Back in December, we blogged about Apple's growing popularity in the business world. Since then, we've received quite a few inquiries about iPads in the workplace.
Xantrion service manager Darren Nyberg has been handling these calls. These are the three questions he gets most often — and the answers he's most likely to give:
1. Email on an iPad? Absolutely. It's as easy to set up as a smartphone, and its large screen, always-on Internet connection, and affordability make it an ideal tool for mobile employees who need fast access to email and attachments.
2. Secure connectivity on an iPad? No problem. The capability is built into Apple's iOS.
3. Using your iPad as a primary computer? We generally recommend this only for health care, retail, and other special situations where employees need a lightweight way to keep information at their fingertips. The iPad's touchscreen keyboard isn't built for speed, so it's not the best tool for tasks that require a lot of typing. Frequent flyers should also stick with laptops so they can work offline in transit, since in-flight Internet is typically slow (when it's available at all).
We love the iPad's portability, and we love helping our customers take advantage of it — so if you want iPads in your office, let us help you make it happen.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Xantrion consultants, like Derrick Aquino, are a dedicated group
If we had to describe Xantrion's consultants in one word, that word might be "dedicated" — and we don't just mean the dedicated contact we assign to every client. Our consultants are willing to go the extra mile for clients, even on their own time.
One of our clients found that out during a recent move that relocated a single office and warehouse in Alameda to two separate locations in Concord. Two months before the move, operations manager Nick Hensley met with the client's IT liaison and office manager to determine what would be involved. Primary engineer Derrick Aquino then took over planning, implementation, and management. Aquino created a detailed checklist and schedule covering everything from recommending a new Internet vendor and ensuring the new location had the right kind of electrical circuits to updating all the documentation for the client's hardware.
On the Friday of the move, Aquino unracked the client's servers and networking equipment and transported it to the new location in a truck he rented for the occasion, then set up and tested the network in its new location. Once the moving company brought over the client's desktop computers and printers, Hensley and four other Xantrion engineers — Tyler Woods, Marty Tuttle, Austin Ngau, and Mike Peth — gave up their Sunday to set up and configure every workstation so the client's employees could show up on Monday and get right to work.
"Our job is to keep clients happy and get it done," Aquino says. "And in this case, everything was just humming come Monday morning. It was as smooth as a move could have gone."
One of our clients found that out during a recent move that relocated a single office and warehouse in Alameda to two separate locations in Concord. Two months before the move, operations manager Nick Hensley met with the client's IT liaison and office manager to determine what would be involved. Primary engineer Derrick Aquino then took over planning, implementation, and management. Aquino created a detailed checklist and schedule covering everything from recommending a new Internet vendor and ensuring the new location had the right kind of electrical circuits to updating all the documentation for the client's hardware.
On the Friday of the move, Aquino unracked the client's servers and networking equipment and transported it to the new location in a truck he rented for the occasion, then set up and tested the network in its new location. Once the moving company brought over the client's desktop computers and printers, Hensley and four other Xantrion engineers — Tyler Woods, Marty Tuttle, Austin Ngau, and Mike Peth — gave up their Sunday to set up and configure every workstation so the client's employees could show up on Monday and get right to work.
"Our job is to keep clients happy and get it done," Aquino says. "And in this case, everything was just humming come Monday morning. It was as smooth as a move could have gone."
Monday, December 19, 2011
Apple’s growing popularity in the business market
Our crystal ball -- okay, the industry media reinforced by client early adopters -- is indicating Apple is becoming a significant player in the business market.
Last month, the New York Times noted big companies are buying significant numbers of iPhones and iPads for employees who need even more portability than a laptop provides. This trend means IT departments need to figure out how to accommodate them in the corporate environment.
Xantrion has been exploring solutions that will allow us to handle this trend. Over the next few months, we'll share our thoughts and findings.
Last month, the New York Times noted big companies are buying significant numbers of iPhones and iPads for employees who need even more portability than a laptop provides. This trend means IT departments need to figure out how to accommodate them in the corporate environment.
Xantrion has been exploring solutions that will allow us to handle this trend. Over the next few months, we'll share our thoughts and findings.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
It’s official, cloud computing is mainstream!
Last month, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman waxed enthusiastic about the way cloud computing can let businesses turn social media into new opportunities. Friedman also wrote about the cloud's ability to give anyone, anywhere, access to major computing power as if it were a new phenomenon. He even used the word "revolutionary."
That's not news to us!
Gartner projected a dramatic shift to cloud computing way back in 2008. Businessweek reported that same year on how eagerly small and midsize businesses were jumping on board. And it's already been five years -- an eternity in the IT world -- since Amazon became the first company to offer cloud services to external customers.
The cloud and its possibilities can be dazzlingly new to people (including New York Times columnists) who don't spend their days thinking about technology. To those of us who work in IT, though, it's already a familiar part of the landscape.
In other words, if you're considering adopting cloud-based technology, you can be confident that we have a good grasp on it. We'd go so far as to say it's now officially mainstream.
That's not news to us!
Gartner projected a dramatic shift to cloud computing way back in 2008. Businessweek reported that same year on how eagerly small and midsize businesses were jumping on board. And it's already been five years -- an eternity in the IT world -- since Amazon became the first company to offer cloud services to external customers.
The cloud and its possibilities can be dazzlingly new to people (including New York Times columnists) who don't spend their days thinking about technology. To those of us who work in IT, though, it's already a familiar part of the landscape.
In other words, if you're considering adopting cloud-based technology, you can be confident that we have a good grasp on it. We'd go so far as to say it's now officially mainstream.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Xantrion wants to be sure our clients get what they pay for -- and not just from us
Our client, a professional services firm, was paying over $4,000 a month for a 6 Mbps link between its San Francisco and Los Angeles offices, but the connection was unreliable and never exceeded 2 Mbps. Two years of trouble tickets failed to resolve the problem. In fact, the telecom vendor insisted everything was testing correctly on its end.
The professional services firm asked Xantrion to look into the problem. Consultant Christian Kelly discovered that the vendor had misconfigured their network equipment at installation.
Armed with this proof, the client was able to negotiate a full reimbursement of the roughly $130,000 they had paid for the faulty connection, as well as exit the contract early without penalty. Xantrion helped secure a new contract with the service provider which greatly increased the speed of the link at a lower monthly cost.
The moral of the story? Xantrion wants to be sure our clients get what they pay for -- and not just from us.
The professional services firm asked Xantrion to look into the problem. Consultant Christian Kelly discovered that the vendor had misconfigured their network equipment at installation.
Armed with this proof, the client was able to negotiate a full reimbursement of the roughly $130,000 they had paid for the faulty connection, as well as exit the contract early without penalty. Xantrion helped secure a new contract with the service provider which greatly increased the speed of the link at a lower monthly cost.
The moral of the story? Xantrion wants to be sure our clients get what they pay for -- and not just from us.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Don't take Cloud Security for Granted
If you're going to trust your data to the cloud, your cloud service providers need to be trustworthy. They may not be as secure as they say they are. We've seen two examples just this month:
On June 2, Sony suffered its second network breach of the year, losing control of more than a million customer records including names, addresses, passwords, and other personal information. An earlier breach in April, thought to be the largest in Internet history, exposed more than 100 million customer accounts and shut down the PlayStation Network for more than a month.
A code update at Dropbox accidentally disabled password protection on user accounts for four hours on June 19. Although Dropbox has notified everyone whose account was logged in during that four-hour window and has yet to identify any unauthorized activity, the bug has caused serious chills across the company's user base, and a fever among some customers to find an alternative.
Make sure your cloud service providers offer a level of security that meets your needs -- and your expectations!
On June 2, Sony suffered its second network breach of the year, losing control of more than a million customer records including names, addresses, passwords, and other personal information. An earlier breach in April, thought to be the largest in Internet history, exposed more than 100 million customer accounts and shut down the PlayStation Network for more than a month.
A code update at Dropbox accidentally disabled password protection on user accounts for four hours on June 19. Although Dropbox has notified everyone whose account was logged in during that four-hour window and has yet to identify any unauthorized activity, the bug has caused serious chills across the company's user base, and a fever among some customers to find an alternative.
Make sure your cloud service providers offer a level of security that meets your needs -- and your expectations!
Monday, April 25, 2011
Xantrion Consultant Solves A Problem Microsoft Couldn't
Our Senior Consultant Ben Ludwig knows Microsoft Exchange better than anyone else at Xantrion. Now he can brag that he knows it better than most of Microsoft's own engineers -- because last month, Ludwig found a solution to a tricky Exchange migration issue that even Microsoft had only been able to solve once before.
One of our clients wanted to upgrade its email system and needed to complete the migration with as little downtime as possible. Since the client was still using Exchange 2003, Ludwig had to help them leapfrog over Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. That brought up a known issue. Other users migrating directly from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 had reported that they could use Outlook Web Access to retrieve email from any browser, or they could use ActiveSync to access their email, calendars, and contacts from a smartphone, but they couldn't do both at once.
"I knew it was going to be a problem, but I had to make it work," Ludwig says.
A typical Exchange migration project takes 40 hours. This one took 150, many of them on the phone with a senior Exchange specialist at Microsoft. But in the end, Ludwig found a way to give our client both webmail and mobile email.
Microsoft's pro told Ludwig it was only the second time anyone had been able to solve this particular problem. But it's certainly not the last time. Ludwig has documented the entire process in detail so other Xantrion consultants can duplicate it.
One of our clients wanted to upgrade its email system and needed to complete the migration with as little downtime as possible. Since the client was still using Exchange 2003, Ludwig had to help them leapfrog over Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. That brought up a known issue. Other users migrating directly from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 had reported that they could use Outlook Web Access to retrieve email from any browser, or they could use ActiveSync to access their email, calendars, and contacts from a smartphone, but they couldn't do both at once.
"I knew it was going to be a problem, but I had to make it work," Ludwig says.
A typical Exchange migration project takes 40 hours. This one took 150, many of them on the phone with a senior Exchange specialist at Microsoft. But in the end, Ludwig found a way to give our client both webmail and mobile email.
Microsoft's pro told Ludwig it was only the second time anyone had been able to solve this particular problem. But it's certainly not the last time. Ludwig has documented the entire process in detail so other Xantrion consultants can duplicate it.
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