By Regina Ciardiello, Editor, SMB Nation

In case you missed our November/December issue, our cover story discussed what is on the wish list of tribal members for the holiday season. Since we always want to continue in the spirit of giving, especially to you, our loyal readers, we have come up with a special gift that will surely be a conversation piece at your next holiday party as a cool stocking stuffe. The gadget in question is the SQUARE mobile application device – a credit card with built-in technology to process MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover cards on a smart phone or iPad device. However, there is one catch – you must take and complete our Annual Salary Survey, which will be published in the January/February edition of SMB Nation magazine.

(At right): The SQUARE mobile application device in action at a local coffee shop.

So now you are probably wondering how you can sign up to take our survey (and receive your free gift). It’s simple – just click to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RT99B5Q, and you will be taken to our full survey questionnaire housed on Survey Monkey. All we need is no more than 10 minutes of your time, and unlike other surveys, the Square device will be distributed as part of our gift to you—it’s not a raffle—so there is 100% chance that you will get your free gift, just for spending a few minutes of your day to provide us with important data.

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Want to learn from the best and brightest? Attend our second annual MVP Nation, March 2-3, 2012 in Redmond, Washington. It’s “Grad School For Geeks,” and we’re back on the Microsoft campus at the vaunted conference center. This year our focus is on Windows 8 – it’s a deep dive with lectures from the Microsoft MPVs and other industry gurus. Give us two days and you’ll be armed for the next major server, desktop and mobility Windows 8 operating system. Learn more at mvp.smbnation.com. PS – NO WIMPS ALLOWED!

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Today, a leading technology management and consulting firm, Quest has announced that it will be partnering with Desktone, Inc. a leading provider of Desktops-as-a-Service. This partnership will allow Quest to offer full-featured and cost-effective desktops on-demand to their customer’s devices.

Quest, a NetApp Service Proivder Partner, is able to work closely with Desktone, Inc. as a result of the DaaS provider’s recent collaboration with NetApp in August of 2011. Quest currently provides solutions and technology consulting to a wide range of enterprises, from the SMB to the Fortune 500 company. Quest is excited to be able to offer turnkey virtual desktops and servers to their customers. Tim Burke, CEO of Quest, explained in a press release today:

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Level Platforms said its Managed Workplace RMM platform will now be pre-installed on the Intel Hybrid Cloud platform and included in the Intel AppUp Small Business Service.

With Level Platforms Managed Workplace, Intel service providers can now remotely manage all IP-based technologies throughout their end-customers’ networks, address and remediate any issues, and improve uptime. This results in lower services costs, recurring revenues, and faster, proactive response to customer issues.

Now through Level Platforms, Intel AppUp Small Business Service customers will be able to leverage the full functionality of Managed Workplace through the Intel AppUp Small Business Service RMM Service Center dashboard across their entire customer network at no cost for 30 days. This includes detailed asset discovery and management, remote monitoring, alerting, remote control and remediation, automation, reporting, warranty status, patch management and Network Audits, used by many MSPs to engage prospective clients and discover customer issues in need of attention.

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Yesterday, Quest Software, Inc., a leading software manufacturing company released their vWorkspace 7.5, a solution aimed at providing cost-effective desktop virtualization to all sizes of company. The solution is especially optimized for companies that are currently using Microsoft Hyper-V.

The latest vWorkspace platform offers direct Hyper-V integration, as well as quick and easy provisioning and desktop virtualization load balancing capabilities. vWorkspace has introduced their “Instant Provisioning” Technology, which allows most virtual desktops to be up and running in seconds. Direct support for Hyper-V and a free Hyper-V server are also included. Users can use local storage (DAS) as opposed to allocating funds to SAN storage. Two-factor authentication support is available to ensure the security of users’ information.  Projections from Quest’s cost and performance analysis are rating this solution at a 33% cost savings per user.

Jon Roll, VP of Product Management and User Workspace Management at Quest Software, is pleased with the new solution: “Quest vWorkspace 7.5 introduces a game-changing set of features and advances to enable companies of all sizes to adopt desktop virtualization by taking advantage of one of the lowest cost solutions available,” he said in a press release yesterday. “In fact, our research tells us that vWorkspace 7.5 could save organizations as much as 33 percent of their VDI CapEx cost per user compared to competing products. Combine that strong value proposition with automated Desktop Cloud management, WAN support for Lync/Communicator and automation around Session Host/Terminal Server deployment and you have a compelling, industry-leading offering.”

For more information about the Quest vWorkspace 7.5 solution, please see the site here. Quest has also released a video showcasing the new vWorkspace 7.5 in action here. 

More Information about Quest Software, Inc.

Contact Quest Software, Inc.
Jennifer Bernas
949-754-8241
jennifer.bernas(at)quest(dot)com

See the Press Release Here

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Zeacom reported today that its Zeacom Communications Center (ZCC) contact center software is now available for Lync – Microsoft’s software telephony platform. The announcement follows a successful beta program that saw ZCC deployed at Lync sites in Northern Europe and Asia Pacific. Zeacom is known among Microsoft Managed ISVs for Lync with the resources to help organizations build out their helpdesk, call center or multimedia contact center to the Lync platform.
 
Zeacom has more than 4,000 customer sites worldwide and had been delivering enterprise-class contact center functionality on 3 of the world’s most prevalent telephony platforms for 17 years. With the release of ZCC for Lync, organizations now have more choices when it comes to moving their existing contact center solution from one voice platform to another. Targeting up to 400 seats on Lync, ZCC allows contact centers to control the delivery of every contact – from voice calls and email to SMS and social media alerts.
 
Since its inception, Zeacom has maintained a channel-only sales model and has a team of subject-matter experts committed to supporting its partners worldwide, allowing them to build profitable relationships around Business Process Automation.

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Harrybbb will be in beautiful Portland, OR this week for the Cloud Intelligence Conference! Stop by to say hello and network with your fellow peers!

The Cloud Intelligence Conference is a one-day crash course in all things Cloud. Attendees come away with best practices, new techniques and a better understanding of this rapidly evolving technology. This year, the famous Buck Woody, Senior Technical Specialist for Microsoft, will be one of the keynote speakers!

The conference runs from 8:00am to 5:30 pm on Thursday, February 2, 2012. The Cloud Intelligence Conference Staff are currently offering a special discount to SMB Nation Tribal Members. Sign up here with the code SMB249 to save on pass price! We look forward to seeing you there!

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Date: Thursday, February 2, 2012

Time: 10:00-11:00am PST

Speakers:

• Harry Brelsford
• Jeff Wald
  
• Eric Castro
  

The web is changing the way everyone does business.  The use of search engines and websites has changed how you market your business, but have you used a labor platform?  If some of the largest service buyers are using platforms to manage their service, should you create a free account and get additional revenue?

Register Here!

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It’s that time again, folks! We’ve teamed with the SMB Technology Network trade group to undertake the well-received SMB 150 list project. Last year, quite frankly, we were OVERWHELMED by the response, excitement and enthusiasm!

This year the SMB 150 program has some exciting improvements:

•    Nominations accepted! Click HERE to nominate yourself or a like-minded accomplished SMB IT leader. You know how you are; you know who they are! Just do it!
•    Voting. In early 2012,

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By Regina Ciardiello, Editor, SMB Nation

Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here we go again! As I do each week, I am really enjoying bringing our readers a quick round-up of the blog coverage I didn’t manage to get to during the busy week prior.

Apologies for the late-afternoon edition of our “5 Blogs We Missed Last Week,” but I am also working on the Q1 edition of our print publication…it’s the first one for 2012, and will be distributed at our MVP Nation event held March 2-3. With a focus on the new upcoming Windows 8 technology, MVP Nation will be held at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, WA. The two-day event will allow attendees to create their Windows 8 road map. For more information, and to register, go to: http://mvp.smbnation.com/.

Once again, here are a few snippets of information that we didn’t get a chance to bring you last week. Let us also know if there was something we might have missed, which is not mentioned in this entry…because as you know…we love news!

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