SMB 150 Most Influential Nomination

It’s not often that you get pictured as a Super Hero. That graphic above is by Michele Ragusa of Cisco and she’s having fun with her picks for the most influential IT Professionals working in the SMB (small and medium business) sector. I’m honored to be on her special list. I’m the one of the far right. We’ve actually never met but man, oh man, have I been giving feedback to Cisco about the state of their small business line of products this year. As you can see, they have taken it well. I hope this means that my influence is not only felt but also effective. I consider keeping pressure on our vendors to produce the best products for our customers at the very top of my job responsibilities. At Harbor we all work hard to develop these relationships so when we need to we can push the right buttons for you and be heard.

So what is the SMB 150? It’s a list of the most influential IT Professionals. It is sponsored by SMB Nation (conference organizer and publisher), SMBTN (professional industry group) and Research In Motion (that’s Blackberry). Nominations are taken in February and public votes are tallied in April. Then the top vote getters are evaluated by a panel of industry peers who have the majority opinion of who is worthy of the designation of Top 150 Most Influential IT Professional.

“Harry Brelsford, founder and chairman of SMB Nation, congratulates Amy Babinchak, along with every other SMB 150 nominee. I'm excited for all of our SMB 150 nominees. Each and every one of them has worked tirelessly to improve the SMB IT channel—and, by extension, the small business sector as a whole. I hope that everyone who has benefited from our nominees' expertise will show their support and appreciation at smb150.com."

And there it is. You can click that link and place your vote for me, if you so desire. Come April, if I’m in the top end, the esteemed committee might just agree. I’m actually amazed that I’ve come to the attention of this group and have a nomination in the running but I’m even more honored to be included in Cisco’s short list.

Microsoft Lowers Price on Office 365

Microsoft has announced a new price schedule for the cloud based Office 365 product. Office 365 includes Email, SharePoint, Instant Messaging and Online Meetings.

It was $10 a month per person. The new price is $8 per month per person. If you are already a customer with Office 365 you will get the lower price when your annual renewal comes up.

In related news, Amy just finished the technical edit for a soon be published book on Office 365 for small business. It will be published by O’Reilly which whose brands now include Microsoft Press. It should be available in the next couple of months.

Emergency Patch Alert

We have just been made aware of a new vulnerability in the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). RDP is the protocol that is used for remote access to computers.

If you access your computer from home, then you are using RDP. If you access your computer with your iPAD, then you are using RDP. The proliferation of slate devices (like the iPAD) in networks means that RDP is more common than in the past. This has made it a target for hackers to attempt to also access the computer in search of valuable data such as credit card, social security and other personal identification information.

Microsoft has released an emergency security patch for RDP. We will be applying this update over the course of the next two days. It is required to be applied to the computers directly, so we will be contacting those people that have RDP enabled on their computer to apply this patch. It will only take about 5 minutes of your time to allow us to secure it.

Time for Spring Cleaning–Recycle Those Computers

Spring is in the air (hasn’t it been since December?) and it’s time to clean out the old computer equipment that has collected dust in the closet. The price is gold is sky high. That’s good news for computer equipment recycling. Whereas previously we had to pay to get business computers recycled, recyclers are now doing it for free.

Recycling computer equipment is a two step process.

Secure those hard drives:

• Hard drives need to be removed from the computer prior to recycling. The recycler will not destroy your data.
• We will charge $20 per hard drive to physically destroy them.

Call Missy (248-890-9274) or Email missy@harborcomputerservices.net  to schedule a pickup:

• 10 or more computers. The recycler will pick up directly from your office. There is no charge for the pickup.
• Fewer than 10. We have to pick them up from you and consolidate into a larger lot for pick from here. If we can work this into our regular visit there will be no charge. If we need to make a special trip then we will charge a $40 pick up fee.

When we say computer that means the CPU or what most people call “the hard drive”. It’s the base of the computer with the circuit boards in them. That’s where the gold lives that pays for the recycling of the rest of the components. With your computer recycling you can also recycle monitors, keyboards, printers, mice, routers, switches…all of that old computer stuff at no fee. So please take advantage of this great opportunity while it lasts.

Consumerization of IT

For a while now there’s been a new catch phrase, “The consumerization of IT”. It’s what happens when employees bring their own computers, phones and iPads and use them for work purposes. In the not very long ago, employers owned all the technology but increasingly now employees own the technology.

In looking at Windows8, I noticed a very interesting feature. It’s called Windows To Go. Windows To Go is your office computer on a portable hard drive. This hard drive can be plugged into any computer and cause your work computer environment to boot up and your personal hard disk to become inaccessible as long as your have your work drive plugged in.

What does this mean for us? It means that Microsoft has enabled employers to stop buying computers and push that cost off onto the employee. All the employer provides is the hard disk and software, the employee will provide the computer to run it on.

It’s often the case that things have unintended consequences. I don’t think that employees that have asked to use their MAC at work or that wanted their work email on their personal phone thought that this would lead to their employer expecting them to provide all of the computer hardware required for their successful employment with the company but that is exactly where it has lead and Microsoft has enabled it.