Blog Entries for IT Systems

Heard the one about the pigeon in the down pipe?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

What does a pigeon in a drain pipe have to do with IT?

Well, it depends where the pipe is. In this case, for one of our clients it was the main down pipe for the drainage from their roof. So when a dead pigeon got stuck in the pipe and the rain came down heavily the water pooled in the gutter until it ran down the inside of the roof. [...]

Hosted service prices are about to take a big dive

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Why are hosted server prices about to fall drastically?

The answer is Moonshot from HP.

It is not often I get excited by new technology anymore. After 24 years of working with the X86 server platform there has not been much that offers a significant step forward. This week, I was asked to watch a video where David Dona [...]

Windows XP users have less than a year to work out 'what next?'

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

End of support on April 8, 2014 does not mean Windows XP will come to a grinding halt. It just means it will not be patched or supported; it will become more susceptible to external threats from hackers and viruses.

If you don't worry about those things there is probably no need to update your systems. Let's face it; you probably ha [...]

How do we improve our IT systems when cash is tight?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Capital expenditure has been difficult to justify in many businesses for a while now and finance for IT or any other purchases is not very popular. Even if the lenders will lend, when we are not sure what will come next, it is hard to make the purchasing decision.

Many companies have been in an IT holding pattern due to the GFC since 2008 and IT systems are ageing ungracefully. We cannot all afford to wait for our systems to break and we know we need to move forward. Risk is growin [...]

Productivity on the run: How IT is helping me work smarter

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0100

As I sit here on a plane writing this blog, I know my mobility solution has created value for me because I can turn travel time into work time. The days of reams of highlighted A4 paper to edit on the run are over and I can spend travel time creating content.

I also know the published apps on my server will, once I get off the plane, give me full access to every file and application I use on my servers in the office. My cloud software solutions will work for me and I will be able t [...]

Is IT doing the only thing that matters right now, increasing your revenue?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0100

We may be seeing the economy begin to turn for some, but times are still tough for many right now. So it is important that we look at our company systems and ask if they are delivering on the company objectives.

I have never seen a company objective that says this year we will drive risk up and costs down. I see objectives to increase revenue and margins and, occasionally in tough sectors, to control costs.

In a recent appearance at CloudWorld in Sydney, some interesting st [...]

KPIs and your IT service provider: How do you measure success?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0100

I will be talking a lot about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) over the next few months. As Gartner have identified business intelligence to be one of the hottest areas in IT for the next few years there will be a big focus on figuring out what KPIs are key for your business success and performance for your industry.

This got me thinking about what are the KPIs my clients are looking for.

There are multiple key indicators that I would keep an eye on to ensure you are being [...]

Fixed price, hourly rate or salaried IT staff: What is best for you?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

When you are thinking about running an IT project or regular maintenance of your IT systems do you think about the number of hours of work involved or the dollar cost of the services?

The IT industry struggles with how to charge for its services at all levels in business from the micro business of one or two people through to the enterprise with thousands of employees. People shift from in-house staffing to contractors to outsourced to offshore and back again trying to find the rig [...]

What does mobility have to do with a teachers' strike?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

As I write this there is a teachers' strike across Victoria creating havoc for many working parents. My wife Rachel, the joint managing director of Combo, is at home with kids coming and going as families find ways to cope with the strike.

It has caused me to reflect on a few things around productivity and the cost to industry of workers needing to stay home to look after children on a day such as today.

I am not going to get into the politics of the strike here; just the i [...]

Does your business have an IT thought leader?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

If you are still using computers today the way you were five years ago you may have a bigger opportunity for improvement than you think.

The IT industry spends so much time looking forward it often fails to consider how far it has come in the past five years and who it may have left behind. By looking back a few years we can be reminded that change has happened and has modified the way we work and live in a short space of time.

Of course we do not want to dwell on the past [...]

Growing or broke? Time to reap the fruits of your labour

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Our local fruiterer seems to have closed over the summer. He was always so good with in store customers but he was the same guy who failed to remember to deliver our office box of fruit once a week.

We could not give him the business for trying. When he did remember to deliver the fruit there was lots of it and the quality was a little variable. He also took weeks or months to send us a bill.

Today we use The Fruit Box, for the same price they deliver about two-thirds of th [...]

Mobility is about to step up: Are you seizing the opportunity?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Microsoft is poised to release the Surface Pro and this is set to be an interesting step forward for business use of tablet devices.

With the Surface RT and Surface Pro, Microsoft has repositioned itself as a "devices and services company" as it perceives the market has shifted. Steve Ballmer has acknowledged that the Surfaces RT and Pro are just the beginning of the Surface family of products.

Reports are that the Surface RT has not met great demand and, quite frankly, I am [...]

How to reduce IT system downtime in your business

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:53:32 +0100

In the past when I've been asked this question I've talked about getting the investment in infrastructure right, and having an accountable support structure in place to ensure time is spent on proactive management instead of constant fire fighting.

I'm now starting to talk about investing in redundant internet connections to ensure an ongoing connection to cloud-based solutions (either public clouds or private clouds in stable server farm environments).

So, what are public [...]

Should marketing fine print be aggressive?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0100

In a recent offer from Origin Energy for its Smart Metering program there was a consent to terms and conditions to move forward with the offer.

If you read the terms and conditions you would have found the following paragraph:

We are committed to providing a complete energy service, so we may present you with gas, electricity and other household or business service offers in the future. If at any time you do not wish us to use, or enable our privacy compliant agents and c [...]

Do you have a plan B?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0100

As I approach my holiday period I start to think about the risks associated with holidays. After being in the IT industry for almost 20 years I have seen all sorts of things go wrong and I know that post-holidays is always traumatic on the help desk.

Stuff just seems to go wrong over holiday periods. Still every year there are things we never expected.

One of the observations is that there are more adds, moves and changes for our help desk to perform as staff fail to return [...]

How do we improve the value we get from our IT systems?

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:00:00 +0100

I just spent a few hours learning about all the time saving features associated with HP printers.

I have worked with HP printers throughout my career and have collected a fair bit of knowledge about how they work, how to install and configure them and how to fix them when they stop working. But I had never been told about all the productivity features they offer in such a concise session before. This got me thinking about how much we deprive ourselves of the value at hand while we c [...]

The future of telework is already here today

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:00:00 +0100

Recently I went to a conference at Melbourne University where I observed Julia Gillard make the announcement on a 12% telework target for our public service.

For a technologist like me, this surely represents an opportunity to provide systems and services to people working from home. I know a lot of people perceive this as a bludge, but for people with work to do who do not need to be in the office, there are fantastic opportunities to get stuff done by using technology.

In [...]

Serving up a failure: Tech lessons from Click Frenzy

dmarkus@smartcompany.com.au — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:13:11 +0100

When I heard about the Click Frenzy crash, my first thought was that if you are an SME with your own set of servers it is a bad idea to include hosting your own website on them.

Perhaps Click Frenzy could have known that. When I looked into it they did know that and, in fact, have used a cloud server provider called UltraServe, who are a respectable company with a reputation for solid systems.

I have to say, I do not know the details of how the technology is managed at Clic [...]

Should we be excited about Windows 8 or do we W8?

eschmidl@hotmail.com — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:00:00 +0100

Early reports are that Windows 8 has a lot to offer and is going to change the way we think about using computers, especially as more devices give us choices about where and how we use Windows as I discussed last week.

For home use, Windows 8 has some awesome features and I am sure people who rush out and buy any one of the new devices with Windows 8 on it will have a lot of fun with it. Of course, the fact that it now spans the devices from PC to laptop to tablet to mobile phone m [...]

Why has Microsoft entered the device market with the Surface?

eschmidl@hotmail.com — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 14:00:00 +0100

Why would a software company that is flat out creating new versions of all of its key products from Office to Server to desktop to accounting and CRM be biting off a chunk of the device market as well?

Microsoft has always seen the equipment manufacturers as partners and has not entered into their market place much until now.

Recently I was talking with some Microsoft executives and it was explained to me that one of the frustrations for Microsoft has been the low end of th [...]