CyberStreams Blog

Elite outsourced IT service providers need to take pride in helping each one of their clients effectively optimize technology for their success within each of their unique business models. Their success is your success! Everything an elite outsourced IT provider implements and recommends to their clients needs to be built around the foundation of 4 key concepts….affordability, simplicity, continuity, and flexibility.

Affordability – Business technology requirements significantly differ from personal technology requirements. Business innovation today should allow elite outsourced IT service providers to research, certify, and implement enterprise level technologies within the constraints of a small business budget.

Simplicity- “Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.” Elite outsourced IT service providers IT process simplification recommendations are designed to achieve increased productivity, higher profitability, less errors, reduced stress, happier staff, improved communication, and client longevity.

Continuity – In today’s competitive business environment IT continuance and security are essential. “Security in IT is like locking your house or car – it doesn’t stop the bad guys, but if it’s good enough they may move on to an easier target.” The value of stored business data far exceeds the value of the hardware it resides on. Hardware can be quickly and affordably be replaced, but data cannot. Elite outsourced IT service providers need to be able to effectively apply these IT security and continuance principles to all their client’s continuance plans.

Flexibility – Business improvement based on IT optimization evolves with time through education, adoption, and application. Elite outsourced IT service providers use this cycle to foster business growth by recommending technology that small businesses can affordably grow into without forklift type replacements.

To achieve the elite IT provider status using these four concepts it is vital that IT service companies are successful at immersing themselves into each of their client’s business plans, goals, and challenges at management levels. Without being successful at this, your client’s technology has no chance to be transformed from a mere expense into a valuable asset.

Finally found a solution to an Exchange 2010 migration issue that’s been plaguing me for weeks.  It was preventing me from moving mailboxes from the old Exchange 2007 server to the new Exchange 2010 server that was located at another site and connected by a site-to-site VPN. 
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Exchange 2010 has lots and lots of great features.  I could go on and on about how this technology can impact a business and how previously so many of these functionalities where with not available or a 3^rd party tool was required. 

For me there are a few things that REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE DAILY: 

#1 – Outlook ‘always’ connected to Exchange.  Just like the way your PDA is always connected to Exchange, if you Computer is on the internet Outlook will automatically connect directly to Exchange via an SSL VPN connection.  Outlook Web Access is great, in the end, Outlook is better.  Not having to log in to a VPN of any kind to leverage the fully functional Outlook vs. OWA is a time saver and is just plain cool. 

#2 - Outlook Web Access has so many great improvements.  I am most pleased with the ’Nickname’/'autofill’ funtion.  This is the functionality where when typing in the name of an email recipient Outlook attempts to auto populate this field.  In OWA previously this was it’s own working data base.  i.e. the short cut auto fill options you had where only associated with emails you had originated in OWA…which basically means you were looking up the address for most anyone you were not ‘Replying’ to.  NOW this little file is based on the Exchange server and available from either location.  TIME SAVER!

#3 – Outlook Web Access again, the ability to see other network users calendars.  So useful…what else can be said.

#4 - Outlook Web Access again, the ability to browse network folders.  Technically in the last edition, however this saves so much time I want to make sure anyone reading this notices this great feature.

I could go on and on…but these are my favorites.

For more information please go to the Microsoft Exchange 2010 website:  http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/default.aspx

The ‘meaty’ details of what is new in Exchange 2010:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298136.aspx

Have fun!