Worrying about the Windows way

Microsoft VP Cindy Bates with Erig Ligman, SMB Nation CEO Harry Brelsford and Arnie Mondloch

The question that many in the field of computing and small business support have to consider today is whether to hitch their stars to the Microsoft Windows wagon blindly and hold on with all their might or keep their eyes open and do much the same. Windows Small Business Server 2008 has so much potential for providers and for end users that to find another business solution with as much potential and promise as what it will offer businesses would be impractical. But change is always forthcoming and dealing with it is always stressful. The last day of the SMB Nation conference started with several Microsoft executives who presented opportunities for computer consultants and small and medium businesses alike. Frankly, the auditorium was full of very dedicated consultants and professionals who have more than a glimmer of worry about what these changes will portend for themselves and their business clients. Microsoft is cutting much of the financial incentives they have offered to their partners in the past, while now attempting to encourage end users to work directly with Microsoft "in the cloud." This is definitely making many IT professionals upset with the way Microsoft is attempting to skim off clients and business. At the same time many IT professionals and managed services providers are anxious to implement upgrades and work closely with their partners in providing cutting edge opportunities to their customers. In a very real sense it is becoming less necessary for computer consultants to know the needs of their clients' computers and more for them to become a trusted advisor to the business. Dealing with security, data backup and making businesses more productive is the great aim that everyone at SMB Nation has in view. But the bigger question is how to make their own businesses more profitable too without losing clients to Microsoft. Microsoft U.S. Partners Strategy, Marketing and Programs vice-president Cindy Bates and two members of her team, Eric Ligman and Arnie Mondloch, unveiled programs that will enrich many of the members in the audience and make many happy clients too. Partnering with Microsoft has great potential and the returns in investment can be incredible, we all learned today. But if Microsoft really values the IT professionals who have grown their clients into profitable end users, they might want to consider that we are a big reason for that. How we implement Microsoft's business solutions and how quickly they go out into the marketplace will determine whether it is advisable to worry about the future or to roll forward with it with a smile on our faces and profits on our books.

Meeting Clay Eals at SMB Nation event

Clay Eals, the author of Steve Goodman: Facing the Music is a longtime resident of Seattle and he was kind enough to show up this morning and meet with me to chat about his favorite musician. Goodman, the talented performer and composer who died in September of 1984, was the well-researched subject of Eals' 778 page volume published by ECW Press. He was kind enough to sign my book and talk about Goodman and what he has meant to him. He even wore his City of New Orleans Amtrak jacket in my honor.

Telephonation for a nascent telephony

Captain Harry Brelsford steering the Telephonation ship

So many of you may be wondering what is this strange thing called VoIP? It's pronounced VOYP and like orange and purple I have yet to find a rhyme for it in English. VoIP stands for "voice over IP" (as in Internet Protocol) and it is a technology in which the Internet is married to present phone technology to permit transmission of telephony over the Internet. It is an opportunity to add voice to the computing mix and has limitless possibilities for businesses who look to save on the cost of existing phone lines by replacing them with individual IP phones. These IP phones have been making great incursions into the marketplace and for small and medium businesses in the Enterprise looking to replace outdated systems VoIP is a prime consideration. Because of its many features like integrated voice and e-mails and the fact that most businesses now maintain "fat pipes to the cloud" (high speed Internet access), VoIP is fast becoming one of the greatest cost-saving measures to be implemented over a local area network. At SMB Nation, CEO Harry Brelsford just announced the launch of Telephonation. With Microsoft's Response Point coming on strong now, VoIP technology is becoming a viable option even for the small business owner who needs to put in a simple telephone system. Imagine saving on the cost of inside wiring and renting phone systems from typical vendors like AT&T or cable systems. No longer does a business owner have to pay a substantially higher cost for phones or deal with mediocre bandwidth utilization. It may surprise some to learn that the largest number of vendors appearing at SMB Nation this year are voice sponsors. VoIP solutions have been available for a number of years from vendors like Cisco, but business owners were not endeared to the high cost of licenses per seat that could send the cost well over $300 per phone. At that rate, AT&T and cable seemed reasonable. However, as more players have jumped into the telephony game, costs and licensing have come spiraling downward. It now makes sense to examine the IP phone as a cost-effective business solution. With SMB Nation CEO Harry Brelsford taking the wheel of the Telephonation ship, will VoIP steer into clear waters or is the channel already too crowded with other worthy vessels? Only time and a steady hand at the tiller will tell.

Experts SBS Diva Susan Bradley and the legendary Ofer Shimrat

Yesterday's general session with SBS Diva Susan Bradley and Ofer Shimrat on the "gotchas" associated with implementing Windows SBS 2008 was a perfect wedding of the best of practices for software (from Bradley) and for hardware (from Shimrat). Bradley's SBS Diva blog has been a font of extremely useful information, while Shimrat has long cultivated a reputation as a master of building well-designed hardware solutions. While the two of them offer very high levels of knowledge about SBS 2003 R2 (not shipping from Microsoft as of October 1), there were a number of questions about implementing SBS 2008 that gave these two experts much to consider. Bradley and Shimrat both pointed to huge memory utilization by the OS that required a minimum of 4GB of RAM to adequately allow the server to idle properly. Microsoft officials in fairly small numbers at this year's SMB Nation (as opposed to previous years when the event was held in Redmond) might well have cringed over many of the problems they both saw with the long awaited OS in addition to migration guru Jeff Middleton's alarming notes on migration paths and potential pitfalls in an earlier morning session. Then again, there was the quote from a Microsoft worker in the convention hall who said yesterday "I'm from Microsoft. I'm here to help." Makes me feel so warm and fuzzy.

Las Dos Amys

Amy Babinchak and Amy Luby at SMB Nation's Saturday lunch

Two of the important ladies attending SMB Nation are both named Amy. Amy Babinchak is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) who handles support services for IT professionals like me and others attending SMB Nation. She is considered an expert on firewall protection and has advocated very strongly for ISA Server under the Windows Small Business Server platforms. One of the interesting turns for IT professionals that has happened since the announcement of the release of Windows SBS Server 2008 has been the decision by Microsoft to no longer include ISA Server in its newest platform. That has translated into a number of hard decisions by IT consultants as to how to maintain ISA Server under a Windows SBS 2008 environment or whether to find a hardware device or software solution that might do the same job as ISA. Babinchak's talk titled "Decisions, Decisions, Decisions," dealt with many of these challenges for those IT professionals who protect networks from outside attacks or intrusions that might emanate from within. A remote operator who telecommutes from a home computer might not know that his or her son downloaded a malware last night while downloading a hip-hop. When he gets authentication to enter the workplace network, he has unwittingly allowed the malware to propagate on the network. Amy is one of those IT professionals who advises against such practices and she is paid well for her wise advice by her own clients who look to her for pearls of knowledge and best practices. Meanwhile, the IT industry has been going through a paradigm shift lately as a result of the managed services business model. Instead of the old business model of "break/fix," wherein a client notifies an IT professional that something is not working and that his or her services are needed, the managed services business model is proactive and robust. Amy Luby, the CEO of MSPSN (MSP Services Network) also caters to IT professionals who are looking to get a piece of a $42 billion industry. That's correct. $42 billion. Luby helps bring IT consultants the ability to manage their own businesses as well as to integrate them into managed services for their own clients. Being able to fix network problems remotely, back up data, prevent unwanted intrusions and report on this for clients is something that I am keenly interested in for my clients. Also, being able to better manage my own company resources is something that is also a high priority for me. So, the two Amys have quite a number of followers who respect what they do and say. It's fascinating that two lovely ladies can attract so many because of the charm of their business applications in addition to their pulchritude. 

SMB Nation in Seattle

Jeff Middleton prepares his presentation as SMB Nation CEO Harry Brelsford introduces him

The sixth annual SMB Nation conference presided over by business support guru Harry Brelsford started up this morning in Seattle, the major city closest to the elephant of the computing industry, Microsoft. Previous SMB Nation conferences have been held in Indianapolis and in nearby Redmond, the real location of Microsoft world headquarters. This event is a "must do" for many of the small and medium support network of computer administrators and network engineers who are looking to find out the best way to support their clients and get themselves more business in the process. The first keynote presentation was by David Brown of Intel, who focuses on the concerns of businesses and computer support administrators who are interested in finding the cheapest, most energy efficient and easiest to maintain products available. Intel's Core 2 products were discussed as well as innovative new solutions that promise better integration for professional offices and businesses in the marketplace. ONe of their products supports as many as 14 2.5 inch hot-swapable hard drives with up to six server blade components. It was quite impressive, especially as Intel designed it to work with existing software solutions that make it a workable solution practically out of the box. New Orleans's own Jeff Middleton had a talk on "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" of server migration under the just-released 2008 Microsoft SBS (Small Business Server). Suffice it to say that much of what existed before has gone away and many of the best methods used to deploy servers in the marketplace have been replaced by new methods or no longer exist. It's a muddled field right now, but if anyone can figure it out, Jeff Middleton, whose SBSmigration.com stages its own annual conference, will definitely do it. Meanwhile, a great number of other speakers are heading to the conference over the course of the next few days in overcast and moist Seattle.