Volume 7 Issue 1

February 1, 2007

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Welcome to the January 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
• Recruitment Spotlight

QTS AND PARTNER NEWS

WELCOME TO NEW CUSTOMERS
QTS offers a �welcome aboard� to the following new customers:

�         Capstone Business Credit

�         Council on Accreditation (COA)

�         STS

QTS IS HIRING!
QTS is recruiting for senior and mid-level technical personnel and 1099 contract technical resources.  If you know anyone who might be a good fit, please have them visit our recruitment page at http://www.qtsnet.com/jobs/Default.htm, or submit their resume to Liz Meechan, our Office Manager. Liz can be reached at lmeechan@QTSnet.com, or (973)984-7600 x223.

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PRODUCT NOTICES AND ADVISORIES

FREE MICROSOFT CRM SERVER LICENSE FOR MBS CUSTOMERS
At its Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft announced that all new customers purchasing its Dynamics ERP products (Great Plains, Axapta, Navision, Solomon) will receive a free Dynamics CRM Server License.  This offer also applies to all current customers who presently have maintenance on their systems.  Contact your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner, or your QTS Account Manager, for more information.

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

Last month, we pushed back our normal �end of year� column in order to discuss Symantec�s Security 2.0 initiative, so this month we�ll look at QTS� 2006 in review, where the industry is going, and how this is going to impact us and our customers in 2007.

2006 was quite a year for us.  We are still closing the books, but we accomplished roughly 50% growth based on the increased demand for new technologies and on our strong industry relationships leading to new customer introductions, while doing more projects within our core account base.  We ramped up our engineering and technical management staff accordingly, and focused on improving and enhancing our internal processes and on our service delivery, particularly around our projects and our project management methodology.  In 2007, we will continue this, but place increased emphasis on service management and even better tracking, management and communication around customer support and service.  As the volume of our project business continues to increase, the need for our Customer Support Center to grow and refine its business processes will become ever more important.

From a technology perspective, we placed a big bet alongside Microsoft in 2006, on Windows Vista and Office 2007 (which includes the SharePoint technologies).  Throughout 2006, we worked with four of our customers to beta test Vista and Office, and to deploy solutions based on these technologies.  On the Vista front, we worked with the newest iteration of the Business Desktop Deployment Solution Accelerator tools to build and deploy Vista images � and found using these tools we could deploy PC images in about 1/5 to 1/10^th the time it took our clients using older tools and processes.  By year-end, we had deployed Vista at these clients to key pilot groups, and are staged to deploy company-wide in early 2007 at these and other clients.  Overall, we found application compatibility to be very good, security to be strong and the new user interface to aid productivity.  In 2006 we developed our QuikDesign for Desktop Deployment and QuikDeploy services to help organizations with moving to Windows Vista (or XP), and expect significant traction here in 2007 based on the BDD SA tools and our QuikDeploy methodology and process.

Office 2007 has tremendous potential to improve staff productivity just through the new User Interface, let alone custom applications leveraging SharePoint Server, InfoPath/Forms Server and other new components.  At one customer, we were able to calculate (conservatively) a half million dollar ROI based on migrating to Office 2007.  It is important this be accompanied by transition-oriented training, but there is high productivity improvement potential here if done properly and we expect a lot of work around Office in 2007.  In 2006 we developed our QuikDesign for Office 2007 and QuikDesign for SharePoint Collaboration services to help with planning for these new and powerful technologies.  We also really picked up speed around SharePoint and our Collaboration practice in 2006, turning this into a core component of our services with several successful engagements and partnerships, and we expect significant growth around SharePoint in 2007.

We also placed a big bet with Citrix around their new product strategy (which you will read about next month), ramping up on their new WANScaler, NetScaler and EdgeSight product lines while continuing to build our �traditional� MetaFrame Presentation Server business and market share.  This was a major area of investment for QTS in 2006.  I see tremendous potential here in many areas � WAN optimization to help improve performance for remote offices and remote users; Web Site optimization for commerce sites, web presence sites, SharePoint sites and other business critical web servers; Improved security and disaster recovery solutions; and reduced cost of ownership and improved business agility through centralized management, administration and delivery of software applications.

We saw continued growth of our core Windows networking business, around Active Directory and Exchange Server, with an increase in the number of medium business customers implementing clustering and high availability solutions for Exchange and SQL Server.  We also ramped up on Symantec Enterprise Vault, which I see as a very strategic product for us in 2007 as more and more clients struggle with issues around email�s explosive growth countered by the need to manage storage and provide access to email for legal discovery and compliance purposes.

Our security practice continued to grow, with more customers doing Security and Vulnerability Assessments in 2006 than ever before.  The tough part, obviously, is in the remediation work that flows from the evaluations, the success of which varied by customer.  We also started up sub-practices around Information Rights Management and Identity Management (user provisioning/de-provisioning, single sign-on), both of which I expect to grow in 2007.  Finally, we launched our QuikRecover Disaster Recovery service offering in 2006 and I expect strong demand for these services in 2007.

Systems Management is an area where we are seeing explosive growth.  We saw a sharp increase in interest around Microsoft Operations Manager as companies strive to improve uptime and system availability, and desire better management and troubleshooting tools, and around SMS as companies try to get a handle on their growing desktop support costs.  Our QuikStart offerings around these products were popular in 2006, and we expect strong growth here in 2007 and beyond based on Microsoft�s System Center strategy.

Virtualization and Streaming, covered in two recent columns, will be a big area of focus for our customers in 2007.  Server virtualization is really starting to take hold, and offers much potential for consolidation of services and cost reductions while improving manageability.  However, the sleeper here to me is Application Virtualization and Streaming, centered (to us) around Citrix� �Project Tarpon� offering and Microsoft�s Softricity acquisition.  This has the potential to transform the way we deploy software, making it an �on demand� service while reducing delivery/deployment costs, reducing system compatibility problems and improving the user experience.  I believe 2007 is the year these technologies will really start to take hold in the mid-market, and innovative companies willing to invest here will see significant returns.

Finally, in 2006 QTS continued to invest in and leverage its partner relationships.  We deepened our relationships with Citrix and Symantec, while expanding relationships in Microsoft in the CAS/Enterprise and State/Local Government spaces.  We also refined our Solutions Alliance relationships with key service delivery partners, broadening our ability to deliver solutions to our customers.  This will continue, strategically and selectively, in 2007.

Next month, we�ll talk about where Citrix is going based on the Citrix Summit partner conference that I am writing to you from now.

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�s QTS Partner Spotlight is on ISS Group, a Gold Certified Microsoft Business Solutions Partner headquartered in northern New Jersey with a remote location in Atlanta, Georgia. ISS Group was founded in 1986 and specializes on providing Information Technology solutions to the Wholesale Distribution and Discrete Manufacturing communities both locally as well as throughout the U.S.

For the first ten years of ISS Group�s operations, ISS Group offered technology products and services for Manufacturer�s and Distributor�s back-office operations such as Order Processing, Billing, Purchasing, Production Control, Warehousing and Accounting applications. ISS Group�s services included activities such as software installation/configuration, program customization, application training, process re-engineering and project management. By performing a complete range of solution implementation services and business process consulting, ISS Group became experts in satisfying the information technology requirements, operations and business practices and processes for Distribution and Manufacturing organizations.

In 1996, ISS Group developed an eCommerce solution providing real-time web transaction processing such as Order Entry, Purchase Order Maintenance, Stock Status Inquiry, A/R Inquiry, and more for integration to back-office ERP applications. This eCommerce solution was developed in the very early days of the Internet, before Al Gore�s Superhighway, and afforded ISS Group entr�e into the burgeoning eCommerce and Customer Relationship Management business. ISS Group focused on the eCommerce business throughout the late nineties and in 2000 became one of Siebel�s first reseller�s to market their CRM applications into the mid-market Manufacturing and Distribution communities.

As fate would have it, Siebel was marketing their CRM applications via the Great Plains product as the Great Plains Front-office Solution, and ISS Group was selling the Siebel applications via this sales channel. When Microsoft decided to purchase Great Plains in 2001 and develop their own CRM solution, the relationship between Siebel and Great Plains was dissolved. Microsoft then began courting the Siebel resellers who were selling via the Great Plains channel, such as ISS Group, and convinced ISS Group to become a Microsoft CRM reseller while the Microsoft product was still in Beta.

ISS Group has been working with the MS CRM product since it�s initial release back in 2002, has continued to develop their eCommerce products and service capabilities as well as their CRM solutions portfolio and integration expertise with Microsoft�s BizTalk technology, and has become one of Microsoft�s top CRM solution providers in the U.S. ISS Group has developed a product called iBridge which integrates MS CRM with back-office ERP solutions, which has been certified by Microsoft as an approved MS ISV solution, and has completed dozens of successful CRM implementations for Manufacturers and Distributors across the U.S. ISS Group has also broadened their expertise in Microsoft technologies and offers services in SharePoint and C# application development, Business Intelligence solutions, and Information Worker Productivity solutions using Microsoft Office.

For more information on ISS Group, please view their web site at www.issgroup.net, email them at sales@issgroup.net, or call 973-812-9700.  Or, contact your QTS Account Manager.

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