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You’ve been there before: a computer or printer in the office goes haywire. You don’t have an in-house I.T. professional, and the only person available to fix it is that kid who happened to fix the fax machine once. Over time, that kid has become your office’s accidental techie! Don’t let this happen in your workplace.
Check out this article that appeared in Utah Business magazine, about accidental techies and i.t.NOW’s remote I.T. services.
I.T.NOW REMOTELY PROTECTS OFFICE COMPUTER NETWORKS FROM VIRUSES AND MALWARE
Recent SEC pornography scandal prompts businesses to increase Internet security
SALT LAKE CITY--i.t.NOW, a Utah-based information technology (I.T.) company, is helping businesses protect their computer networks from spyware and malware with its Threat Management services.
“These types of computer viruses are generally used to infect networks, illegally obtain a user’s information and damage computers or hard drives, and are often found on suspicious Web sites, particularly pornography sites. Viruses and malware can disable your anti-virus program without your knowledge. Subscriptions can expire and stop updating. We remotely monitor these programs to ensure they’re working properly and install regular updates, sometimes three to four times a day,” said i.t.NOW CEO Phil Robinson.
i.t.NOW incorporates three levels of network protection: Domain Name System (DNS) filtering, resident malware software and resident anti-virus software. Clients can customize their level of Internet filtering, from blocking certain sites to complete filtering and monitoring down to what sites each user is visiting. “Web filtering is key, but we can’t block it all. New sites are created daily, and filtering services are always in catch-up mode. If any malware does get through, we use a background program that constantly monitors for threats,” says Robinson.
Robinson cited the recent story regarding pornography use at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Employees were reported to have spent many hours a day on pornography Web sites. One employee attempted to access these sites up to 16,000 times in one month. Another employee, after hundreds of attempts, used a flash drive to bypass a Google search filter to access these sites. Of the 31 employees cited, 17 were senior SEC officers.
“These SEC statistics are alarming. These sites are notorious for viruses, spyware and malware, and when they infect your computer or network, the result could be catastrophic. i.t.NOW’s Threat Management and anti-virus services help secure your office’s computer networks from spyware and malware, and filter these sites from Internet search engines. Pornography is one of the most popular Internet activities, and Utah averages the most pornography consumers per-capita. Make sure this doesn’t happen at your workplace,” said Robinson.
About i.t.NOW
i.t.NOW provides Utah with professional I.T. services for small-to-medium sized businesses. Since 1992, hundreds of Utah companies have saved thousands of dollars by partnering with i.t.NOW to increase employee productivity, reduce down time and protect computer networks. i.t.NOW allows business owners to focus on growing revenue instead of solving computer problems.
For more information on i.t.NOW call (801)562-8778, or visit www.itnow.net.
i.t.Now is a Citrix Silver Partner. Citrix Partner Page >>
Citrix offers a dynamic end-to-end virtualization system that transforms desktops and applications into on-demand services enabling users to work securely and productively from anywhere. Citrix virtualization revolutionizes desktop management and simplifies datacenter operations.
Catching your employees watching YouTube videos or browsing non-work-related websites is frustrating. But, having employees who waste time because computer or network issues prevent them from working feels even worse because then it’s your responsibility.
Businesses rely so heavily on computers and the Internet that even the slightest disruption can bring the gears of workflow to a grinding halt. Something as simple as a bad print driver can take an employee off task for minutes or even hours. Every second an employee sits idle is money lost.
IT consultant Fabien Papleux estimated that if a sales executive’s computer goes down for four hours, the cost in lost productivity is $2,400. The more senior the employee, the more that number increases.
If your data isn’t sufficiently backed up, the cost may be incalculable. A recent study by Pepperdine University concluded that each incident of data loss costs a company $3,957 with 70 percent of that cost being the value of the data itself. Other companies price each incident as high as $1 million.
Other costs aren’t as easy to measure. When you self-diagnose a computer issue to avoid waiting for or paying a technician, there still is a cost. You can calculate it starting with your salary and the revenue you bring in for that time period. Then, if you fail to fix the problem, add in the cost of the professional help and potential hardware/software replacement. Chances are the number you come up with will be in the hundreds.
The bottom line is that computer problems are more than just a headache. They’re a drain on the revenue your employees are paid to bring in. They can cost thousands of dollars and in some cases, force a business to close its doors.
One of my clients, Qualified Associates, is a recruiting agency. Employees there constantly e-mail and communicate with candidates and clients. It previously relied on an hourly independent technician to keep its systems running. The tech often was unavailable for two or three days, and often made multiple visits to solve a particular problem. While affected employees waited for a solution, they were either unable to work or were forced to use backup equipment that was so slow as to be counterproductive.
There is a clear conflict of interest here: technicians that are paid by the hour aren’t motivated to work quickly and efficiently. They also have zero incentive to protect your assets in the long term. The more you call them in, the more money they make.
Much important data is now stored online. Even phones can be rendered useless when computers are down because of online contact books and CRM systems. To protect your business, take the following steps:
If you don’t have the right resources to take these steps, hiring an IT professional or an outsourced partner is a great way to keep productivity high and costs low. In weighing this decision, consider not only the cost of help, but also the cost of what could happen if no one is there to help.
To keep your business profitable, you need your employees to do what you pay them to do. It doesn’t have to be expensive, and it doesn’t require effort. All you need is a team of professionals who have your best interests — your employee’s productivity and your revenue — in mind.
By Lawrence Walsh
Seen on: Channel Insider
Kaseya is developing remote management tools to give solution providers the ability to remotely configure and manage Apple iPhones, Microsoft Mobile and Symbian devices.
In just 18 months since its debut, the Apple iPhone commands the third largest market share for smartphones in the North American market. In 2008, the number of iPhone users soared more than 325 percent, and an increasing number of people are turning in their BlackBerry and Symbian-based devices in favor of Steve Jobs' handheld creation.
The hyper adoption of iPhone is part of the motivation behind Kaseya’s development of tools to support the iPhone, Microsoft Mobile and Symbian OS smartphone platforms. The managed services and automation tools vendor plans to release beta versions of its mobile phone management tools in the first half of 2009 and have a general release available by the third quarter.
“It’s an untapped market and an accelerating market, especially for the services providers,” says Jim Alves, executive vice president of product marketing and strategies.
The Kaseya tool kit will enable full remote management for the Apple iPhone, and devices that use Microsoft Mobile, Microsoft CE and Symbian. According to Gartner, Symbian dominates the smartphone market with nearly a 50 percent share, Research In Motion—makers of BlackBerry devices—is second with 16 percent, iPhone is third with 13 percent and Windows Mobile is fourth with 11 percent.
“[Service providers] will be able to manage the whole device and be able to do configuration, back up the phone, wipe the phone and deploy apps,” Alves said.
Kaseya’s development of smartphone management and support tools for managed services providers has been in the works for more than a year, Alves says. While BlackBerrys and other e-mail enabled cell phones have been in the enterprise for years, the explosion of new smartphone applications and the number of enterprise uses have overwhelmed many IT departments' ability to support mobile platforms.
“The time we spend on getting phones configured is huge. To be able to do remote management on someone’s device would be a great benefit,” says Dan Wilson, CEO of Waypoint Solutions Group in Charlotte, N.C.
Solution and managed service providers say the demand for smartphone support and managed services is practically non-existing among their customers. However, they do see the potential for such services in the near future as the adoption of complex applications for mobile devices increases.
“It’s a very beneficial solution that we could provide,” says Bogi Gudbransson, chief information officer at PEQ Consulting, a managed services and solutions firm in Dayton, Ohio. “People aren’t asking for it today, but it’s a perfect extension of our current services offerings.”
Smartphones are evolving rapidly as bandwidth, processing power, battery life and memory improve. Several enterprise software vendors—most notably Salesforce.com—are providing mobile applets and interfaces to their Web-based applications. Wyse Technology, a thin-client software and hardware vendor, already has an application for iPhones and envisions a day when the smartphone is powerful enough to be a fully functional thin client.
As smartphones evolve, complexity will make it increasingly difficult for in-house IT departments to configure, deploy, manage and secure. Providing low-touch management tools, Kaseya believes, will open new opportunities for companies that deliver managed services.
“Any time we can take control without having to walk someone through the process would be a real benefit,” says Craig Vickers, vice president of sales at IT Now, a solution provider in Sandy, Utah.
Kaseya is also planning to release remote management and automation tools for Apple’s Mac OS X, giving managed service providers the ability to configure and manage the popular consumer desktop. Many service providers are seeing an increasing number of Macs in their customer environments, but they lack the ability to remotely manage and service them in the way they can Windows- and Linux-based PCs.
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