This is your chance to stock up on everything you need.  Save 15% on new web products. Offer expires November 30, 2014 at midnight (Mountain Time).

Please Visit BigBeagle.com.

OneDrive (formerly “SkyDrive”) in an essential tool for the Office 365 package.  OneDrive provides safe data storage that can be easily accessed from virtually anywhere.  Although, this storage option is safe, it is not practical for business use.

OneDrive for Business (formerly “SkyDrive Pro”) offers a administrative controls with a content management platform. OneDrive for Business allow IT Administrators/Departments to control the intellectual property of their business(es).

Improved features for OneDrive for Business include a menu bar to easily access frequent tools and controls, search bar with type-ahead feature to quickly find files and many more.  Additional features such as, higher storage limits, encryption on stored data, data loss prevention features and many more will be released throughout 2014.

Currently, OneDrive for Business is included with Office 365 and SharePoint package plans.  Microsoft announced that as of April 1, 2014 OneDrive for Business, as well as other services/software, will be available as a standalone cloud service for $5 a month per user.

For assistance with Office 365, SharePoint or OneDrive for Business

 please contact us 856-745-9990 or click here.

Office 365 has recently improved the user interface as well as, the included social and communication features.  Outlook starts in the now-familiar three-pane view, but without the ribbon menus of the full Outlook 2013.  

Navigation pane is located on the left of the screen.  To create, rename, empty or delete folders can be done with a right-click on the specific folder.

Tasks can be accessed through the Task tab at the bottom of the Navigation Pane.  Using color-coordinated icons can easily categorize tasks.  Also, flagged e-mails will show up in the general task list.

The View Pane is located on the right side of the screen.  In the view pane there are options to Reply, Delete and more options (…).  Deleting, printing and creating simple rules are located in the ‘More Options’ drop down menu.  For full control of creating/editing rules, setting automated replies or creating retension policies select Options in the Settings menu.

Your IM status will show next to the account name at the top of the screen.  The IM that is offered as part of Outlook is different than Microsoft Lync.  Microsoft Lync is used for chat, audio/video chat and meetings with anyone, within or outside of your organization.

For more information on Hosted Services & Office365

 please contact us 856-745-9990 or click here.

Small and Medium-Size Businesses (SMBs) will often take shortcuts to cut costs when purchasing.  To avoid disasters such as a loss of data or work, SMBs are strongly suggested to focus on the ten points below.

Hardware

Considering the rapid change of technology requirements, a pro-active approach for replacing desktops, laptops, servers, and networking hardware is to look five years into the future.

Backup Software

Although built-in backup software and Windows Server backup are adequate, purchasing a third-party backup solution will have the ability to recover from an image.

Internet Connection

Providing your SMB with a consumer-grade DSL line would not be an efficient business plan. Setting up a network that provides your business with more bandwidth than required will prevent a network bottleneck from occuring.

Firewall

Securing your business with only Windows built-in firewall is not ideal.  Configuring a Cisco, Fortinet, or Sonicwall is more secure, reliable and flexible in a SMB environment.

Cloud Storage

Cloud storage provides scalability, reliability and portability.  Cloud storage is divided into three categories:  Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  Many companies are transferring to Cloud services for access to data outside the network.

Website

Online presence has become an important key for all businesses.  A solid solution is to have a strong website, blogging and effectively using social media.

Redundancy

Redundancy is an appropriate investment towards ensuring that your SMBs network does not go down.  Similar to backups, redundancy does not affect everyday business but should an incident arise, you’ll be glad it’s there.

Support

IT Support is a necessity, whether it’s an in-house department, third-party service provider, or support for software.

Mobile Devices

The ability to work from outside the office and accessing data from anywhere  is now an important key for businesses.  Setting up a virtual private network enables laptops, tablets and smartphones to connect and work from anywhere.

Printers

Supply your SMB with a printer that has the sustainability and features required for business use.

Takeaway:  Understanding Cloud Computing for technological infrastructures.

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing resources as a service over the Internet.  The varieties of services offered are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and Network as a Service (NaaS).

Scalability, fast provisioning and agility help all organizations, big and small, reach monetary growth.  

There are a few major misunderstandings associated with joining the Cloud Computing revolution, such as:

It’s A Trend:

Cloud computing is a credible and efficient tool with longevity.  If you use social media, eBay, Gmail or Online Banking, you are already using Cloud Computing.

It’s not as Secure:

Cloud computing is a significantly safe way to store, share and secure your data.  Client’s are highly recommended to use the Cloud’s host-based firewall.  Also available are host-based intrusion protection programs specialized for virtual machines and Cloud Clients

(Example –  Trend Micro Deep Security or Symantec O3). 

It’s Costly:

Even with the move to the cloud and monthly costs, organizations could save money long term on IT Management Services.

It’s Complicated:

There are many different types of Cloud Computing to choose from that should make executing hassle-free.

It’s only for Large Organizations:

The Cloud is not reserved for Large Organizations only.  Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (SaaS or DaaS) can be a cost-effective solution for organizations of any size. 

Changes are not strategic:

Plans are setup to acquire full benefits offered by Cloud Computing by integrating corporate strategy and technology with the advantage of using internal resources.

Cloud is inoperable if the Internet goes down:

Having another provider with a secondary connection is a logical setup for all companies.  Most organizations already operate with a connectivity “safety net”.

To migrate your business to Cloud Computing, please visit BigBeagle.com

Takeaway: Find out why Microsoft may still win the tablet war, even if its early efforts are unsuccessful.

After spending time with Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet, we were left with more questions than answers. The further we considered Microsoft’s tablet strategy, the more we wondered if it were genius or madness driving its recent moves. Depending on what we see in the next few months, it just might be the former.

Leaving the Home Court

Surface was most perplexing in that Microsoft aced the hardware of the device — an area most pundits, expected it to miss completely. The device was sleek and well-assembled, and it brought unique and noteworthy features to the table rather than simply trying to copy market leaders. If only the software were on par with the hardware.

The OS was particularly troubling, considering Microsoft essentially invented the tablet category a decade ago, only to let it languish until Apple ate its lunch and dominated the market in a matter of months. While all this is old news, and Windows RT remains what seems to be a compromised OS, there are some interesting things happening on the software front.

An Office for Everyone

Microsoft began its life as an applications software company, achieving dominance in the desktop space through luck and tenacity. People often forget that Microsoft set out to build applications for a variety of platforms rather than create the one that would dominate desktop computing for a generation. While Microsoft has released its Office suite for some competing platforms, the most interesting missing links in the Office world are mobile versions of the software for iOS and Android. There have been enough rumors and rumblings about an iOS version of Office that the rumor has a measure of credibility.

Microsoft also seems a bit more pragmatic and less dogmatic than Apple, and it has released several applications for the iOS platform, from relatively innocuous photography applications to versions of its SkyDrive cloud-based file storage platform. SkyDrive is available for all major OSs, and Microsoft’s cloud strategy points toward open platforms rather than a walled garden like Apple’s iCloud. With a Microsoft-based cloud storage service already gaining traction on a variety of platforms, mobile versions of Office don’t seem as much of a stretch as they might have been a few months ago.

Returning to its roots around application software might not be a bad strategy for Microsoft. Clearly, Surface has not lit the world afire in its first incarnation, so launching popular applications on a variety of platforms would keeps Microsoft relevant in the enterprise and personal space, no matter which tablet device an enterprise ends up selecting.

There’s also the possibility of a halo effect should Microsoft deliver a quality mobile Office experience on a variety of platforms. The iPod music player and iPhone arguably sold more Mac computers than any ad campaign, and a suite of compelling software and services might make a case for a deeper Microsoft experience, especially in the enterprise.

The End of the Platform

While the proclamations that the “desktop is dead” have not been as dire as predicted, many applications are shifting to the cloud- and browser-based interfaces. In mobile, especially, core application logic and data are cloud-based for most popular applications. Tablets and smartphones generally don’t have the “baggage” of legacy applications that have saddled our desktop computing experience, so in many ways, mobile operating systems are more likely to fade toward irrelevancy beyond running cloud-based applications. If Microsoft can rekindle its multi-platform application heritage and combine it with a strong hardware competency, it might successfully win the longer tablet war, even if its early efforts sputter.

Consumer-Rankings.com Named RingCentral as the # 1 VOIP Business Service Provider!

Consumer-Rankings tested the top VoIP service providers and compared their prices, features, ease of use, call quality and more so that you can determine which of the industry leaders offers the right VoIP plan for you. Read an in-depth RingCentral VoIP review  so you can make an educated purchase.

Best for: Small and large businesses that are looking for a reliable VoIP phone solution.

RingCentral is a company that specializes in providing business VoIP services, fax services and mobile communication solutions. With plans ranging from a single user to over 20 users, RingCentral makes it clear that they can cater to both small businesses and large corporations. With a cloud-based virtual office system, RingCentral eliminates the need for technical knowledge or bulky hardware and makes it possible to enjoy your virtual office from virtually anywhere.

Professionals looking for a VoIP business solution will be drawn to the RingCentral Office plan, which combines calling and online fax features.

Features

RingCentral offers a range of professional-grade VoIP features. Surprisingly, RingCentral is one of the few business VoIP providers that offer a free 1800 toll free number that includes 1,000 minutes of talk per month in the price of the plan. Overage charges for the toll free line cost 3.9 cents per minute. RingCentral’s other features include:

• Voicemail
• Voicemail to email (aka Visual Voicemail)
• Auto-attendant
• Missed call notification
• Outlook integration
• Call screening
• Call forwarding
• Call logs
• Call conferencing
• Caller ID
• Calling card (use your RingCentral account to make free calls from anywhere)
• Music-on-hold
• Dial-by-name extensions
• Online fax service
• Free softphone

Customer Support

RingCentral is one of the few business VoIP providers that offers 24/7 technical support by phone. The billing department is available by phone between 8am-10pm EST on Monday through Friday, 10am-7pm EST on Saturday, and 11am-8pm EST on Sundays. When  RingCentral’s customer support was called at various times throughout the day, and never waited on hold for more than 2 minutes for sales or technical support.

RingCentral also offers chat support, though this feature is not prominently displayed on their website. Chat support is available between 9am and 9pm Monday through Friday and is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

A search button that is found on most of the site’s pages makes it easy to get answers to questions at any time, and we were happy to see that the search feature yielded relevant, useful results in the majority of our searches. RingCentral answers questions via email only for paying customers, and therefore, the company’s email information is not easily identifiable on the site. Still, we managed to email RingCentral and to receive a same-day response.

Tech trends to watch out for in 2013

Takeaway: IT leaders need to be smart about the decisions they make and truly leverage next-generation tools and strategies. Here are some technology trends that will shape their decision-making in 2013.

With the New Year comes a fresh set of technology imperatives, challenges and opportunities for organizations to consider. The increased innovation in the technology sector means that companies are finally in a position to be smart about the IT decisions they make and truly leverage next-generation tools and strategies to mitigate risk and shape strategies for the future. Below are trends that will shape and impact their decision-making in 2013.

Prediction #1: Cloud interoperability will take the spotlight

Cloud interoperability will be huge: private cloud adoption will continue to grow, but more organizations and MSPs will adopt a hybrid public / private approach. This hybrid approach could simply be an organization’s private cloud interfacing with other public clouds in a secure manner, or it could mean augmenting an internal private cloud with additional compute, storage or cooling resources from a public cloud. The biggest challenge with this reality will be the manageability of the hybrid environment. Generally, enterprises and MSPs don’t use the same set of tools and monitor environments in the same way. To ensure these hybrid cloud environments deliver on their promise of costs savings and productivity benefits, vendor-agnostic management and monitoring solutions are critical.

Prediction #2: Worldwide economic struggles will direct the data center world

Data centers are consuming more power, more cooling and their density continues to rise, but an organization ability to retrofit or expand the physical space is challenging and not cost effective. Private and hybrid cloud models will get traction because it saves on cost. It isn’t cost intuitive to upgrade a physical data center, so the shift to private clouds is the next logical step.

Worldwide economic struggles both in the financial sector, and more importantly in the energy sector, have the high probability of forcing data centers to close or increase prices to stay functional. While there has been a data center construction boom in the last several years, the demand for space will have to be countered by ever-rising costs in the energy industry. Depending on how the world can come together and address the energy crisis, this will continue to dramatically impact the data center world.

Prediction #3: BYOD and v Virtualization will collide

Smartphone, tablet, laptop and other mobile devices will all begin leveraging virtualization technologies, increasing virtualized BYOD, and this will become the next evolution of the mobile device. Consumers will be confident in the security and interoperability of a working profile with their personal profile on any device they choose, regardless of their location, and they will no longer need access to their specific mobile device. With virtualization, they can grab a friend’s and have access to their virtual identity no matter where they are. Service providers have already started leveraging this technology, and enterprises are not far behind, as they will benefit once they’ve addressed potential security and identity challenges and embraced the evolution.

Prediction # 4: Cloud outages by major Web hosts will gain momentum

We will continue to see cloud outages by all major cloud providers.  These outages will dramatically impact businesses and hosting customers on the cloud. Technology today is mature enough to prevent complete outage of customer assets.  The big balance has always been with hosting how much money you are willing to spend to ensure uptime.  More and more cloud and hosting customers are putting the trust in the clouds resilience without really understanding or choosing to understand that without paying for resilience you will experience some outage at some point.  As the cloud provider drive for pricing down to compete with each other and gain market share the cost of driving price down has to be found in some level of corners being cut.  Which will lead to more outages. Example: It comes down to mitigating cost vs. risk. Amazon keeps trying to drive costs down, but the tradeoff is their customers must decide how much they want to pay to mitigate their own risk. In order to lower risk, a company suffers the effect on its monthly price. However, with today’s economy and the focus on cost rather than risk, outages will still occur.

Prediction # 5: The Presidential imperative will be cybersecurity

President Obama has been elected for a second term and one thing is crystal clear: cybersecurity must be a top priority for him in 2013. There is an increased awareness around the issue of cybersecurity, and it is only set to rise further as more and more people transition information to the cloud. In 2013, the president will have to answer: how do I protect people on the Internet? We’ve had multiple bills passed but what we really need is education around how to be safe as a nation on the Internet and in the cloud. A cyber war is as dangerous as a physical one and with out a government focus on cybersecurity, we’re facing that risk head on.

Looking Ahead

When you take a step back and look at all 2013 technology predictions from industry one thing becomes clear: there are lots of moving parts for organizations to control. It will be critical next year that they have tools to manage and monitor these ever-changing environments. Organizations must be smarter about IT, proactive rather than reactive and continue to innovate.

Summary: Technology will be embedded everywhere and disrupt traditional IT and the vendors and ecosystem that goes with it.

ORLANDO—Global technology spending will surpass the $4 trillion mark in 2016 and digitization of industries will ultimately force a rethink on what is IT overall, according to Gartner.

In other words, the technology pie is going to get a lot larger, but murkier.

The big theme: Cloud, mobile, social and big data will come together to create a technology boom with a bevy of challenges and disruption ahead.

“Every budget is an IT budget,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president of research at Gartner. “Technology is embedded in every product.”

His point: More technology spending will occur outside traditional procurement methods. Consumers will spend more disposable income on technologies. Industries traditionally thought to be non-tech will be digitized. And technology will be embedded into everything.

There will be chief digital officers in most companies. By 2015, 25 percent of companies will have a chief digital officer. The role: Digitize the business.

Gartner’s theme at its Symposium CIO powwow is that there’s a nexus of technologies that will revamp corporate technology, vendors and employment. Nexus is a word that will be beaten to death at this annual CIO leadership therapy session. The forces inside this nexus are all interdependent.

Some takeaways to ponder from Sondergaard’s talk:

• Big data is the killer application of the cloud.
• The cost savings of cloud haven’t been realized—subscriptions have trumped pay as you go.
• 80 percent of businesses are using SaaS.
• IT departments mostly use private clouds.
• Two versions of cloud are emerging—IT’s and everyone else.
• Business process services in the cloud will be a $145 billion market in 2016, doubling from today.
• Cloud will develop and transform with or without IT’s support.
• It’s the end of the beginning for corporate IT.
• Corporate IT needs to think mobile first in all designs.
• Big software vendors won’t be able to think mobile first.
• There will be more iPads in the enterprise than BlackBerries in two years.
• Enterprises will have to spend time monitoring physical assets and the data they spew.
• Social computing will become more important.
• 10 organizations in the U.S. will each spend more than $1 billion on social media in 2016.
• Automated and paid reviews will be common nefarious uses of social media.
• Continual stream of information will transform decision-making and industries.
• 85 percent of marketing organizations will outsource the analysis of big data.
• Companies will be judged based on the quality of their algorithms.
• CIOs will have to find new workers to do the big data jobs required.
• CIOs will have to think like entrepreneurs.

And the effects of this disruption:

• Consumers will spend more disposable income on technology spending. Consumer tech spending was 3% of disposable income in 2011. By 2015 will be 3.5 percent of spending.
• Security infrastructure will have to be rethought completely because it could hinder progress.
• Social and reputation wars will become an issue just like malware.
• The IT market will change. The large IT megavendors are being challenged by at least one of the forces in the nexus. “Are your vendors accelerating your march into the future or putting the brakes on your progress?” asked Sondergaard.
• Spending on technology outside the IT market will surpass levels inside.
• 1.9 million IT jobs will be created in the U.S.
• 6 million jobs in the U.S. created by information economy over the next 4 years.
• There isn’t enough talent to fill those jobs.

Virtual Dedicated Server Can Replace On-Premise Hardware

A virtual dedicated server  is a virtual machine provided by an internet hosting company.  Unlike normal hosting plans, which put many customers’ accounts on a single server, a Virtual Dedicated Server is reserved exclusively for the account and usage of a single customer.  This means that the Virtual Dedicated Server customer has exclusive rights to their server’s bandwidth, memory and storage space and performance is not affected by traffic and the usage patterns of other customers.

When you purchase a Virtual Dedicated Server, you are actually leasing a server box that is configured and set up according to your preferences, but remain at a remote data center. A Virtual Dedicated Server Server account provides you with a dedicated IP address and full control of server usage and software installation, with admin (root) access to the server.

A Virtual Dedicated Server can be used for a variety purposes, including gaming servers, database management and traffic-intensive websites. Dedicated servers are particularly useful for companies and individuals who run very-high-traffic websites or applications and who need the bandwidth, versatility and consistent performance of a dedicated box. You may install anything you want on a dedicated server, as long as the installed material does not violate the restrictions listed on in the license agreement.

Virtualization is the perfect solution for applications that are meant for small-to medium scale usage.

For more information on Dedicated Virtual Servers please contact our support team by email at sales@sjtechies.com or by telephone at (856) 745-9990.