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Last Wednesday on June 12th, Lanlogic and Windstream hosted a dinner event at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Walnut Creek where attendees learned about how advancements in technology have allowed for businesses to maximize efficiency, disaster recovery, and ROI beyond the cloud. After introductions over wine, the evening began with a demonstration by Windstream of their new app for the iPad that allows the iPad to act as a personal, portable Allworx business phone. Then, after Windstream’s demonstration, one of Lanlogic and Windstream’s mutual Bay Area clients spoke with the audience about her experience doing business with both companies. She illustrated Lanlogic’s attentiveness to each individual client, and their outstanding, lasting solution oriented thinking.
Finally, Lanlogic and Windstream shared a real-life example of Technology Review and Bill Analysis Results that generated tens of thousands of dollars in savings, as well as vastly improved network performance. One of our clients discovered that they could save 30% on their phone and internet expenses while also tripling their internet bandwidth speeds. Furthermore, just by switching to Windstream, the client saved a total of $1500 per month. If that wasn’t enough, the client also won a Microsoft Surface Pro Windows 8 Tablet because after analyzing their voice and data service invoices, Windstream found that they could help this client the most out of all the attendees. To learn more about how Lanlogic can maximize your organization’s efficiency and save you money, learn more here: Lanlogic Bay Area IT Services, Support and Consulting
A strong technology platform and a secure cloud infrastructure are absolutely essential for data protection you can count on. But you need more. You need a partner with a team of data recovery experts who’ll be there for you, especially when you need them most. Lanlogic is here to ensure that—no matter what—you’ll always get your data back.
Advancements in technology have reduced the cost of bandwidth dramatically. Now is a great time to take a fresh look to see how these changes could help your business maximize efficiency, disaster recovery and ROI beyond the cloud. Join Lanlogic & Windstream as we share real-life examples of Technology Review / Bill Analysis Results that have generated tens of thousands of dollars in savings, vastly improved network performance and beefed up business continuity.
In order to gain admission to this event you will need to share a sample month of your business’s communications bills: voice, internet, data, conferencing and hardware maintenance (minimum $1000 in total monthly recurring charges). Prior to the event a side-by-side comparison will be conducted in order to compare the savings and other benefits your business may be missing out on. You will have the chance to win a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet if your case is chosen to be shared with the audience.
Complimentary dinner and refreshments will be served.
Date: June 12th, 2013
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Place: Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, Walnut Creek
1553 Olympic Blvd
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
During this event, you will learn how Windstream can help:
- Simplify your communications infrastructure
- Provide an affordable solution that improves performance and business continuity
- Save you money on your IT and phone system
Please RSVP at:
http://bit.ly/134dRX7
Flash-Optimized from the Ground Up
Nimble Storage arrays were designed from the ground up to integrate solid state and disk drives in order to maximize storage efficiency. Built on the patented Cache Accelerated Sequential Layout(CASL) architecture, Nimble Storage features:
- Scalable Performance
- Unparalleled efficiency
- Integrated data protection
- Simple Push-Button Management
As a result, customers can run more workloads and backups with less storage infrastructure, and empower IT to take on new projects with higher returns.
Contact Lanlogic today to learn more about Nimble Storage.
The Texas Department of Information Resources is adopting Office 365 for more than 100,000 employees in the largest state-wide deployment of email and collaboration services in the U.S.
The state will consolidate multiple systems in an effort to streamline and improve the state’s communication and collaboration capabilities across agencies and to help better serve the needs of its citizens. The move to the cloud offers significant savings in IT spending due to greater efficiencies and increased capacity, while providing employees with web conferencing, real-time collaboration and document and calendar sharing.
Office 365 also will help maintain the state’s compliance posture and high standards for security and privacy. Several agencies, including the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Alcohol and Beverage Commission, Department of Insurance, Health and Human Services, and many others, require access to data that is subject to complex security and privacy regulations. Microsoft has made a contractual commitment to the Texas Department of Information Resources by signing the CJIS Security Addendum in addition to a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. As a result of this partnership, jurisdictions at all levels within the State of Texas, including cities and counties, will be able to take advantage of Office 365.
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2013/02/15/office-365-customer-state-of-texas.aspx
A teacher would never be satisfied with her performance if she discovered that the entire back row of her classroom was unable to hear her lecture. In the world of cloud services for business, we see things the same way. With Office 365, every user counts!
Google has a different approach. It starts counting downtime only after at least 5 percent of users are affected. Imagine if 100 of your 2,000 users had no access to email. Would you, as an IT professional, be satisfied with your performance? Would your business hold you accountable for your performance? The answers to these questions are clear. Calculating downtime only after 5 percent of your users cannot access email, as Google does, makes it more difficult for you to assess impact to user productivity. Google’s approach doesn’t help your business with meaningful performance metrics.
With Office 365, every affected customer and every service counts when we calculate downtime. Downtime means the total minutes in a month during which service is unavailable, excluding scheduled downtime. For services like email, there is no scheduled downtime, an experience that our many Exchange Server customers have long been accustomed to-system maintenance while they continue to be productive in their Outlook inboxes.
In addition to the way it calculates downtime, Google also combines consumer and commercial service availability when reporting the availability of Gmail. This means if you are considering Google Apps for Business, you cannot get accurate information regarding the availability of the commercial service that you need. On the other hand, Microsoft’s approach to calculating downtime, which includes every user minute, helps you understand whether your users’ productivity is being impacted by downtime of email.
Google takes a “use at your risk” approach around Google+, Hangout and Google Voice. These services are not part of Google Apps for Business and are excluded from the SLA. Excluding these services from the SLA while promoting them as part of the business experience further underscores how Google simply doesn’t understand enterprise requirements. By contrast, Microsoft’s financially backed SLA is not merely a numbers game; it’s an agreement to provide enterprise-class service. This agreement is scoped to all services that are included within Office 365. Businesses expect that of an enterprise-class service.
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2013/04/18/office-365-a-customer-centric-service-experience.aspx
As government agencies prepare for this week’s Lean Government Virtual Summit, cloud innovation will surely be a hot topic. So why should governments choose Microsoft Office 365 as they consider moving their productivity software to the cloud?
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft_office_365_blog/archive/2013/04/22/why-government-agencies-choose-microsoft-office-365.aspx
Small businesses have enough to focus on without having to spend time and energy worrying about email, data storage or backup servers. In fact, most small businesses don’t know or understand what a server is.
The good news is that in today’s technology environment, they don’t need to. This is because more small businesses are rapidly moving from outdated technology solutions to Web-based solutions to power their company, also known as “moving to the cloud.” By moving to cloud solutions like Office 365, small businesses find they can concentrate their resources on growing their business rather than trying to solve technical issues.
Large enterprises typically have entire divisions dedicated to supporting and keeping their IT infrastructure up and running. Even though small businesses don’t have this luxury, they can still punch above their weight by choosing the enterprise-grade IT services in Office 365 to help solve their most top-of-mind business challenges.
Below are some things small businesses should look for when choosing cloud services to avoid getting bogged down in IT issues:
Simple Setup
Small businesses should find email, productivity and collaboration services that can be set up without needing an IT department. Also, the service should let them easily add new employees or remove access if an employee quits or is fired. Office 365 offers simple setup to get started quickly, and it allows small businesses to customize the service with ease.
Simple to Use
Owners should pick a tool that is easy and intuitive for non-technical users. Picking a solution that employees are already familiar with can minimize training needs and make it faster for employees to start using the services. Some services even make it easy to set and change which employees can access documents, who can edit them and which can have even more access.
Secured
Businesses of all sizes need to protect data from malicious threats, and small businesses should make sure their cloud services are highly secured and use virus detection software.
Private
Business strategies and tactics are the secret ingredients to success; owners should be careful to pick an email service that values end-user privacy Also, they should consider services that let the business remove data on-demand. Office 365 offers a robust set of certifications and standards options that can help your business comply with standards such as HIPAA and FISMA.
Reliable
The key to making cloud services work for any business is being able to count on them to be stable and reliable. Owners should look for services that provide redundant, reliable and financially backed guarantees that the service will work 99.9 percent of the time. Additionally, it’s smart to search for a service that will let staff work from the office, home or the road on whichever device is easiest at the time – whether that be a tablet, mobile phone or home desktop.
Cloud services are bringing small businesses the technology benefits and features that were once only affordable for large businesses. Using cloud services such as Microsoft Office 365 Small Business Premium that are simple to use, set-up, secure, private and reliable is one way small businesses can better compete and have more time to focus on their core business.
Over the last few years, we have all learned a lot more about health care costs, services, and options. This article does a great job raising awareness about new considerations this year that every HR department or personnel should become familiar with, starting in October.
This article originally appeared on VentureBeat | http://bit.ly/ZAc9YX
In the past, small businesses could afford a certain lack of sophistication in their human resources processes. It was common practice to rely on Excel and labor-intensive reporting, but health care reform is changing the game.
Compliance reporting, benefits administration, and managing employee data are just a few of the back-office tasks that will become more difficult for small businesses to handle manually once further requirements of the Affordable Care Act take effect. The first open enrollment in the health plan exchanges are expected in October and for penny-wise small business owners, throwing additional manpower at these challenges isn’t the answer.
If you haven’t already, now’s the time to enter the age of HR automation.
The new health care exchange — what’s the goal?
A central feature of the new Affordable Care Act is the government’s new health care exchange. While the finer details are still being worked out, the goal of the exchange is to empower citizens to choose affordable benefits from an array of state-sponsored plans.
So what does this mean for small business owners? It means that the onus is on you to ensure that your employees are offered an employer-sponsored plan and offered information on the exchanges as an alternative option. Having a systematic way of tracking, reporting and communicating this data will be essential to the bottom line.
First, you’ll need to provide a report to Uncle Sam including basic demographic and health coverage data for employees and their dependents. Tracking these details will be a time-intensive burden, unless you can automate your reporting. Beyond that, you’ll need to provide proof of enrollment or risk paying $100 per day, per employee for non-compliance.
You’ll also need to make the complete details of health care plans readily available to your employees. Chances are, you already share the details of your own offerings but, later this year, you will also need to provide employees written notice on the state health insurance exchanges. Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) can be set up to provide information on all of an employee’s health care options.
You can also expect each state to have unique reporting requirements to supplement federal mandates. This might be manageable if you have a single office location, but take notice if your company is spread across the country, or if you have a remote workforce. Your ability to meet the specific criteria will be tricky unless you have technology that can track data and provide customized reports to meet each state’s standards.
Pay vs.play?
For many small businesses, the big question of 2013 is whether it’s more costly to play along with new health care reform mandates or pay the penalty taxes associated with eliminating employer-supported health benefits altogether. If you have 50 or more employees, one thing is certain – you’re going to have to change the way you do things.
If you’re considering reducing your workforce by moving employees to part-time or contract status, consider this: the IRS will be watching. Employers will be required to track employees’ hours, and full-time or part-time status, and report to the IRS. “Variable hour employees” need to be carefully monitored and only those that work less than 30 hours in the designated period may be excluded from eligibility for health benefits. If you have less than 50 employees, your decision to play could pay off –you may qualify for a 25 to 50 percent small business tax credit, which would help offset the cost of your insurance plan.
Pay or play, accurate reporting will be the lynchpin of your success in avoiding costly penalties, or cashing in on valuable incentives.
HR automation tools aren’t just for the one percent
As the chairman of an HR technology company, I know most small business owners consider automating anything beyond their payroll to be a luxury. However, in the age of health care reform, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
HR automation is no longer reserved for companies with big budgets and lots of employees. Cloud-based solutions have alleviated the need for businesses to build expensive HRMS system in-house. Today, you can find a scalable, subscription-based HRMS to suit your needs for as little as $10 per employee, per month. These systems will keep you compliant and ease administrative burdens, freeing up time to allow you to focus on taking care of your most valuable resource — your employees.
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