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The Business

Let financing take the strain

Customers are looking for alternatives to bank loans and retained capital to fund IT purchases. Leasing and vendor finance is one option, but how should IT consultants navigate the financial maze?
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Client

Deploying Virtual Desktops using VDI and VMware ESX Server

There is no question that 90% of the work in deploying VDI is in the planning and preparation.
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Business Intelligence for Small Businesses with SQL Server

In these times of economic uncertainty, it is vital for your customers to understand how their business is performing. Are they losing customers? If so which ones, and are they gaining others? What do the new customers buy?

The Business

Selling White Label Services

Reselling services represent a significant – and growing – part of the business for many IT consultants. Margins on IT hardware, and to a lesser extent, software, have fallen steadily. The fees that can be charged for higher-value work, such as code customisation and application testing, have also come under pressure, not least because of competition from suppliers in markets such as India or Eastern Europe and Russia.

Client

GPO for IE8

If you’re using Active Directory and Group Policies to administer computers on customer networks, suggest they adopt Internet Explorer 8 to get more than 100 new Group Policies that you can use to maintain a stable configuration.

Server

Solid State Hard Drives for database performance

Solid State Disks (SSDs) aren’t just for netbooks: they have the potential to transform server specification, especially for database systems. SSDs aren’t much in the business eye at present but we expect them to become a hot topic over the coming year.

Server Network

Hosting Remote Applications over the Internet with Terminal Services

Giving small business users the applications they want, available everywhere? It’s actually easier than you think. With the release of Windows Server 2008, the venerable Terminal Services gains a host of new capabilities.

Security Client

Offering Consultancy on Email Compliance Issues

If you ask your customers what they know about legislation involving data, the chances are you’ll be horrified by the answers.

Client Telecoms

Video Conferencing on a Budget

Video conferencing technology has never been so cheap or so effective: what can it do for your small business customers?

Telecoms

Unified Comms for Small Business with Office Communication Server

Office Communication Server isn’t for every small business and it isn’t always straightforward to implement, but when it’s a good fit the rich features offer obvious benefits you can sell.

Server Telecoms

Setting up Blackberry Enterprise Server BES with Exchange 2007

Getting BlackBerry Enterprise Server up and running needn’t be complex, but it can be tedious: here’s how to get BES working with Exchange 2007 in a Windows network.

Server Client Telecoms

Small Business Applications for Blackberry

BlackBerry is more than a phone with secure email; it’s also an application platform, with plenty of business-focused applications and tools. Even though App World adds a one-stop shop for trials and downloads you still want to be involved in recommending business BlackBerry apps to your customers, so here are our top picks.

Featured Partner Programme

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IBM PartnerWorld
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Events, Conferencesa and Trade Shows

Jun 10 2009 - Microsoft Partner Workshop
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“Because they can respond so quickly as business conditions change,small and midsize companies have an advantage in a volatile and uncertain economic climate".

Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft

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IT EXPERT TOP TIP

Microsoft is prone to push features as 'in Windows Server' when they're restricted to a specific edition; find out exactly what's in which edition and what's new as opposed to just updated in this short and clear list. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/compare-features.aspx read more

TAKE THE POLL

Unified communications

WELCOME

This month we’re looking at mobility in a range of ways, from Terminal Services to top business apps for BlackBerry, from whether unified comms with Office Communications Server can save small businesses money to whether budget video conferencing in Skype is worth setting up in the office. We show you how to guide customers through the often overlooked legal and business issues of using email. Business intelligence systems can deliver on productivity and customer service and if your customers have SQL Server we show you how you can give them BI with virtually no extra investment (we’ll be following this with a look at CRM next issue).

Even if all your expertise is in on premise software, you can’t ignore the other trends, which are the beginning of truly mainstream cloud computing – and that doesn’t have to be a threat to your business. Your customers want your help cutting costs, and they want to deal with a one-stop-shop. They’re also turning to the cloud for affordable, flexible options – as long as they’re secure and reliable. Rather than losing customers to online services, look at the opportunities for moving into the cloud world by hosting, co-branding and white labelling services from email and servers to applications like CRM. There are more options than ever, which is as confusing for your customers as it is empowering. Show them that you understand their business needs as well as the technology and you have much of a chance of putting your business and theirs into the ‘boom’ category.

Mary Branscombe

P.S. Since the last issue we’ve added more interactive features to the IT Expert Web site. As well as all our previous articles, with live links and exclusive extras – so you can download the Microsoft SMB Insight Report and watch IT Expert authors demonstrating key tools and techniques – you can give us your feedback on the magazine and tell us what you want us to cover. Are you looking for technical details on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 so you can begin deployments, or ways to simplify customer technical support? Let us know.