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Welcome to the April edition of QTS QuikNews, our
monthly e-mail newsletter. In this monthly e-mail, you
will receive an update of what's new at QTS - new
products we support, new patches and upgrades, solution
ideas and promotions to save you money, and information
about our company and our clients.
In this issue:
-
QTS and Partner News
-
Events
-
President's Corner
-
QuikSecure Tip of the Month
-
Patches and Upgrades
-
Product Support Lifecycle Watch
-
Solution Spotlight
-
Special Offers
-
Partner Spotlight
QTS AND
PARTNER NEWS
WELCOME TO NEW CUSTOMERS
QTS offers a “welcome aboard” to the following new
customers:
·
Integra Lifesciences
Corporation
·
L.P.
Thebault & Company
·
Perkins Eastman
QTS IS HIRING!
QTS is recruiting for senior level technical personnel,
as well as an entry to mid-level sales/service
specialist. If you know anyone who might be a good fit,
please have them submit their resume to Liz Meechan, our
Office Manager. Liz can be reached at
lmeechan@QTSnet.com, or (973)984-7600 x223.
SECURITY ARTICLE BY NEIL ROSENBERG PUBLISHED IN NJ CPA
MAGAZINE
QTS President and CEO Neil Rosenberg, a regular
contributor to NJ CPA Magazine, has written another
article for the latest issue of this publication. Click
here to read the article on Managing Information
Security.
PRESS RELEASES
QTS WINS MICROSOFT QUARTERLY PARTNER EXCELLENCE AWARD
5/1/2006: QTS
today announced that it was a winner of Microsoft's NYNJ
Area Quarterly Partner Excellence Award. The award, on
behalf of both the SMS&P and Enterprise teams within the
local Microsoft office, recognizes QTS' performance and
success with Microsoft solutions.
Read more at
http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr65.htm
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PRODUCT NOTICES AND ADVISORIES
TERMINAL SERVICES CAL TRADE-UP EXTENDED!
Due
to a change in the way Microsoft licenses Terminal
Services as of April 2003, customers may be eligible for
free Terminal Services Client Access Licenses (CALs).
With the release of Windows Server 2003, the “built-in”
CALs under Windows 2000 were
eliminated. However, customers owning Windows XP Pro
receive a free Terminal Services CAL for each XP
license. This offer has been extended, but we
strongly recommend processing this promptly.
For more information, visit
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/
howtobuy/licensing/tscaltransfaq.mspx.
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PRESIDENT'S CORNER
This
month, I would like to explore some of the key elements
of the upcoming new release of Microsoft Office – Office
2007. If you have attended one of our seminars where
I’ve talked about Office 2007 (formerly known as “Office
12”), you know that I’m very excited about this product
– to me, this is the most significant release of Office
since 1995. Although delays were announced for Office
and Vista pushing back into 2007, this is really just
the retail/OEM versions – the code is still expected to
be finalized and available to licensing program
customers in roughly the November 2006 time frame.
In
fact, we are working with three customers in Microsoft’s
Office 2007 “Rapid Deployment Program” to build
solutions today using Office beta code, and move those
solutions into production prior to final release of the
“gold code.” This is giving us and our
customers early experience
with the product, and is only increasing my enthusiasm
for what Office 2007 can do for businesses. In fact,
we’re leveraging our experience here to create a “QuikDesign
for Office 2007” packaged service offering to help
customers understand the new capabilities – and power –
of this new release.
To
me, looking at Office 2007 begins with the user
interface, or what Microsoft refers to as the “UX” (user
experience). This has been totally re-vamped, and made
much more intuitive based on the significant usability
testing that Microsoft conducts whenever it rolls out a
new Office or OS release. However, in this case the
major changes were triggered by an interesting
observation – 90% of the new feature requests for this
release of Office were for items that are already in
Office 2003 (or earlier versions). This means that
people want to do things that the software today allows
them to, but they can’t find the commands or figure out
how to do it. That is a problem.
In
reality, the sheer volume of commands, menu items,
toolbars, shortcuts and other interface clutter has gone
up dramatically, version by version, since the early
days of Office back in the late 1980s. I remember using
Word 2.0 back in 1992 when I started QTS – the interface
was clean and simple, and you could easily find any
command the software offered. Today, a user is simply
overloaded with choices, and cannot, so to speak, see
the forest for the trees sometimes. Fixing this was
Microsoft’s primary design goal.
This
starts with “the Ribbon.” Today’s Menu and Toolbar are
replaced in Office 2007 with a new metaphor – a series
of folders at the top of the screen, logically grouped
commands represented by icons with descriptions under
each. As you select a folder, the icons below the
folder level change. And items appear, or disappear,
based on context – when the cursor is in a table, table
editing commands are present. But when you move away
from the table these commands disappear, and no longer
take up screen real estate. The menus, icons and
functionality change depending on the context.
This
new interface is much more intuitive. New users take to
it much faster than the current Office interface, while
experienced users take an hour or two to get used to
things being rearranged before they become acclimated to
the new interface. Ultimately, everyone becomes more
productive and effective. And that’s the goal – to make
beginner users more effective, while also letting power
users do their tasks much more quickly. For example,
the new Galleries feature, with its live preview
capability, allows you to hover over formatting icons
and see the impact of the change on the items being
formatted – colors, borders, etc. all change on the fly,
so you can pick the appearance you want. With a single
mouse click, it is possible to do the work that would
have required minutes (or hours) of formatting in prior
versions, while also improving the appearance and
professionalism of your documents.
Office 2007 will also utilize a new file format – XML.
This will allow for more efficient data exchange between
applications, leveraging the native strength of XML.
The new XML file format also leverages compression
(50-75% space savings) and a more efficient format,
reducing document sizes as well as improving reliability
and recoverability of documents. This will also
facilitate the new feature in Office to “finish” a
document – removing undesirable metadata before
releasing the document externally or posting it
internally. The XML file format will be the default for
Office 2007, and there will be updates for prior
supported versions of Office (2000 forward) so they can
read/write to the XML file format and you can have
compatibility between versions to read newly created
files – however, you can choose in Office 2007 to use
the old format if you so desire.
There are a variety of new server-side components that
also enhance the user experience with Office 2007, and
open up significant new capabilities. These include:
o
An
“Excel Server” component that allows users to access a
centrally stored spreadsheet via a browser to view and
edit Excel documents. Think of this as “Outlook
WebAccess for Excel.” The
goal here is to eliminate the proliferation of multiple
emailed copies of spreadsheets that proliferate and
create version control problems, and have “one version
of the truth” when it comes to Excel.
o
An
“InfoPath Server” component that allows InfoPath forms
to be accessed and completed from a web browser,
eliminating in some cases the need to install InfoPath
on each workstation to deploy forms-based applications.
o
An
InfoPath add-in to Outlook that allows for Outlook to be
a forms repository and routing engine, allowing for more
intuitive usage.
o
Significant Document and Records Management enhancements
to SharePoint Portal Server.
o
Integration of Content Management Server functionality
into SharePoint Portal Server, to allow for more robust
management of web site content (Intranet, Extranet, and
web-facing Internet).
o
Enhancements and usability improvements to Project
Server.
The
InfoPath enhancements are of particular note – I think
this is going to be a major component of our Office 2007
deployments, as almost every organization I know has
forms that can be automated, and workflows enhanced,
using InfoPath. The integration with Outlook provides a
natural workflow engine, while the web server component
eliminates a major deployment/usage hurdle. The
“traditional” InfoPath client will still be used for
forms authoring, and for applications where it is
necessary or appropriate to cache forms offline (mobile
employees, for example).
The
real sleeper in all this, in my opinion, is Groove.
This is technology and a company that Microsoft
purchased a little over a year ago, and Groove is used
to create ad hoc or structured collaboration workspaces
that allow people to synchronize data (files, discussion
threads, InfoPath forms, etc.) peer to peer, or through
a relay server. Groove can be used not only within
organizations, but between organizations – we’ll be
using it with our clients in the Office 2007 Rapid
Deployment Program to collaborate on the RDP program
itself. It is a great way for cross-functional or
cross-organizational teams to work together – securely
and efficiently. Groove and SharePoint Portal Server do
have some integrations and
are actually complementary – SharePoint Portal provides
a structured collaboration hub for users to access key
information and work together, while Groove caters to
mobile and offline users who need to collaborate in an
ad hoc or a structured manner.
However, the real significance of Microsoft’s
acquisition of Groove may ripple through its Information
Worker products for years. Groove was founded by Ray
Ozzie, the original developer of Lotus Notes – when IBM
purchased Lotus, Ozzie left and started Groove, to take
his collaborative vision to the next level. Microsoft
purchased Groove not only for its technology, but for
Ozzie – to get his creative energies and vision, and to
channel it through SharePoint and their other
collaborative technologies. So, now that Ozzie is a key
CTO at Microsoft, his impact across many products will
be felt for years to come.
If
you would like to learn more about Office 2007, visit
www.microsoft.com/office/preview - the video tour of
the new interface is very well done. Or attend our
Preparing for Windows Vista seminar on Thursday, May 18th
at Microsoft’s NYC office (you can register at
https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=104305).
I think once you take in this information, and see the
new user interface and its
capabilities, you’ll be as excited about this
product as I am.
As
always, feel free to email me your comments or thoughts
at
nrosenberg@QTSnet.com. Thank you.
Neil Rosenberg
President & CEO
Quality Technology Solutions
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PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
This
month QTS is spotlighting Enterprise Information
Management International (“EIM International,” formerly
Wertheim Inc.), its partner for document management,
document imaging and document-based solutions. EIM
International is a premier provider of information
management solutions, office automation solutions and a
premier integrator for Hummingbird Software. The result
of implementing these solutions is organizations are
enabled to increase profits and improve work quality,
while enhancing the level of professionalism exhibited
to their customers and partners via delivery of their
electronic documents.
EIM
International is able to assist clients in all areas of
information management, from initial technology planning
through final implementation, including maintenance and
audit services. EIM International’s professionals’
extensive experience provides them with the unique
ability to provide consulting expertise and to speak to
the best practices currently available with regard to
document management, imaging, assembly,
and content management systems.
The
staff at EIM International has honed and refined a style
of interaction which has garnered many accolades up and
down the firm's client list. Put most simply, clients
like them. EIM International has had many successful
engagements with clients ranging from those that are new
to document management, as well as organizations need of
upgrades. Their approach to customers and technology
mirrors that of the outlook and values held by QTS.
EIM
International has developed a proprietary set of
administrative software tools specifically designed to
optimize Hummingbird Solutions. The “Winc”
suite of products works with a Document Management
System that provides tools to:
* Help manage environments with multiple databases
* Assure proper documents security to users
*
Enable business continuity solutions for the DMS
environment,
*
Provide a robust array of DMS administrative
utilities.
These applications are used by clients today throughout
the world.
EIM
International is a leading service provider and clients
benefit from their depth of experience with the product
offerings of Hummingbird (DOCS Open/DM5), PDF
applications from DOCSCorp,
Microsoft Sharepoint
integration with SeeUnity,
and document imaging systems from
Kofax and eCopy.
While QTS continues to build, enhance and support the Microsoft
platform, networks and infrastructure, our partnership
with EIM International significantly extends our
capabilities and the total range of services that we can
offer clients.
For
more information on EIM International, please visit
their web site at
www.eimintl.com, email them at info@eimintl.com,
or call 212-413-8600. Or, contact your QTS Account
Manager.
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