prevent data loss: SBS 2003 offers a more secure infrastructure that helps protect your business from unauthorised users and data loss with built-in firewall protection, security-enhanced remote access; tools to manage and monitor Internet access, block spammers and automatically removed dangerous email attachments to prevent virus attacks. In addition automatic data backup and the ability to retrieve accidentally deleted or restore previous versions.

Increase productivity and collaboration: SBS 2003 R2 provides a central location from which to store company data so employees can find and share the right information quickly, as well as communicate and work together on group projects.

Work beyond office boundaries: SBS 2003 R2 will allow you to access your email, internal Web sites, network files and even business applications more securely from any PC with an Internet connection. They also have the ability to access email schedules and contacts from virtually anywhere at any time using a device powered by Windows Mobile software.

Use Microsoft Office 2007 with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 R2

SBS presents a great opportunity at further justifying and demonstrating the potential that the 2007 Microsoft Office System offers. Using a small business network, users have the ability to collaborate and centrally store data and files using Microsoft Windows SharePoint services. You can create shared workspaces where employees can collaborate on customer quotes, documents and other files. If we think about this in terms of the team working approach, you can justify an SBS investment because it will save them time, enable them to become more organised and help them stay focused on managing their customer relationships.

If your client has more than 25 employees, a better solution to Business Contact Manager may be Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which offers extensive capabilities and customisation. This will also offer additional sales through services; you may want to look at partnering with a CRM specialist to help you deliver these solutions. In addition, regardless of where their employees are, they will have full access to customer information – along with other networked resources in the office such as shared documents, printers and intranet sites. Thus, from a mobility focus, with a Windows Mobile device or a portable PC connected to the Internet, they can manage customer records and update the sales pipeline, even when they’re out on the road meeting new prospects and existing customers. Feel free to ask me if you would like further information on this.

Limitations with SBS 2003

There are a number of limitations with Windows Small Business Server 2003 (compared to Windows Server 2003, which is the next step up) which means that it may not be right for everybody:

SBS 2003 must be the first server installed on the network and must serve as the main log-on server. Additional servers can be added later.

SBS 2003 only supports up to 75 users or devices. However, you can buy a transition pack to protect your investment and transition to the next Windows Server product.

In my experience, businesses of over 50 users should really begin to look at Windows Server 2003 in any case. The closer the number of users gets to the 75 limit, the more error reporting is incurred. Typically, growing businesses with 50 employees would be looking to grow further and therefore could easily reach 75+ users in a short space of time. In these cases, SBS 2003 would not be a wise suggestion.

Further resources:

SBS Blog

Data Sheet

Benefits of using SBS 2003 R2

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 home page

Information on Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2008

How to become a Microsoft Small Business Specialist (becoming this will allow you access to SBS-focussed training and a community of partners who can help you develop in this area).

I encourage anyone else who would like to add additional links/resources/experiences to the comments below. Feel free to link through to your blogs if you have a particular post.

A SBS 2008 sales post will be made shortly… just got to wade through the mass of posts that have just landed in my RSS feeds inbox!

Applications compatible with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003

Usually when I post it’s because I’ve seen something at work or on my travels that motivates me to pass on the information or share an idea or two with you.

Starting a post like this one is a little trickier because it’s got less to do with work and more to do with me. I don’t do it too often but enough of you are asking about what I’m up to…

At the end of March, the blog and I will be packing our t-shirts and shorts to move to warmer climates for a bit. For those who know me well, you’ll know my love of exploring the world so you won’t be surprised to know that the travel itch needs scratching again.

The reason why I post is that I’m going to be leaving the UK for some time; I haven’t decided when I’ll be back but I’m going to check out where the adventure takes me. No doubt, those interested as to what I’m up to will either find out on the grapevine or when I start blogging post-March.

I will be thanking a number of friends and colleagues personally for their friendship and time, but I would like to extend my appreciation and thanks to everyone who has helped me get to this point.

And that’s where I’ll leave this post. It is particularly difficult to articulate how I feel and I’m sure a follow up post in a few weeks/months time will be able to do a better job than I am doing now.

So thank you and best wishes to all who choose to do something that they dare to do differently.

Susanne

p.s. I’ll still be blogging in the  meantime, just wanted to get this announcement out of the way.

Each presentation I take as part of these events always comes with a few surprises. Many are one-woman-bands who are looking to for inspiration and answers on how and where to start in business. This time, there were a fair few who were comfortable with IT but still, and worryingly, a large number of those attending who don’t back up their IT.

It’s not unusual though…

This is basically how part of my presentation goes:

A few weeks back I had quite a bad week. First, my car gets broken into; then on returning back to a friend’s house we discover it had been burgled, and then I get a flat tyre driving down the M4. *sigh* It was a pretty rubbish week…

… but I had car insurance, they had home insurance, and I had a famous three letter recovery company to help me.

All seem like necessary evils until you need it.

So, how many people use their computers to email and store information and files regarding their business? (everyone puts their hands up)

How many people DON’T back up these computers? (about 75% of the audience put their hands up reluctantly and shift in their seats)

At this point, I’ve pretty much made my point but I labour it a bit longer…

How many days do you think it will take to recover your data and get back up to normal business activities if your computer was stolen or lost the data through corruption? (I’m generous and say three, although statistics are a lot higher). Let’s assume your daily rate is £100 (more £500 for most) and multiply it by three. That’s £300 even before you’ve tried to do some business. At what point do you think you can’t afford to back up your machine?

Then I pull out a USB hard drive which cost me £80 for 320GB memory. We do the maths and they all make plans to go and buy one at the weekend.

Businesses start up all the time, and everytime one does, someone new wants to grasp the fundamentals of IT but doesn’t know where to start. Many come from larger organisations where the IT was sorted on their behalf; and most don’t relate the focus they have on securing their personal posessions and wellbeing to the same way they should for their businesses.

When I was a reseller, I used to make sure my clients understood IT was part of the business plan. I made sure I sat in on business meetings and usually I was able to spot shortcuts for them to help aid their business - most revolved around how to better communicate and manage their customers. They told me their problems and I gave them the solutions. They were small businesses looking to grow; I was part of a small business looking to grow - there was a trust relationship which helped give my clients the confidence to think better about IT. It was just a case of breaking down the jargon and making the answers simple to achieve.

The same goes for any business. It’s pretty hard to sell a product or service if the buyer doesn’t get it.

Hopefully, the audiences I speak to go away feeling better about IT. Many stop to talk to me afterwards; many want to ask me about Vista nowadays - they buy the product because it’s pre-installed and don’t know where to start. Just because there are help guides and small blue round buttons in the top right of the screen, doesn’t mean people are going to help themselves.

People deal with people and they will always choose to ask rather than look for themselves because they wouldn’t know where to start. One of the ladies in the audience asked me something which goes a little bit like this:

When I want to find someone to help me with my IT, I find it particularly difficult to know who I should talk to. You hear from others who they use and sometimes it’s great. But most times, you worry about finding someone and then they move on leaving you none the wiser and if that’s the case, where do you go from there?

Again, I brought IT back into the real world and compared it to when you go for a hair cut. Now, this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone but most ladies have experienced the odd hairdresser looking at their hair with distain and saying ‘who cut this last?’. The reaction from said customer is usually one of embarassment as they mumble their reply. (everyone nodded and agreed)

So then I suggested the Microsoft Small Business Specialists and explained that they were small businesses like them who had gone through similar growing pains but with a specialisation in IT (audience scribbles down details).

To find out more about Microsoft Small Business Specialists, click here. I cannot recommend them more than I already do. They rock. They aren’t spoken about enough but they are incredibly important in supporting an incredibly important market sector that no large organisation has had the time or resources to fully support (it’s a labour of love) so far.

If you want to know whether there is a Small Business Specialist close to you click here and type your postcode into the search to find out.

Don’t leave IT on the backburner. IT is about having the right technology in place to support your business information.

For more information on how and what you need to start to understand it a bit more, click here.

Products to consider: Microsoft OneCare (also available from Small Business Specialists in box format), Microsoft ForeFront (suitable for businesses that have a server-based network).

Next stop; Southampton.