SMB Nation Day 0: SBSers and Free Alcohol

Posted: 9:54 pm
May 4, 2006
Events
7 Comments

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SMB Nation East  pre-conference kicked off today with much fanfare and even more alcohol. We're all currently in the Hyatt directly opposite Computer Associates in New York (Islandia). I was lucky enough to catch a ride with Levent Onen today from JFK to Islandia. I've totally lost my respect for the GPS systems. We got in and saw Mobitech's Mobilize SMB presentation that has been talked about in the community and the SBS Show. Very good stuff, if you liked what they brought to the SBS Show you need to see this roadshow. 

From there we got to lunch. Myself, Jeff Middleton, Andy Goodman, Scott Cayouette, Steve Luby, Chad Gross, Ken Edwards and Harlan got together and couldn't get any service for quite some time. Eventually the rest of SBSers followed in with Levent Onen and Amy Luby. I had to jet to do a CA focus group.

Thats I guess the cool part if you're a party animal. CA and ASCII Group sponsored the SMB Nation pre-meeting with snacks and free alcohol. Below are some of the pictures of what happens when SBSers have a good time. I won't get into details: 

Karl Palachuk reenacting Harry Brelsfords comedy routine. On the left are Andy Goodman and Harry Brelsford. 

Same as the above. Really good time. 

One more pic of Beatrice for the sobriety wall. Scott Cayouette, Ken Edwards, Andy Goodman, Nancy Williams. 

Chad Gross from behind, Karl Palachuk, Steve Luby and extra #1.

So far so good, having a very nice time with fellow SBSers. Tomorrow the event kicks off, as promised, there will be blogging and vlogging and pics and more.  

Update: Well the party time is over, the conference just started about an hour ago. Sitting in the conference room watching a presentation on SBS R2. Everyone seems accounted for and I've got to admit I like how things went off. If you're going to the big SMB Nation West you need to get there a day early and bug Harry to throw a party before the event, its a great way to meet your peers in a comfortable environment and have some fun before business stuff starts.  

Update 2: That was Beatrice's only beer of the evening but she always has a red nose so its such an easy shot to take. She has so much stuff she can blackmail me with that I have to take every pot shot I can.  

SMB Nation East

Posted: 12:39 am
May 4, 2006
Events
1 Comment

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In a few hours I'll be taking off for New York City to attend SMB Nation East. SMB Nation is an event series started and managed by Harry Brelsford with the major focus on small-to-medium business IT. Harry is the guy that was a recent guest on the SBS Show and to his own credit has written dozens of books and given opportunities for others to write, myself included. Despite that particular lack of judgement, this is the event you need to be at if you're trying to transition your business from providing or even thinking small to serving medium-sized business. Last year was the first time I attended SMB Nation and I've brought back home pages upon pages of things we could implement at Own Web Now – and we don't specifically target SMB to begin with. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that we haven't implemented even half of what I wrote down but we're working on it.

So whats the big deal? Well, this year Harry is putting on a show on the east coast and I wanted to go ahead and actually mingle a little. Last year I spent most of my time in the conference room soaking in the info, I doubt this year will be any different. I'm going to NYC and promise you a ton of pictures, audio/podcasts and even some video up on Vladfire 🙂 It will be as if you're at the conference.

Which Office is Cheaper?

Posted: 2:49 pm
May 3, 2006
Open Source
5 Comments

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Get legal. Get OpenOffice.orgThe free one or the commercial one? Alright, so it's a trick question but a fairly legitimate one as Microsoft continues to wage a war against piracy. Let's for a second assume that the person running a pirated version of Office is indeed a criminal and not an innocent bystander that bought it from some OEM email that made it through the spam filters. Do you think they will A) Steal Office 2007 or B) Go legit with OpenOffice? 

This is probably the true indication on whether Office users actually use and appreciate most features available in Office 2003 any beyond. I personally do not use even 10% of things beyond Outlook. I'm a very "IT Basic" user and do not even have PowerPoint, FrontPage, Project and the rest of the extended family installed on my main workstation. For me though, Outlook is the glue that holds them all together. With Microsoft integrating the remainder of their family into each and every app, then integrating the entire platform into live.com it would seem that the 10% will shrink to even less.

I've looked at Open Office time and time again and I just do not like it. It feels like Claris Works that we were forced to use on Mac's because the school system made a poor purchasing decision and trained its students on something they will never see in the real world. But in spite of that, I hold on to my Outlook. I use notepad more than I use Word, yet I have this $500 thing on my desktop. So OpenOffice folks, please, why don't you take a lesson from Microsoft interface design team and make OpenOffice 2 look more like Office 2003. If people didn't know there was a difference in what they are looking at (like Firefox), perhaps they would not see the difference and actually switch.

No immigrant day award goes to…

Posted: 8:49 pm
May 1, 2006
IT Business
Comments Off on No immigrant day award goes to…

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As you may be aware today is May 1st, internationally celebrated International Workers Day. Well, we don't celebrate this in good ol' US of A but we do keep many industries afloat through cheap, near slave-wage labor of illegal immigrants. No, I'm not talking about Microsoft PSS or Dell Technical Support. I'm talking about the many immigrants who decided to take this May 1st and organize protests all over America in their sign of solidarity against the proposed legislation. You see, there is this entire excuse that illegal immigrants take jobs of good honest, albeit lazy, natural born Americans because real American's would not do the jobs illegal immigrants do. Usually there is a big argument over whether that is true or not, but if USA is anything it is a heaven for capitalists. This capitalist took a Monday off in a sign of solidarity both with my immigrant brotherin and with my lazy ass American "I work for the Government and they gave me a day off because there will be a protest outside of our building" brotherin' (or girlfrienderin') and went to Gainesville to take care of some bank business. Sitting at McAllisters, reading the Alligator and what should pop out:

 

Jobs American's don't want to take? Oh, The Dog Butler begs to differ. I have to admit this person really made my day, not just by their ingenuity and advertising but with their brilliant tagline:

"We pick up where your dog left off"

They service both residential and commercial businesses, have a cute logo, both the email and the phone number listed on the card, have a clear pricing structure and a tiered model to go with it. I'm sorry, but this is far better advertising than even most IT solution providers have. And this guy (or girl) goes around picking up sh$$! Dear Dog Buttler, you've made my day. Hope I send you some business, this site has 30x the circulation of the paper you advertised in 🙂

SBS Crown Jewels To Go

Posted: 1:13 am
April 30, 2006
Events, SMB
1 Comment

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My buddy Chris has the recordings of his recent SBS webcasts online and available for download. This series was fairly good for Chris and the attendance was very awesome. Poor guy did this through a lot of pain and a lot of SBS allstars came to help with the Q&A. If you're thinking about SBS check these links out:

crown jewels archive recordings:
crown jewels of sbs #1: sharepoint & companyweb
crown jewels of sbs #2: wizards, faxing & monitoring
crown jewels of sbs #3: remote web workplace & mobility

crown jewels pdfs:
crown jewels of sbs #1
crown jewels of sbs #2
crown jewels of sbs #3

Congrats Chris! 

SBS Show Strikes Back

Posted: 11:50 pm
April 28, 2006
SBS Show
9 Comments

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SBS ShowThe SBS Show will be making its triumphant return from the extended spring break tomorrow. This is quite exciting because the type of content I'm coming back with is both inspirational and creative. In short, it is not what you would have expected out of the SBS Show because now that people actually know who we are the reception we have from the SMB IT community is fairly impressive. SBS Show has been and always will be about the community and the spirit of getting involved with other IT peers and learning from one another. We can all learn from one another, I hope the SBS Show can help drive that.

So what are we going to cover in the coming SBS Shows? For starters, looking at security consulting as an opportunity. Then utilizing the power of community and networking to make you a better and more comprehensive IT professional. In between we'll play some stuff from the community to let you "meet" some people virtually.

But let me ask you, what would you like to see/hear/do?

Roadshow: No, WSUS can’t do that

Posted: 9:09 pm
April 27, 2006
IT Culture, Microsoft, Security
7 Comments

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As mentioned earlier, I am on the road presenting a part of the security content for Microsoft Technet seminars and meeting partners and professionals all over the state. It is quite exciting and most of all – insightful. As a service provider I make my bacon fixing problems out there and sometimes you don't hear all the problems through your own feedback channels, you have to see people face to face.

The speach of the day: "WSUS doesn't fix stupid. I guarantee that nowhere in WSUS categories will you find a patch class for stupid user keeps on clicking on things. You can't fix stupid, but you can eliminate the amount of things they can be stupid with."

To put it into some context I opened my portion of the Microsoft event by saying that at least half of all the security problems with the Microsoft software are Microsofts fault. Not in terms of them writing insecure operating systems, but in terms of system administrators not applying service packs, patches and hotfixes in a timely manner. I held a quick poll asking people if they waited a few days to deploy critical patches. A surprising number of hands went up. Well folks, this is why your networks get pwned. If you don't have a clear schedule every second Tuesday of the month and plan to spend an hour or two at the Wednesday Technet webcast covering the patchday… well, update your resume. There is this notion that nobody wants to be the first to blow things up. Ok, fair enough – thats what testing is for folks. You test the service pack, you roll, you call PSS if you must to clean things up, you define a process. You don't stick your head in the sand, trust that Microsoft published every single thing that patch fixed and put your security in the hands of 16 year olds that got nothing to do between TRL and American Idol. Cleaning up a box with a broken patch is a hell of a lot easier than cleaning up a rootkit, if you even notice you've been pwned to begin with.

The other half of the security blame falls squarely on the user. You can patch your servers. You flash your firewalls. You can define strict firewall rules. You can turn up logging to find potential problems. You can backup. You can patch your workstations 15 different ways. But you can't fix stupid. If your junior admin got his MCSE from a paper-mill and his solution to NTFS permission problem is elevating end user security roles you've got a case of stupid going on. Give it up, you won't be able to train your accountant. Or your marketing guy. Or your boss (unless I'm your boss, in which case you can suck it monkeys – thats why I'm on a separate server than the rest of you serfs). They are untrainable. But you can train your staff. You can define a plan. You can set a schedule. You control your stupid exposure.

Security is a process. Do you have a clear one?

TS2 SBS Crown Jewels Presentations

Posted: 2:16 pm
April 26, 2006
Events
4 Comments

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My SBS Show sidekick Chris Rue is doing the following webcasts for TS2 guys this week. Check em out but remember that you have to register first.

4/26 – part 1: sharepoint & companyweb
4/27 – part 2: wizards, faxing & monitoring
4/28 – part 3: remote web workplace & mobility

Notes from the road: R2, BB4B, Vista

Posted: 12:46 pm
April 26, 2006
Events, IT Business, IT Culture
10 Comments

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I started my little tour with Microsoft Accross America yesterday and it was pretty eventful. Thanks to those of you that showed up and said hi, I tried to invite everyone that I could. If you gave me your business card you'll certainly know when anything like this happens in your neck of the woods again.

First Best Buy

The first thing I noticed when I pulled up at the event were four Best Buy for Business trucks up front. Small business consultants tend to hate Geek Squad for a number of reasons but I've personally only heard about the "Best Buy for Business" service which I talked about earlier on this blog. This was somewhat different. The difference between two arms of Best Buy computer repair and consulting is considerable.

Best Buy for Business folks wear blue polo shirts and I got a chance to talk to four of them, one of which used to be one of our customers. The operation seems pretty well put together and organized from promotion to actual sales. They had actual business collateral that most small business consultants don't – flyers, brochures, impressive business cards (impresive in a way that they did not make their business cards on their Inkjet, "Printed for free at VistaPrint", or my favorite: "I ran out of cards so here is my customers card with my name and aol.com address on the back"), Windows Mobile phones, etc.

We chatted a little while about the core product and they talked about SBS quite a bit, they do seem to get it. All of the folks I spoke to had certifications, SBS deployment experience, references, things you would expect from an SBS Consultant. As a matter of fact, SBS is front-page on their catalog – with a hefty markup too – Standard Edition for $900+.

The sales process? "Depends on the client." Good answer 🙂 We talked about the approach and basically these "Blue Shirt" consultants are the ones responsible for the sales and consulting parts of the business. Geek Squad (White shirt, Black clip-on) is responsible for deployment and support. The blue shirt would go into the business and keep up the relationship of evaluating, upgrading, managing and monitoring the solution they put in. But how do you get in the door? Well, any time you buy a server you get an offer for someone to evaluate your network. They take a look at the desktops, servers, printers etc and create proposals. Customer can go through the proposal, work out a solution and move on. They do not seem to be interested in the "managed services" but more in the "managed customer" whereby they constantly evaluate customers needs and help facilitate what the customer wants instead of trying to make the current infrastructure run as smoothly as possible. Support is handled on adhoc (break-fix) basis.

Then I talked about something I personally contract out to SBSC folks all the time – "I need a server deployed in ____, how can Best Buy for Business help me?" – The pricing for that is flat. You get a free consulting and evaluation so we can see what needs to be done. To just put up a server, connect it to the network, run through the wizards and connect it to the WAN the charge is $660. If they need to manage the workstations (install a program, /connectcomputer, etc) the charge is $69. If it goes beyond that into break-fix the price can go as high as $660 per workstation if extensive work is required. They can either service the client on-site or take the system back to their office.

Not every Best Buy store has Best Buy for Business – but they do have Geek Squad. As such, the Best Buy for Business service the entire state of Florida that is near a Best Buy — consulting appointments are handled separately from the break-fix appointments. The blue shirt puts together a proposal but the Geek Squad guy implements it. "Bunch of teenagers?" – Not really, every one of us has been working with servers and SBS for years, BB4B would not send someone that just got their certification out for that. I don't believe them, but I personally know a lot of SBSC's that should not be allowed to touch a server (as a matter of fact, I can't imagine how they got certified to begin with) so the difference between majority of small business consultants and Best Buy for Business just may not be there.

All in all, a large portion of small business IT consultants have a good reason to be afraid of Best Buy.

Then SBS R2 and SQL Issues

During the TS2 presentation a number of complaints came up over SBS R2's inclusion of SQL Workgroup Edition. As a matter of fact, one partner refered to it as the SQL Castrated Edition and remarked that even tough SQL 2005 WG has more features than standard 2000 edition, the applications written for full Standard Edition of SQL 2005 may not work. Thats a bit subjective and questionable but a very good point for people looking to get a SQL 2005 based LOB – make sure it can run on Workgroup.

As for the R2 presentation, this was somewhat impressive and I must say I owe Susan Bradley a public apology for making fun of WSUS integration. First off, JJ's presentation was true to the Microsoft message on R2: "Not a lot here, just a midlife release, not a big incentive to upgrade to it, good first server offer but not an upgrade" – But here is what surprised me. I got into a discussion while trying to field one of the questions from the crowd about the criticism of limitations in WSUS in R2. I tried to explain the goal, the idea, the reason it was put together the way it was and what the alternatives are to getting a full WSUS installed.

After about three minutes of going back and forth on what R2 is and what WSUS is I basically leveled with him: "Listen, this is a bundle. This is something that gives a kick start to people that do not patch centrally at all, that have never bothered to roll WSUS out to begin with. (turning to the audience) Let's have a quick poll – how many of you have deployed WSUS at your SBS client sites?" So with my apologies to Ms. Bradley – ZERO. 0. Not a single one out of a room with 100+.

As for the R2 surprise – after JJ finished his R2 dance and the downplaying that goes with R2 not being treated as a major release he asked the audience if they would upgrade to it. To my surprise over a third of the audience (perhaps even a half) raised their hand. WOW. I am not sure what they saw in it but they definitely bit the R2 product. Maybe R2 is far bigger than I thought?

Vista Googles

The high point of the day (at least in the eyes of Microsoft Partners) was the demonstration of Windows Vista beta. As a matter of fact, JJ Antequino pulled off the entire presentation (several Virtual PC images) on Vista as the host OS. Partners seemed to be really impressed and I think the entire crowd is sold on the Ultimate Edition.

Day 1: SBS R2: What is it?

Posted: 11:51 pm
April 22, 2006
Beta, IT Business, SMB
16 Comments

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MY DISCLAIMER: I, Vladimir Mazek, have not been given any private or confidential information regarding SBS R2. All of the information below is public information shared by Microsoft Corp with the public. The rest are my assumptions.

Microsoft Corp's Disclaimer: SBS 2003 R2 is currently in Beta, all terms are subject to change at any time.

SBS R2

Introduction

Much like its big brothers R2, the Microsoft Windows SBS 2003 R2 is the second release in the SBS 2003's lifecycle. Since its initial release in 2003 many things have changed for SBS and many new features have been added through its components service packs. In my opinion it is just Microsoft's way of providing something more current to the people that are just moving to either their first 2003 server or upgrading from the previous platform versions. In case you want to hear it straight from the horses mouth:

"The midlife kicker ahead of the Longhorn Server version of SBS which we expect in the 2007 time-frame."; He continues to say that "its a very tightly targeted release that adds a small number of features that we think are criticial to help you and Microsoft sell new first server features" — Guy Haycock, Sr. SBS Product Manager

That's a public comment from the guy that has to sell SBS 2003 R2, I think he sums it up pretty nicely.

Primary Opportunity

Think of it in terms of how you are selling SBS 2003 today. You are approaching the business owner and pitching them technology thats about three years old – at least in terms of the title alone. So the primary opportunity here is to engage my new accounts with a brand new product. It would sound something like this:

"Longhorn Server has been just a year away for the past two years, it will be on a brand new platform and it will take a little while for your applications and vendors to catch up. BUT, Microsoft just came out with SBS R2 which is based on a mature platform with a ton of support and the very latest technology available."

Sounds better, doesn't it? Sounds reassuring and to be honest I feel more confident making that pitch than the bleeding edge pitch that will come with Longhorn series. Remember, to someone that doesn't know any better you are selling them a Ford Focus '03 – they expect an '06 or '07. 

Secondary Opportunities with R2 Software

There is a lot more to SBS 2003 R2 than just "the latest and the greatest." There are also features in SBS 2003 R2 that are not available in the original release both in terms of software and in terms of the way it is licensed.

The software side includes all the service packs and security patches released to day. There is nothing more frustrating than installing an operating system and then waiting hours for a hundred patches to be downloaded. The beauty of SBS R2 is that it will be shipped with the SBS SP1 built in so you can skip right to Exchange SP2 and SharePoint SP2.

And oh is there a lot of sexy stuff in SBS Service Pack 1. First of all, security updates for everything in the SBS family. Service Pack 1 also brought the ISA 2004 to the mix with the Premium Edition, giving small business even more flexibility, ease of use, reporting and security to the SBS network. Following SP1 came the Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 which clears _THE_ obstacle in the small business computing – packrat business owner and years of worst practices. You know the type I'm talking about very well. The ones that consider Outlook to be their personal file storage. The ones that use SMTP as a file sharing protocol. The ones that don't like to feel limited by their technology. Well, Exchange SP2 makes it possible to bump up that 16 GB limit all the way up to 75 GB. Throw in the Microsoft SharePoint Team Services SP2 and you've got the latest and the greatest the SBS can offer.

Now on to whats actually new in SBS R2 but not easilly available on the web. First off is the integrated WSUS or Windows Software Update Services. Key word being _integrated_. Yes, you can download WSUS for free and install it on your own after reading a white paper or two, going through blogs and newsgroups. With R2 this is seamless and it also includes the business group policies specific to the R2 deployment.

Finally, the cherry on the R2 cake – Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition. This part comes included with the Premium Edition of SBS R2 and has been received by the SBS community with more criticism than fanfare. Personally, I've had to DBA SQL 2000 and I'm happy to see 2005. I like the SQL Server Studio. I like the ability to upgrade to the new SQL Server 2005 and just run it in a separate instance while I move my databases over and I like the fact that I can take my time but leaving databases in SQL Server 2000 compatibility mode without having to switch everything today. Many consider the Microsoft SQL 2005 WG to be "gutted" in terms of features when compared with Microsoft SQL 2005 Standard and look at this move as a step back because SBS 2003 included the Standard Edition of SQL Server 2000. However, Looking at the features of SQL Server 2005 Workgroup Edition compared to SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition there really is more functionality in what is coming with SBS R2.

Secondary Oppportunities with R2 Licensing

Licensing, licensing, licensing. Perpetual opportunity or something that will land you in jail at the next audit? Hopefully I can start to demystify the opportunity here by saying that it all depends on your timing and your needs.

In terms of timing there are really two opportunities to get into SBS R2 for less or nothing at all. First of all, if you are covered by SBS 2003 Software Assurance you'll get this upgrade free of charge. Remember that SBS 2003 R2 is not out yet but if you bought it after March 1st, 2006 you are covered by the "Technology Guarantee Plan" – you'll get it for free as well. This is a pretty nice move by Microsoft because it doesn't make people upgrade to R2 just a few months after getting SBS 2003.

Finally there is the matter of Expanded CAL rights. What expanded CAL rights allow you to do is bring in an _additional_  (that means one more than the one you have on your SBS) Exchange Server or SQL Server or both into the SBS 2003 network without having to purchase additional CALs. You will still need to purchase an additional license for the Windows 2003 Server and Exchange/SQL but the CALs are covered by R2.

Many Many more details on this in the blog on licensing and Expanded CAL rights.

Conclusion

Microsoft SBS 2003 R2 is a midlife release of Microsoft SBS 2003 that gives you some more features, latest security, latest servers and some licensing incentives. Above all it is still the first server opportunity that SBS has been marketed as for years.

As for when it will come out and how much it will cost – your guess is as good as mine. I've got $5 that it comes out on 7/10/2006 at the Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference Small Business Symposium. This is a big Microsoft event that they announced Small Business Specialist accreditation last year and I've heard Guy Haycock say WWPC about three times so my money is on that. On the other hand, if you're making business purchasing decisions on my $5 bet you need far more help than you realize.

So, excited about R2? Keep this in mind: It's not out yet. It's not free. It will not be 64bit. It is not viewed as a major release. It is not built on top of Windows Server 2003 R2. It is primarily for brand new SBS 2003 deployments and special needs.

Thats all. Keep an eye on this, next up WSUS in SBS R2.

Note: Based on public information from here, here, here and here .