Where technology experts at Endsight share their expertise on IT Management, the issues that arise for clients, and the benefits of technology for medical practices, biotech firms, law firms, financial services and other small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.
When I first started in the IT services business back in the late 90’s, e-mail was starting to become pretty important to most business. Still the prevailing opinion back then was that when comparing importance of availability, e-mail was a distant second to the company phone system. In fact, people would continual say authoritatively “The phone systems CAN NOT go down!”
Today, pretty much every worker has a cellular phone, and while still very inconvenient, if the corporate phone system does go down, business still functions. E-mail on the other hand has become such a mission critical component of the way we do business, the importance of a reliable, available, and secure system is a huge priority of businesses of all size.
As CEO of a company who acts as the outsourced IT department for dozens of small business, you can imagine we are in a position to make recommendations for e-mail solutions frequently. There are basically two options when it comes to managing e-mail. On one hand you have server based e-mail solutions and on the other you have desktop (POP) e-mail. In the case of the desktop solutions, e-mail is routed from a server on the internet, usually owned by your ISP, to the desktops in your environment where your e-mail will ultimately reside on the PC of the user. A server based solution, all the e-mail for the corporation is funneled to a server on the network and the users access the local server to see their mail.
The desktop solutions are very inexpensive (in many cases free), but are very unadvisable for an organization that values security, reliable, ease of access, or availability to e-mail. A much better idea is to spend the money on an e-mail server. By centrally managing all e-mail boxes in your company, you can now back-up email, control access, and offer a wide range of connectivity options such as remote locations, handheld devices, or web-consol access. Furthermore, since all of the e-mail boxes are centrally located a variety of enhanced collaborative features are available to your team such as shared contacts or the ability to view other workers calendars.
Of the server based e-mail options out there, by far the most popular for small businesses is Microsoft Exchange Server. It is extremely feature rich and because it is so popular, it is much easier to find good IT support than other options such as Novell Groupwise, Lotus Notes, or free software built on Linux. If you haven’t yet moved your business to a server based e-mail platform….there is no time like the present. You won’t regret your decision.
When it comes to providing technical IT support for the Venture Capital society, breaking into the market is very difficult. But once you do, the return on the invested time is well worth the effort. I have spent a considerable amount of time speaking with Directors of Operations, CEO’s, CFO’s Controllers, etc., trying to explain to them the benefit of switching to a managed service’s contract. Even some cases where I have been able to set up meetings for our CEO to meet with them and run through the specifics on how we would support their network, the VC has generally decided against it. It seems that it comes down to that the fact that the Managers of the VC aren’t spending their own money but rather their investors, so they don’t’ care how much they spend on IT. From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that they believe there is a direct coloration between how much you spend and the level of support you receive. That may be the case in many situations, but it is really not true when it comes to IT. With all of the new remote support capabilities available, outsourced IT providers have been able to provide a high level of service that is constantly on par with having someone in-house if not better.
I was talking to one VC in particular and their situation was quite interesting. They are working with a non-managed service support consultant and they are spending a considerable amount of money. The amount they were being billed at and, considering how large their network is, they could of hired two full time IT managers onto their staff, but instead they chose to hire a traditional IT consultant who worked on their systems part time. In addition to paying the expensive hourly fees, they also had to pay for the consultant’s parking in downtown San Francisco, which is by no means cheap. When we went out and provided them with a MS contract that is 1/3 the cost of what they were spending now and would provide them with around the clock remote support, on-site support when needed, proactive maintenance and assign them a Chief Information Officer who will help them understand their network better, they weren’t comfortable with making a change.
At what cost does their excess spending outweigh their comfort on one element of their business that doesn’t necessarily make them any more profitable? Yes, having an unstable network can be very costly, but having a stable one won’t make you any more profitable. The best practice is to be as efficient as possible; spend a specific amount that is tailored for your network. (Thus every one of our contracts is based on the exact make/model of our client’s network.) The main reason why MS companies have been gaining favor and have been able to grow so rapidly is because they have devised a model that is essentially less than what everyone spends on a full time IT support and yet provides them with much better overall support.
While I appreciate their loyalty to their current provider, at some point you have to wonder under what mindset they approach their support. It really seems that the VC mindset is much different than any other small business because financing is not usually a problem. You are talking about companies with millions and millions of dollars to invest, so spending more on IT support really isn’t a concern. The few providers who have been able to break into the market are defiantly making plenty of profit. “It really seems like breaking into the Finance industry is like joining an elite college fraternity, once you are in you will make a lot of contacts with powerful and rich people.”
by Steve Mannion, Marketing ManagerFiled under: Managed Services
Traditional IT outsourcing options are limited:
• Network and server maintenance is performed intermittently (once per week/month) or not at all
• Resolution time on staff computer problems is poor, and internal staff resources are often required to assist
• Response time for server and network-related problems is often inadequate
• Time-consuming and tedious-yet critical-tasks like desktop maintenance frequently go undone
• Maintenance tasks that require a system to be off-line or rebooted are difficult and often ignored
• Strategic thinking and guidance is insufficient or nonexistent
• Costs are high and unpredictable
Managing IT internally has other drawbacks: • Full-time IT employees are very expensive. The average salary for a Network Administrator in northern California is $60,000/year, not including payroll taxes, workers compensation, benefits, and soft costs such as time off, office space and equipment
• Turnover in IT is high and the cost to recruit is significant, not to mention the cost of going without IT support while looking for replacement staff
• Because IT is a rapidly changing field, it is time-consuming and expensive to provide the training necessary to keep IT employees up-to-date
• Many IT management tasks are most efficiently performed when automated with tools and technology. This is the only way to ensure consistency. Yet the tools and technology to do this are outside the financial reach of most small businesses.
• One technician, no matter how good, can’t match the knowledge and experience of a full team of engineers. A company that specializes in IT can maintain experts in areas that may only be needed a few times in a year. A team of IT professionals can share their information and skills, giving each member the benefit of the entire team’s knowledge.
• Dealing with IT is a distraction from an organization’s core business and absorbs time and other resources that can be better allocated elsewhere
A Managed service eliminates these and many other problems commonly associated with traditional IT outsourcing and Internal IT staff. Managed services frees small businesses to concentrate on what they do best, confident that their networks are being managed by trusted experts who are dedicated to helping their business succeed. Managed services combine highly trained IT professionals with sophisticated automation and remote management technology. Managed services ensure your network is always reliable by preventing most technology problems and resolving others quickly. Simply put, there’s not a better IT solution for your small business.
by Mike Chaput, President & CEOFiled under: Hardware
One of the most common question I get asked by my customers and prospects is regarding mobile devices. Most of my small business clients are using an e-mail platform called Microsoft Exchange, which has a huge market share and an enormous amount of benefits for businesses of all sizes. If you do not run Microsoft Exchange, please see my next post which will be regarding the advantages of using MS Exchange versus other options. For those that are using exchange, choosing your mobile device is all but a no-brainer.
MS Exchange has built in technology called Active Sync. Active Sync is software that enables all MS mobile devices to seamlessly and securely interact with an exchange server. This immediately narrows down the options for mobile devices to those that run on Windows Mobile. The following link is a good resource to check out the latest Windows mobile phones; however, I find it easiest to simply visit your wireless service provider and ask them to show you the latest Windows Mobile devices. My favorite is the BlackJack by Samsung.
If a user must have a BlackBerry or Goodlink device, that’s OK; but the user should understand the real cost of this luxury. To implement either of these two devices properly requires a separate physical server, an additional Windows Server license, and special expense software from the vendor. By the time you add services to get it set up, it would not be unrealistic to count on a $10,000 investment to get in functional. That’s just the beginning. The ongoing support costs also pile up. At Endsight, we estimate that it costs a small business $2400/year to manage that additional server.
Regardless of what technology you decide on, it is important to standardize across your entire company. If you go BlackBerry than EVERYONE uses BlackBerry….if you decide on Windows Mobile as suggested than all mobile users standardize on Windows Mobile.
Has wading through your inbox become as tedious as waiting in line at the DMV? Do you find yourself wondering what type of person would buy Viagra or trade stocks from random emails?
It’s hard to fathom that SPAM is the problem that it is, but disbelief won’t clear your inbox from this pesky problem.
The good news is that a solution is possible. There are basically three types of SPAM filtering technology:
RBLs (real-time black lists)
Heuristics (computer instructions)
Firgerprinting (third party approach)
First, a RBL is simply a list of domains (web-sites) that are known for sending spam. The idea is that if you are caught sending SPAM you get put on the RBL and are thus blocked from anyone using the list. Unfortunately, spammers have figured out clever ways to outsmart the filters, such as constantly changing their domain names. In some cases, they will actually breach the security of your domain and hijack your own mail server to send out their SPAM.
Heuristics is a computer science term. In the context of blocking SPAM, it refers to an algorithm, or complex set of computer instructions, that decides what is legitimate e-mail and what is SPAM. For example, an algorithm might flag words, phrases, or character strings like “Mortgage, Viagra, $$$$, HOT STOCK, etc.” There are many more colorful examples, but I think you get the point. The problem with this approach is that algorithms aren’t perfect and oftentimes good e-mail gets categorized as SPAM. We call this a “false positive.” When that happens, you either lose out on important information or have to dig through your spam folder looking for miscategorized messages.
The third approach, and in my opinion the best, is the use of “fingerprinting.” With this approach a third party sets itself up to receive as much SPAM as possible. The third party receives, identifies, and takes a “fingerprint” of hundreds of thousands of SPAM messages. This works because SPAM messages are not unique. The sender crafts a message that they will send to millions of recipients, over and over and over again. Once the message has been identified as SPAM, it can be filtered by everyone subscribing to the fingerprinting service. The key advantage of this methodology is that no unique message will ever get blocked - thus eliminating the problem of false positives. My own company has had great success with a product called Cloudmark
