We here at Vectrocon would like to wish all of our readers a Happy Thanksgiving. We would also like to especially thank all of our clients for their patronage throughout the year. We will not post again until after the holiday!
Happy Thanksgiving
November 22nd, 2011The Old Folks of IT: 40 Years Old and Over the Hill
November 21st, 2011In an article, Computerworld described some research that seems to indicate that by age 40, certain IT workers are already subject to age discrimination, and that by age 50, the problem seems to become acute. Why the qualification “seems” in that sentence? Because there doesn’t appear to be a lot of evidence, other than the anecdotal variety, to support this. Yet, some of the evidence that is available definitely paints a picture that those in IT, as opposed to other careers, have shorter “life expectancies”.
In many professions, the older you become, the more your experience is thought to count. Maturity means something, as does general experience. In IT, however, age can mean outdated skills, less energy, higher wages and overall lower productivity. Much of the article presents a view where IT people are said to become less valuable over time, as opposed to the general opinion that personnel should become more valuable over time.
One method of avoiding this, according to Vivek Wadhwa, one of the individuals who is cited as an expert by the article, is to transition from “hard IT” to management, where maturity continues to be valued, and rapidly changing skills are less valuable to the task at hand. Another method is to become a consultant.
Part of the problem, as many IT people have discovered, is that they simply don’t have the personalities or the inclination for these very people focused jobs. If you’re an introvert by nature and practice, you either need to overcome your inclination or you’re barred from this path.
Small business IT shops have seen this problem for years. Although larger firms have the budgets to keep their IT staff up to date with newer technologies, if the employee is willing, smaller firms lack these budgets. Hence, if you’re an IT worker in a small shop, you either keep your skills up on your own time and using your own money, or eventually you find that your skills are outdated. We’ve found many small business clients that encounter this problem. They start complaining about how their IT infrastructure is old, how new approaches to business are either rebuffed or discounted out of hand, how questions about new technologies either cannot be answered or the answers default to narrow mindedness. As the article states, sometimes this is simply an effect of someone becoming set in their ways. Sometimes, however, this is the result of a lack of training, and a fear of the unknown.
At Vectrocon, we employ a number of people above the age of 40, myself included. Our environment is such that it is a requirement for anyone we employ to constantly learn new skills. As a consultant, you either become very familiar and comfortable with change, or you find your business slowly slipping away from you. Because of this, our employees tend to have a very forward thinking mindset, regardless of their age. Additionally, because they are not infatuated with every new idea, they do temper the enthusiasm for the latest hype to hit the market, often striking a balance between the hype of marketers and the reality of what a new technology can do in the trenches. In this way, our clients receive a very balanced view of technology, neither being oversold or undersold on the potential for change. This is one competitive advantage that we seek to emulate, and when we hire new employees, regardless of age, we look for people that can evaluate technology with a mind toward value.
If you’re a small business, remember that IT employees, like those in any other position, need guidance, grooming and encouragement; regardless of age. Also remember that personnel who seek challenges, look for new opportunities and work hard tend to do so regardless of whether they are 22 or 82. If your IT staff isn’t performing up to what you think they should be at your small business, remember that the employee’s age isn’t the issue, it’s the employees attitude.
No Relief for Small Business Network Admins: Microsoft Only Patches Own Software in Win 8
November 17th, 2011We have long lamented the fact that Adobe and Oracle do not have the same tools to patch their widely used software as Microsoft does, and that this imposes hardships on small business administrators to keep their software updated. If you want to have users do the work themselves, you have to first rely on the fact that they will actually perform the patches (a dubious proposition) and then you have to give them the privileges, usually administrative, to do so. If you want to patch from a central location, you have to figure out how to push an update (or complete reinstall of the latest patched version) using Group Policy or a login script. Both of these methods can prove problematic for small businesses.
Many people were hoping that with Windows 8, Microsoft might take cue from Apple and patch third party products as part of their patching system. Many small businesses use WSUS, Microsoft’s patching system, to control patches on their networks. It’s free, it works well and its easy. If that system was allowed to work against some other widely deployed packages, like the ones listed above, small businesses would have a great way to finally solve the problem of patching these other pieces of software without enlisting a lot of time and money. Alas, this was not to be the case.
Microsoft recently buried everyone’s hopes when it announced that Windows 8 would not support patching of third party applications. Developers would need to handle their own patches. I can see why Microsoft would do this, but at the same time I must confess to be disappointed. Without an inexpensive, easy to use patching tool, most small businesses will continue to have a very large hole in their security. We’v been lamenting over this problem for what seems to be years, and once again, a solution appears to be out of everyone’s grasp.
Small Businesses and IT Outsourcing: Part 1: Why Outsource
November 14th, 2011The Question of Outsourcing
Vectrocon generates most of its revenue from network management and IT Support Contracts (Outsourcing) for small businesses in New Jersey (Ocean, Monmouth, Middlesex, Somerset Counties) and Southern Florida (Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties). Recently, our sales force has received numerous calls asking about IT Support and Outsourcing. These number among the questions most frequently asked: Does Vectrocon offer these types of agreements? How do you transition from an in-house person to an outsourcer? How much does it really cost? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How do you transition from one network support firm to another? What is the difference between a “Managed Service Provider” and other forms of network support and IT outsourcing? Before Vectrocon can answer these questions, however, we need to understand something first.
The Big Question to Small Businesses: What Prompted A Change?
Different firms outsource their IT for different reasons. The reasons vary depending upon whether there is a full time employee, part time employee, or if there is dissatisfaction with the current network support team.
Full and Part Time Employees
Sometimes the idea is that a full time internal employee just doesn’t have enough to do to support the business. Sometimes, employees hired from larger firms don’t fit in culturally at smaller ones. Sometimes the skills obtained by an employee in a small firm grow stale. Conversely, the employee decides to leave because there is little or no opportunity to learn new skills, or they feel trapped in the position and feel there is no career path at the firm. Part time employees are offered full time jobs and decide to leave, or the firm finds that part time employees are never there when a problem strikes, resulting in either overtime to bring the employee in off schedule or having to wait until the employee becomes available to handle the problem.
Network Support Dissatisfaction
Sometimes, firms become complacent, charging more while delivering less. Sometimes they are sold to larger firms and no longer provide personalized service. In the same vein, sometimes they expand and their new personnel lack the skills previously enjoyed. It also happens that firms obtain too many clients and cannot service them effectively, resulting in slower response times and shoddy service. There are also cases where the business focus changes, and market segments previously served are dropped, or specialized services are adopted or curtailed that render the business relationship dysfunctional.
Identify Your Reason to Outsource
Before you contact a support specialist like Vectrocon, you need to think about and have a solid answer as to why you want to outsource. ”Saving money” sounds like a good answer, but you need to understand how you intend to save money. If your current IT person has enough (or too much) work, has kept your company up to date with technology and offers good council, you probably can’t save money by outsourcing. If, however, you can’t figure out what that employee does all day, you might be able to save some money. If you think you’re receiving poor support, or it takes too long to solve a problem, or when you meet competitors they seem to be able to get to their information faster and with higher levels of accuracy, that is another reason to consider outsourcing. They key is to identify exactly what business benefit you expect to receive, and quantify what that is worth to you.
In my next piece, I will start answering the how and whys of outsourcing Information Technology for small business.
Web Development Tools Emerge
October 18th, 2011Our small business clients increasingly rely on web development tools to present their businesses, their goods, their services and their customer service skills. Sometimes this happens directly on their websites, and sometimes these tools are developed and used internally. Either way, the easier it is to craft tools that help your business manage data and optimize operations and customer service, the more likely you are to retain customers, increase margins and improve cash flow.
Our client base includes Central New Jersey and South East Florida, but the new tools could help small businesses just about anywhere worldwide. Among the new tools are Adobe’s Beta (still in development) version of Muse and Edge, and Google has announced Dart, which it has open sourced and is presenting as a standard to replace javascript. Will these tools redefine the world for small businesses looking for better tools? Probably not, but every tool that comes out, even if it fails to achieve all its marketers claims, still helps add to the corpus of how to build better tools.
Muse attempts to generate very solid graphical websites using the idiom of print layout. This has caused a ruckus among both designers and developers, as the different groups argue about the limits of this approach. In general, most negative publicity stems from the fact that like every other graphical coding tool I’ve ever heard of, it generates voluminous code, much of which is inefficient. This translator element of the software also hides important words from search engines, making search engine optimization of sites built with the tool difficult. However, if you’re looking to build a quick site that needs to be pretty and you need to do it very quick, say a sub-site for a new product launch or new physical location or special event, this tool might be for you. Muse will apparently be subscription based.
Edge is Adobe’s answer to HTML5 animation. Adobe, of course, produces Flash, which dominates animation design on the web. However, the latest HTML5 specification allows for much of what Flash can do directly in HTML. With Apple not supporting Flash on any of its mobile devices, and Flash itself being prone to problems as a plug-in to other web browsers, Flash’s days as the dominant player in this market may be limited. Additionally, by producing a graphical tool similar to its Flash development product, Adobe may be able to switch from one product to another and no longer have the expense of updating and securing the Flash Player software. For developers, using Flash 5 solves several problems in coding. If you’ve used Flash, you could use Edge to help transition animated items. On the other hand, HTML 5 still has a lot of limitations, but it is a step in the right direction.
Finally, Google’s Dart language won’t be making any inroads any time soon, as it takes a long time for a programming language to become a standard and then be adopted and integrated into current technologies. However, if Dart can solve some of the performance and complexity issues it is designed to do, it may make a difference in the future.
If you’re firm develops tools or websites, even for in house use, you should make sure you keep track of some of the latest tools. Eventually, they’re going to make a difference. If you don’t have time to do these things in house but would like to discuss some ways that custom software development might solve some basic business problems, feel free to contact us.
iPhone 4S Sees Strong Sales / iOS 5 Garners Strong Reviews
October 17th, 2011Despite many analysts lukewarm ratings for the new iPhone 4S, end users have been gobbling the things up like mad. Reports indicate that Apple sold out of the phones for its retail divisions across all networks. Marketwatch reported that approximately 4 million of the devices sold on the first weekend they were available. Another report I read stated that in China, where the phone has yet to launch, grey market imports fetch $2,000.00 on the street. Should your small business be eating up Apple’s candy too?
Clearly the phone resonates with its audience of consumers. In terms of technical analysts, PC Magazine reported on the Sprint version of the device, and indicated that dropped call issues, a notable concern with the iPhone 4, were corrected in this model. Siri, the personal assistant service that interprets your voice and commands the phone, apparently works quite well. Finally, the new dual core processor, identical to the one found in the iPad 2, provides a fast experience on the phone.
PC Magazine also reported that the iOS 5 operating system has several benefits, even when installed on older phones such as the 3GS and 4. (iOS 5 will not install on an iPhone 3G). Although Siri is only available on the iPhone 4S, the operating system still provides a faster browser and security updates across all phone models that it will install on. It also cleans up a few interface issues. Also, if you want to be able to use the new iCloud service to synchronize your various Apple products seamlessly, you must have iOS 5.
Our take for our small business clients: if you have an iPhone 3G and wish to stay with Apple, the upgrade is practically necessary if for no other reason you can’t install the most secure version of the iOS. If you own a 3GS, it’s certainly reasonable to consider an upgrade. The 3GS is now venerable as well, and there is a lot to like in the 4, with additional refinements in the 4S. If you have an iPhone 4, unless you’re a die hard, have to have the latest from Apple type of person, we’d pass (we’re passing internally because we’re in this situation). Although Siri sounds great, and faster always helps out, it doesn’t justify the cost to upgrade. If you hate the call quality on your iPhone 4 and might otherwise switch phones, you may wish to at least examine the 4S instead. In all cases, you’re betting that Apple will not release its next iPhone for at least another year, which seems like a reasonable guess to make given Apple’s previous rollout history.
If you own a 3GS or 4, should you upgrade? Although there have been reports of catastrophic failures, our own Peter Lampard upgraded his iPhone 4 to iOS 5 without difficulty. His biggest complaint — time. The upgrade apparently downloads all content as a backup to iTunes, resets the device, blows in the new operating system, and then restores your settings. Clearly, this is a major upgrade and if you have a device with lots of content on it, this operation will take awhile. However, increased security and new features (and a speed boost when surfing the web according to PC Magazine) should make it worth the risk. Oh, and trying this in the middle of a thunderstorm — probably not the best idea.
Back from Hiatus – Small Business Technology Blog Continues
October 14th, 2011We took a bit of an hiatus from writing our blog. The end of the summer became quiet as usual, and events such as hurricane Irene and its aftermath on our offices has occupied time otherwise spent writing posts here.
Of course, the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs clearly ranks as one of the most important events in the small business IT space during our absence. The last post on this blog detailed my thoughts on Apple with Steve only taking an advisory role, much in the way that Bill Gates did with Microsoft. Since that post, it became clear that Mr. Jobs illness had progressed to a terminal stage, and when he said that he could no longer perform his duties he was most probably being perfectly literal. I have owned and operated a variety of computers over the years, but my first computer was the iconic Apple IIe. I learned to use a computer and program on that machine. I think that without Steve Jobs, that product, and many others thereafter, would not have seen the light of day, or would not have been nearly as successful. Hopefully Apple will find some talent to augment his loss — replacement will be impossible.
In other news, security continues to be a massive problem, with a certificate authority (the folks that validate that the secure site you think you’re talking to really is the secure site you think you’re talking to…) hacked and its security certificates compromised, new leaks in industrial control, or SCADA systems and ongoing reports of hacking at all sizes of organizations. Patches keep coming from all major vendors, and the number of possible infection points seems to grow daily.
Cloud computing continues to gain steam, and prices continue to fall. New products such as the iPhone 4s, new Android operating systems and other tools continue to invigorate mobile computing. Increasing numbers of our clients have adopted flexible working arrangements, in many cases because the owners themselves see personal benefits to doing so. As organizations physically decentralize, cloud computing becomes increasingly attractive. If your workforce is distributed, why shouldn’t at least portions of your infrastructure be as well?
Our clients in Florida have thus far been spared damage from hurricanes this year, although ironically our New Jersey clients took some damage, mostly short term. Once again, cloud computing aided clients that adopted it, as organizations were able to continue performing business even if their main offices were knocked offline by the storm. Irene proved our conviction that cloud computing’s inherent disaster recovery benefits should not be overlooked, especially for organizations with distributed workforces.
Steve Jobs’ Resignation: Does Cook see Ballmer in the Mirror?
August 25th, 2011The first thought that crossed my mind when I heard Steve Jobs had resigned from Apple, was that I hope Mr. Cook does better than Mr. Ballmer at taking over the reigns from a genius. Some CEOs can come and go and the companies for which they work hardly notice, or in some cases substantially improve. It seems, however, that Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and the like, were surprisingly curious, realistic, driven, charismatic (in their own way) and ingenious. They are impossible to replace, except with someone who has gone through the same crucible.
When Steve Jobs was thrown out of Apple by an incompetent Board, it fell into ruin. Admittedly, this was largely the fault of a Board of Directors that was entirely clueless and that Jobs couldn’t work with, but the result was the same; no Jobs, no Apple. History is not repeating itself, as this time Jobs is leaving of personal necessity if not entirely by choice. He will retain his influence by becoming Chairman of the Board, and that will help. He is also appointing a long time “company man”; intelligent, competent.
This, however, is where I think there is a great similarity with Ballmer and Microsoft. Steve was also a hand picked successor and long time employee. He is by all accounts a driven, extremely intelligent man. His competence has been proven over decades of experience. And yet, Microsoft is not what it was under Bill Gates. Some would argue that the DOJ ruling stopped Microsoft’s ability to leverage the monopoly Bill Gates enjoyed, but Microsoft has become an apathetic entity, with the feeling, much like IBM, that it is a has-been. It is by all measures still a successful company. However, its products lack their prior appeal. There’s no sense at a product launch that they now own whatever space they’ve just entered. When Bill Gates demanded that Microsoft’s engineers incorporate the Internet into their designs, Microsoft ended up owning that space. People believed they would, and they did. It has been argued it was their monopolistic power that did this, but in the US, where IE is still bundled with every Microsoft computer, competitors such as Mozilla, Google and even Apple have eroded Microsoft’s dominant market share over the years. Microsoft doesn’t win by default any longer. In fact, other than the Xbox and Kinect, it seems like it hasn’t won in a very long time.
For Microsoft, the problem appears to be that the company has taken on the perceived personality of its leader. Very competent, very successful, very practical, very calculated, very boring. Ballmer is not, nor can he ever be more than a very successful manager. He has never been able to garner the near awe that his predecessor brought with him. He lacks the ability to cultivate an air of bravura.
I fear that the same may be true of Apple’s fortunes. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a solid manager to take over for one of these luminaries. Replacing a charismatic, ingenious, fearless leader with an intelligent, highly educated, likable and competent leader is always a downgrade. Tim Cook may be a great manager, but I can’t imagine that he is in the same class as Steve Jobs. You can’t be promoted to that rank, you must make your own way there. Apple no longer enjoys the daily ministrations of one of the great leaders of Silicon Valley.
HP’s Grand Scheme Flares Out
August 19th, 2011I think Hewlett Packard has truly run into a terrible time. Their latest concept, creating a ubiquitous operating system that could run embedded in devices (cameras, camcorders, smartphones, tablets, printers), cell phones as well as personal computers and notebooks, apparently could not compete in their own tablet design. HP announced that it would eliminate production of its WebOS tablets, hardly any time after they were introduced. These devices were the initial and perhaps premiere platform on which WebOS would grow. Apparently, my previous thoughts that the world just didn’t need another mobile operating system went unheeded by HP.
HP also announced that they were exiting the PC business. It looks like HP wants to be IBM. I’m not sure why they would want to try and be something that already exists, but there you go. It also sounds like this change in strategy will pretty much doom the WebOS everywhere movement. It may still have some legs, but with the plethora of established alternatives, I just don’t see the point.
HP really needs a solid strategy that isn’t “me too”. Their first attempt leveraged the tradition of HP innovation, but undercut it by using someone else’s technology and poor planning and execution. Now it seems that they’re looking to become just another IBM. I don’t see the value there, either. Someone on the HP board better start figuring things out, though, and fast.
Why Buy a Phone Now?
October 20th, 2011I’ve heard a lot of negative reviews of the iPhone 4S, largely due to the fact it does not support LTE, the latest high speed data protocol that all of the major wireless carriers here in the US are adopting. LTE is a big deal (see our varied posts on the subject in this blog) but I’m not entirely surprised that Apple didn’t incorporate it into the 4S. From what I can see, the 4S is a bridge phone.
If you run an iPhone 3 or 3GS I still think it might pay you to upgrade if you want to stay with Apple. If you don’t mind looking elsewhere, though, I’d say to wait a bit until the Motorola Razr and other phones come out with Android 4, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich. The new mobile OS has a lot of great new features and certainly seems to compete with iOS 5. If the iCloud idea, synching everything between all of your Apple devices, isn’t for you, then an Android 4 based phone seems like it should be a good idea. However, keep in mind that these things are literally just rolling out also, so there could be some bumps there as well. Most of the phones that support this will most likely also support LTE, so it might make some inroads against Apple.
We have clients with both phones. I personally have found earlier versions of the Android phone a bit clunky, but my opinion seems to be in the minority. I must say that I’ve found the reviews of Android 4 to be highly intriguing. If you’re a small business and you’re at the doorstep of an upgrade, you should definitely consider waiting to see some of the Android 4 phones. Remember also, however, that cell phones, unlike PCs, are very personal devices. What one person thinks is great another can find annoying. We always tell our clients to get hands on with any phone they might consider and try it out. There is no substitute for actually having a device in hand and trying it for yourself.
Tags: Smartphones, upgrade options
Posted in Mobile Devices, Product and Company Commentary | Comments Off