E-Newsletter June 2007

Happy June!

Now that we're well into summer, Phoenicians are starting to make their annual pilgrimage to cooler ground. For some it is a cabin in Flagstaff, or maybe a condo in Southern California. Others venture to their summer homes back east to wait out the heat.

Regardless of whether you're headed out in search of cooler pastures, or a diehard like me that's going to power through with the help of my swimming pool, we all need to stay in touch while we're out of the office.

It works out quite nicely then that June has refocused us on Mobility and the solutions we are implementing for customers in that space. We have partnered again with the Windows Mobile team from Microsoft and talked with hundreds of customers at a Verizon event on June 6. Additionally, we are also trying to put together a Windows Mobile breakfast event with Microsoft towards the end of the month. We haven't finalized on that one yet, but if you want to make sure to get on the mailing list, please let us know.

As I survey the current mobile technology landscape, and our customer's thinking around it, I think we are really starting to move into the Early Majority phase of Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) using mobile devices to synchronize personal information (calendar, contacts, email and tasks). While I think this use of mobile technology is great, and we are helping MANY customers implement the infrastructure and devices for this today, I'd encourage the strategic technology thinkers among you to start thinking more broadly.

There was a great article in The Wall Street Journal this week about a university campus that has equipped all of its maintenance workers with smart phones. Yes, these employees can do the basic information sync discussed above, but they can also do much more such as manage their work orders, enter time, and look up information needed to do their job. While the devices did cost them $35 per month, they estimated that they were saving $18 per day, making it well worth the effort. Our software development team that focuses on the Residential Construction industry was creating such applications on very early mobile devices way back in 2001. When we look back at what we had to work with then in comparison with the tools and capabilities that are available today, the difference is mind boggling.

So as you think about the mobile technology (or lack thereof) in your organization, I'd really encourage you to think beyond the sync of personal information, towards what else can be done with these devices once they are in people's hands. We are VERY big on practicing what we preach, so our own staff all carry mobile devices that not only sync their personal information, but also run a mobile version of our CRM application that allows them to manage service tickets, record time, look up customer information, and a wide variety of other tasks.

As always, if you'd like to sit down and spend a little time with us strategizing on how mobile technology could be more fully and strategically leveraged within your organization, please give us a call.

Have a great month and stay cool!

Spam continues to be a pervasive problem that all small to mid-sized businesses must deal with. According to the most recent Symantec Internet Security Threat Report: * Between July 1 and December 31, 2006, spam made up 59% of all monitored email traffic. This is an increase over the first six months of 2006 when 54% of email was classified as spam.

65% of all spam detected during this period was written in English.

Spam related to financial services made up 30% of all spam during this period, the most of any category.

During the last six months of 2006, 44% of all spam detected worldwide originated in the United States.

Dealing with spam is a waste of valuable employee time. According to a new study conducted by Nucleus Research, two out of every three email messages received by today's business users are spam. The study also says that users are spending 16 seconds identifying and deleting each spam email, at a cost of $712 per employee in lost productivity, which translates into an annual cost of $70 billion to all U.S. businesses.

Read more

Notes from the Network Engineering Department:

Note to readers: As our network engineers work with all of you across our entire customer base, they observe trends and issues that many people have in common, or that many customers will find helpful to know about. This section is designed to give them a mechanism to communicate those issues to you, with the hope that YOU might benefit from.

You may have heard the hoopla this week as Apple released a version of their Safari Web Browser that was capable of running on a PC. If nothing else, it at least provided a chuckle for all of us who make our living off Microsoft technology. As you are well aware, Apple has done wonders lately with its "I'm a PC/I'm a MAC" commercials which poke fun at the weaknesses of PCs. One in fact even shows PC infected with a virus and MAC commenting on how that really isn't a problem for him. Well it turns out that when the MAC Safari browser was released for the Windows platform, it took security engineers less than two hours to report on the first security vulnerability in the new Safari browser.

This all simply goes to prove what we have been saying forever regarding security vulnerabilities in today's technology. Yes, it is true that there are a large number of highly publicized security flaws in Microsoft's technology. Yes, it is also true that there are comparatively few on the Macintosh and other niche platforms. The incident with the Safari browser, however, shows us that the reason for this is clearly that the bad guys are going to go after the platform with the largest market share. Given that Apple only has about 5-10% of the PC market, it just isn't an attractive enough target for hackers to spend their time on. On the rare occasions when Apple does pop up on the radar screen, however, they are not only immediately shown to be mortal, but it seems they are in much worse shape than anything Microsoft has released in quite some time (can you imagine the bad press Microsoft would have gotten if someone found a security vulnerability 2 hours after Vista was released?).

The real message we'd like our customers to take away from this incident is not anything about MAC or PC, but is more about the way you think about security vulnerabilities. We've put together a few points to ponder:

1. Even though it sometimes seems trivial or a waste of time/money, you really do need to get your patches up to date.
   
   
2. When assessing the security of a platform, don't look at just the raw number of vulnerabilities they have, look instead at how the vendor deals with those vulnerabilities. Do they have a well known patch release schedule? Do they work diligently to address exploits once they find out about them? Do they have an effective communication strategy for their customers?
   
   
3. PLEASE make sure your antivirus software is kept up to date regularly. Of course we have plans that can monitor this for you, but even without that, you should check it to make sure everything is working as it should.

In the old days, keeping on top of all this was a largely manual process. Today our automated tools do all of this and we only get involved to manage exceptions. The monthly cost of our monitoring plans is so low, you can't even justify having internal resources spend time on this. Give us a call today so we can help get you into compliance, and then leave our itSynergize toolset behind so you'll stay there.

June 2007
In this issue....

 □  Welcome
 □  New Wave of Spam
 □  Tech Corner
 □  To - Do - Bar
 □  Battery Tips

Outlook To-Do-Bar

• Helps You Manage Your Day

  Outlook 2007 includes new productivity features like the To-Do Bar, Instant Search and more
  
  E-mail is a big part of more and more jobs, with some workers now required to respond to dozens of mails each day. So, naturally, the tools used to manage e-mail keep getting better.
  
  Look no further than Outlook 2007 for the evidence. The latest version of the venerable messaging program that ships with the Microsoft Office System takes its built-in e-mail/calendaring/task management tools to another level.
  
  If you're already an Outlook user, here are five reasons to upgrade to the latest version.

Battery Tips for Mobile Gadgets

• By Christopher Elliott
  Reprinted with permission from
  Microsoft Small Business Center
  
  Mention the words "battery life." The first gadget that comes to mind is probably the energy-consuming laptop computer - particularly if you're on the go a lot.
  
  If not, it should be. There never seems to be enough juice to run your portable PC, as I griped about in a previous article. Ah, but if laptop PCs were the extent of your battery blues, you might not feel so, well, powerless.
  
  But power problems plague other mobile devices. For example, a 2003 In-Stat/MDR survey found that long battery life ranked as the most important feature to business users when selecting a wireless handset. Users of personal digital assistants (PDAs) are just as concerned about a possible energy crisis. I know because I am one and I never seem to stop worrying about running dry.
  
  So, what about mobile gadgets? How do you make sure your batteries last as long as possible?
  
  
  Here are four tips.

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