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SEA TO SKY is a professional IT services firm located in Vancouver,
providing complete IT sales, service and support.
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February 24, 2012
The future of business data storage and connectivity is in the cloud. Cloud computing allows business owners to share data in a protected and price effective – pay for what is used and who uses it – monthly fee structure. The idea of cloud-based collaboration is not something new to Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft has been building an all-encompassing cloud solution for a long time. Through internal development and the acquisition of technology firms, such as Groove, – Groove was a company acquired by Microsoft in 2005. Groove’s technology represents the basis of SharePoint Workspace for the synchronization of online and offline data on a SharePoint site - Microsoft is well positioned to further develop Office 365 for the SMB and enterprise cloud marketplace. Microsoft SharePoint Online is built in to Office 365 as an added value product. The goal is to help client unfamiliar with SharePoint realize its potential. How does it work and how can it make your business more efficient?
SharePoint Online is an evolutionary product of the SharePoint family. SharePoint was origionally designed to be hosted on a private server, but SharePoint Online relieves a business of the need for an onsite server by hosting the service in Microsoft’s state of the art, 2+ billion dollar, Microsoft Online Services datacentres. This dedicated, fully redundant, infrastructure alleviates the need for a business to house and maintain the servers needed to run Microsoft’s SharePoint, Exchange and Lync products. All in an effort to provide enterprise services to smaller clients who would have otherwise been unable to purchase them.
SharePoint Online is completely customizable and provides the ability to:
- Manage and share important documents with colleagues
- Share personal insights and status updates with colleagues
- Keep teams in sync and manage important projects
- Find important documents and people easily
- Stay up to date with company information and news
- Create Microsoft Office documents and save them directly to SharePoint Online.
- Protect sensitive content with document-level permissions.
- Access important documents offline by using SharePoint Workspace.
- Enable real-time communication with colleagues from within SharePoint Online.
- Control service provisioning, monitoring, and reporting to simplify management through a single console.
- Project Professional 2010 synchronizes task status with SharePoint 2010 to enable effective project collaboration with teams.
Because SharePoint Online is designed as a monthly service the software will always be up to date. All updates and new features are pushed down to the end user much quicker than a traditional software update on a server. This rapid deployment helps increase productivity across the end user team in an effort to help them work better, faster, and smarter.
As mentioned above, SharePoint requires customization. This customization will require a SharePoint developer for advanced integration, but most basic file sharing needs can be configured in a very short period of time. If you have any questions about Office 365, SharePoint Online or any other products or services offered by Microsoft, please contact a Sea to Sky team member for more information or visit the Office 365 website at (http://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/office365/enterprise-solutions/business-benefits.aspx)
- Sea to Sky Team
February 17, 2012
It’s back! Microsoft is offering subsidized pricing on new purchases and renewals for business licenses for the following products:
- Microsoft Office 2010,
- Microsoft Exchange 2010
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Small Business Server 2011
- Microsoft Lync 2010
- Microsoft SharePoint 2010
These partner subsidy dollars apply to:
- Open License,
- Open License with Software Assurance,
- Open Value and,
- Open Value Subscriptions.
There are two discount levels; 15% for one product line purchased and 20% if two or more product lines are purchased.
Now is the time to renew or buy because this offer ends March 31st. If you would like more information, Sea to Sky Network Solutions is the Microsoft Partner who can help.
Contact us for more information at info@seatosky.com.
- Sea to Sky Team
February 15, 2012
Did you know that there are different technologies, or protocols, to deliver email? Did you know that Microsoft’s Exchange email protocol is the best solution for a user with numerous devices (computer, phone, tablet, etc…) and multiple users? This article will compare Exchange Online to POP and IMAP which are now older email technologies. POP and IMAP represent email solutions which are less unified and less expensive to maintain. Because of this they are commonly offered as a free service to their users. These services are usually offered free of charge thanks to revenue generated by monthly internet service fees by an ISP (i.e. Telus) or advertising revenue derived from scanning a user’s email messages for keywords (i.e. Google’s Gmail). POP and IMAP have their place in the consumer email world, but there is no doubt that Exchange email is a must for businesses. Let’s take a quick look at the evolution of email; from POP to IMAP to Exchange.
POP Email:
POP email was designed for a time when 56k modems were popular and logging on and off of the internet was the norm; I think we all remember those 56k modem screeches and beeps of days gone by. Because POP email was developed in an era of limited bandwidth, it does not support synchronization between multiple devices. As a result of this limitation POP email does not maintain continuity across multiple devices. This limitation makes it much harder to manage message status (i.e.: what has been sent and received). Now multiply this problem by the number of employees in a business; that is where it gets complicated.
IMAP Email:
Fast forward a few years, the 1990s, and email users are now excited about the introduction of IMAP email protocol. IMAP is a more robust system with features that address some of the limitations of POP email by utilizing the capabilities of broadband internet. IMAP protocol hosts a user’s messages on a server to facilitate the synchronization of multiple devices. These messages remain on the server until they are explicitly deleted by the user. This is a great help for multi-device synchronization, including folder synchronization, in a simplistic world of one user with little to no support needs.
Exchange Email:
Now we get into the good stuff; Exchange email! Most people don’t get excited about this, but the team at Sea to Sky does. We are huge fans of this technology because of the added value it brings to an organization. Exchange offers greater management, security and communication capabilities that help a company manage its intellectual property. Until recently, this technology required an onsite server and continuous support to make sure security patches and updates were installed. The costs associated with this discouraged a lot of SMB owners from purchasing the product. Thankfully, Microsoft recognized the need for hosted Exchange and has since released Office 365 Enterprise plans which offer hosted services in a monthly subscription model. This is proving to be hugely successful and paves the way for growth in the feature set of Office 365.
Exchange’s unique features, thus far, include:
- Better support and synchronization for email, calendar, contacts, tasks, notes, etc…
- Shared calendars and group collaboration features
- 25GB mailboxes
- Slick integration with installed Microsoft Office software (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc…) including Office:Mac 2011
- Growth into SharePoint Online and Lync Online for document sharing and online video, audio and screen sharing conferences.
- Full Push Email (aka always-on) capability
Advanced security and productivity management capabilities, include:
- Legal hold (in case an employee deletes emails)
- Exchange Forefront (enterprise class spam and virus protection)
- Message archiving (backup of all messages)
- 99.9%, financially backed, uptime (ask for details)
- Remotely disable accounts through an administrative console if a device is lost or stolen.
Exchange email services are charged on a per user, not per email address, basis to help reduce costs. Contact a Sea to Sky technician for more information (www.seatosky.com). Additionally, Office 365’s services are advertisement free and do not use your company’s data for marketing purposes.
Here is a short video to help explain the day in the life of an Exchange Online user:
Video: Office 365, Exchange Online
Next up, we will provide a review of Office 365’s SharePoint Online service; stay tuned!
- Sea to Sky Team
February 1, 2012
This week RIM announced their innovative and secure cloud infrastructure, Blackberry Business Cloud Services (BBCS), is now available and fully supported for Microsoft Office 365! This is great news for users who want to take advantage of the cost-saving cloud products offered by Microsoft, while retaining the unparalleled mobile security of a BlackBerry. The RIM/Microsoft partnership is strong and demonstrates the remarkable dedication the two companies have to business client success.
This milestone represents a huge step forward in the day-to-day management of business communication and collaboration. To most people it may not be quite as thrilling as the release of Angry Birds on the PlayBook, but business owners should seriously consider BBCS and Office 365 as a company-wide communication solution. The bottom line is BBCS and Office 365 can save a considerable amount of time and money without foregoing advanced features found in server-based BlackBerry management systems, such as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server family of products.
Before the release of BBCS, the ability to manage an entire organization’s mobile phone system from a central portal was only available to companies who had an onsite server with BlackBerry Enterprise Server software. This hardware/software solution requires a substantial upfront capital investment that most small business cannot justify. Hardware solutions have several growth limitations and can become very expensive to replace if an organization experiences rapid expansion. Additionally, these solutions can be hard to manage on a monthly basis without a dedicated IT person. That is why Sea to Sky’s Microsoft certified team is excited to provide information on cloud services offered by RIM and Microsoft. It really does represent a new way of looking at enterprise email, file sharing and online communication with virtually unlimited scalability. BlackBerry Cloud has been built from the ground up to work with Office 365’s selection of enterprise plans. When properly configured, support costs and capital investment costs become a lot less expensive. Finally, it is comforting to know that these products are being offered directly by Microsoft which eliminates compatibility issues as the product evolves.
Notable features of this collaborative effort include:
- Secure transmission and synchronization of Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar, contacts and organizer data.
- A data management system called BlackBerry Balance which helps to securely separate personal and work data on a single device.
- A cloud, or web, based console allowing IT administrators (Sea to Sky’s technical staff) to manage and secure a BlackBerry smartphone more efficiently.
- Additionally, this console will allow the BlackBerry user to access self-serve options, such as password resets and remote lock/wipe functionality.
For reference, here is a complete comparison of the BlackBerry management solutions currently available: BlackBerry Comparison Document
Now that BlackBerry fully integrates with Office 365, Sea to Sky would like to take this opportunity to let our readers know about a series of blog articles we plan on releasing over the next month. These articles will provide insight into the features of Office 365 and the BlackBerry Cloud. We encourage you to contact us if you have further questions about these new services by emailing info@seatosky.com.
All the best,
- Sea to Sky Team
