Hello friends!
Although summer is in high gear, our mission as Technology Guides never takes a break. We take the opportunity of summer’s pace to get out of the office more, visit our clients, get together for activities, and volunteer our time. We hope that you’ll join us on some “Sherpa Sightings” – meet us, and see why knowing a Sherpa is a great thing! Keep an eye on your email and our website to see the new events coming up.
Important Bulletin – DNS Infection Could Break Your Internet
Last November, an Estonian hacker ring that infected millions of computers through malware-laded servers was successfully disbanded by the FBI in Operation Ghost Click - Read the CNN article here if you’re unfamiliar with this story.
The Great Debate: Bring Your Own Device to Work?
As the quarter progresses, companies are contemplating the next technology investments for flexible mobile solutions. Enter the term BYOD or Bring Your Own Device. Simply put, BYOD is the concept of letting employees buy and bring their own devices (laptops, tablets, mobile phones, even some desktops) for use in a work environment.
In true Sherpa spirit, Ethan serves lunch at Emmanuel Dining Room - April 11th, 2012
Welcome to the second quarter of 2012 – have you gotten all your projects lined up yet? Thought about any refreshes you may want to do? If you’re like most business owners, you’ve decided how to put your budgets to the best use this year – replacing aging workstations with those more likely to improve employee efficiency.
When technology lets you down, who is to blame?
When you look at your business and the systems that keep it functioning, can you honestly predict when they are going to fail? When is it a foregone conclusion to refresh your technology? Are you prepared for an extended outage due to weather, power or other conditions? How slow or unreliable does something need to be to warrant replacement?
If you can't answer these questions, or if you never even thought about them, then you are like most business owners – and that's why we stress preparedness.
Hello, and welcome to 2012! You may have noticed that we didn’t send you a newsletter in January. Well, we know it’s the beginning of a new year, a new business quarter, and you’re swamped – getting back to work after the holidays, making and meeting your first quarter goals, etc.
News from the Manufacturing Front
As the year comes to a close, we wanted to remind you that there is still time to take advantage of Section 179 Deduction – the “Cinderella Tax Law” -- by purchasing your business equipment and putting it into use before December 31st, 2011.
If you haven’t heard of Section 179 , now is the time to call your financial advisor and get caught up.
If you’ve read the Wall Street Journal at all this year, you have seen more and more articles about hackers making a big play in the small and medium business (SMB) world – digging their way into point of sale (POS) systems at retailers and hijacking credit card data or stealing bank account login information and transferring your money to offshore accounts.
The Economy is coming around.
Everyone I meet asks, “How do you see the economy? How are your clients doing?”
In general, our clients are holding their own by carefully watching expenses. I would split my clients into the following categories:
1/3rd are outpacing the market and continue to invest in technology for strategic advantage
1/3rd continue to implement planned upgrades and are keeping current with technology for tactical reasons
1/3rd are in a holding pattern and are neither increasing or decreasing their IT spending habits
I was at an industry conference and peer group meeting in Orlando the week before last.