For small businesses, Cloud solutions seem to deliver innovation, productivity and profitability with ease.
You don’t have to sit around and wait for the “I.T. guy” to install something on a server, then install something else on your computer. It’s all enabled by just signing up to a service in your web browser and entering your credit card number. The secure access, reliability and backups are all handled behind the scenes.
Warning: This is an opinion piece and quite honestly, a rant. You have been warned.
Our business has been supporting the technology needs of SMBs for 12 years now, after we stepped out of the corporate world. The early years were comparatively easy � a business wanted I.T. support, we�d upgrade a server or two to newer software and bigger hardware and the addition of remote monitoring and management tools consolidated our efforts across our customer base. Nothing really extraordinary there.
As a ‘partner’ in the ‘channel’ (just imagine the air quotes), I’m going to stand on my soapbox and have a little chat about the role that we play in making software & hardware companies successful. Yeah, that totally sounded conceited, but follow along with me here.
There are so many facets to this chat that this post won’t be published in its original form. It’s going to take time to organise these thoughts into a logical sequence that flows, because the partner relationship is not a simple conversation.
The Click to Run software manages the streaming of the installation of some Office products and a virtualised environment to enable different versions to run side by side on a Windows computer. If this software gets its ‘knickers in a knot’ (technical term), you might come across some issues with your next Office software installation. Don’t remove this component if you think you’ll only ever use msi based retail CD installations.
A salesperson has guided you through the purchase of a new PC (desktop or laptop) and it?s now sitting in a box in your home. Assuming you can see the little symbols showing where to plug in the keyboard and mouse (which in reality are usually all just USB these days anyway), you should be good to just plug everything in and go, right?
Ah, well, almost.
Chances are that most PCs you?ll drag home from a retail store?have a manufacturers release of Windows 8 installed on them. Unfortunately, there are usually a ton of updates that have been released by Microsoft since that PC has its software installed ? the most important being the immensely helpful upgrade to Windows 8.1
It�s not news that IT is an ever-changing industry. The skills that I learnt when I first started are now mostly irrelevant. I say �mostly� because some of the fundamentals of disks, files, networks etc still hold true (once we�d migrated off token ring anyway). And I still use the command prompt to search for files. But when I started, there was no Cloud, no social media, no phishing, no virtualization, no sector based backups and no ADSL. File storage was done on a Novell Netware server or three, with a bank of dial-in modems for remote access.
Monday in Queensland is a public holiday to observe�labour day, which is quite apt because yes, I�m working. Now before you�pity me that I don�t�get three whole days off (in a row!), I�m not that concerned actually.
Long weekends are the perfect structure for me. I�ve had time to spend with friends and family, time to catch up on housework and time to work while clients are away and I can�control their computers whenever suits, without interrupting them. It�s also the last weekend before school recommences for the kids so add in polishing shoes & gathering all required school items prior to the first morning back.
It�s not like me to rush out a blog post. I don�t leap to my keyboard everytime something in the media has people crying out against it. But today I just felt so compelled to write about TitStare.
At TechCrunch�s �Disrupt� event in San Fransisco, audience members were presented with the TitStare app by two guys from Sydney, and another app called Circle Shake by a guy in Adelaide where he pretends to jerk off. Part of that audience was a 9 year old girl. Part of that audience was female. Part of that audience was self-respecting men who couldn�t believe what they were seeing. And yeah, it was a little bit funny, but totally inappropriate for a professional industry event.
This isn�t intended as a comprehensive argument on how to evaluate if Cloud Computing is right for you or not. �I�ve written it to show where we use Cloud Computing in our own business, and where we don�t. �As most of my readers aren�t IT Providers, you may find something relevant in this, or you may not. �But I�m a firm believer in recommending the best solution to a client for their individual needs, so our own decision on Cloud Computing has been based on our current business needs.