Quality
Technology Solutions, Inc.
QTS
QuikNews – March 2002 – Issue 2002.3
March 27, 2002
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Welcome
to the March 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.
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IN
THIS ISSUE
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1.
QTS News
2.
Events
3.
Patches & Upgrades
4.
President’s Corner
5.
Special Offers & Featured Solutions
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QTS
NEWS
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QTS’
10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY: APRIL 3RD, 2002
Although
it seems hard to believe for some of us, QTS will be celebrating its 10
year anniversary on Wednesday, April 3rd.
It has been quite a long time, and we’ve seen a lot of change
since our early days of installing NetWare 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups
networks, and configuring WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS and Microsoft Mail.
Ten years have seen a lot of change, in our industry and in the
technologies we support, but the nature of our friends and the good people
we work with and for, and the quality of our relationships, have been a
constant.
Customers,
partners and friends of QTS are invited to our Open House that day, from
5-7, at our South Orange office – please RSVP with Tamara Lee at
extension 262 if you plan to join us for food, drinks and a few hours of
friends and fun.
MICROSOFT
LICENSING PROGRAM CHANGES & SEMINARS
Effective
July 31st Microsoft is making significant changes in its
licensing programs, which will impact most if not all QTS customers to
some degree. The core change in the programs is that software upgrades
will NOT be available under the new program – so, if you wish to upgrade
any of your Microsoft products to the current version (i.e., upgrade from
Windows NT to Windows 2000, Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, etc.) you will
want to do so before the new program goes into effect – otherwise, you
will need to purchase the new products with no credit for your prior
investment.
QTS
and Microsoft are hosting a series of seminars to explain the new
licensing programs and educate our customers on their options.
See Seminars below for seminar dates.
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EVENTS
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SEMINARS
These
events will present key technology topics, with the intended audience
being IT Director or business managers (including CEO/CFO), and the topics
will be covered at a high to medium level of technical detail, with a
focus on education and on technologies to implement business solutions.
*
April 10th: Microsoft MS Connect Series – Windows XP and
Office XP – rerun of our well-received December and February events,
with technical presentations on Windows XP and Office XP, as well as
presentations on Windows implementation best practices and software asset
management. The seminar will
be held at Microsoft’s Berkeley Heights office.
* April 11th: 21st Century Manufacturing Solutions
– Microsoft, QTS, Stratis Group and DMS Technology Solutions will
present an integrated approach to automating Manufacturing organizations,
with a focus on business enablement and return on investment.
The seminar will be held at Microsoft’s Berkeley Heights office.
Note that the April 4th event has been cancelled and the
event location changed.
LUNCHTIME
TECHNOLOGY BRIEFINGS
These
events will present key technology topics from a technical perspective,
with the intended audience being IT Director or senior staff, and the
topics will be covered at that level, with a focus on features and
benefits.
*
April 9th: Effective Security Auditing & Vulnerability
Assessment (with Symantec)
* April 23rd: Fundamentals of DNS (technical briefing by
Michael Michitsch, Sr. Network Engineer, QTS)
* May 14th:
High Speed Networking Solutions (with Cisco Systems)
MICROSOFT
LICENSING SEMINARS
Microsoft
and QTS will be holding a series of seminars at Microsoft’s Berkeley
Heights, NJ office to explain the licensing program changes that will be
taking place effective July 31st.
Please see the entry above about the importance of these changes,
and President’s Corner below. QTS
will be presenting on Software Asset Management best practices and its
service offering during these events.
*
April 4th: Event Code 107077471
* May 2nd: Event Code 107077485
* June 4th: Event Code 107077492
Register
by going to msevents.Microsoft.com/events/usa and typing in the
appropriate event code, or calling 1-877-673-8368.
We
strongly recommend that all QTS mid-market business customers attend one
of these events, and that all QTS customers speak with your Account
Manager about the impact of these changes on your upgrade plans.
Failure to act before the cutoff date could result in a significant
cost penalty when you move to upgrade at a later date.
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PATCHES
& UPGRADES
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Call
the Customer Support Center to have us apply QTS-standard patches and keep
your systems current. The
following patches have been recently released and are recommended by QTS:
*
Novell NetWare 6 Support Pack 1
* Novell NetWare 5.1 Support
Pack 4
* Microsoft ISA Server 2000
Service Pack 1
CA
InoculateIT 4.x signature files are currently at version 34.19 (3/27/2002)
and McAfee VirusScan/NetShield is at version 4194 (3/27/2002), and Norton
Antivirus Corporate Edition is at version 40327p (3/27/2002). Please keep your antivirus signatures current!
If you do not have your system set up to automatically distribute
updates from your server to your PCs, please call your QTS Account Manager
or the Customer Support Center.
Some
patches can cause problems, especially in combination with other software
programs or patch levels. Please
talk to us to verify whether we see any possible problems in your
environment before patching your systems independently.
We make best efforts to test patch combinations but cannot
guarantee compatibility between software and hardware manufacturers’
products.
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PRESIDENT’S
CORNER
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Our
industry is squarely in the midst of a great deal of change, and with
change often comes controversy. Many
people are uncomfortable with change, and cling to old systems, standards
and beliefs, rebelling against change as unfair or inappropriate.
Others drive change too quickly, without a firm basis for the
decisions. Like most things,
an appropriate balance of perspectives helps.
Over
the last few years, we have seen a strong trend toward manufacturers
moving away from free support, unbundling this into a separately billable
service. Most have in fact cut back, or cut off, the support they
provide to resellers like QTS. In
some cases, interestingly, manufacturers have added support, but only for
initial installation/setup of the product (as Novell did in its NetWare 6
Small Business offering, to match Microsoft’s Small Business
offering’s policy).
One
of the other areas we have seen change occur in relative to software is in
licensing. In addition to
breaking out support as a separate expense item, manufacturers seem to be
increasingly moving to an “annual subscription” model
for software updates. Although
some companies have been doing this for quite some time
(PC-DOCS/Hummingbird, Check Point Software), most of the “mainstream”
commercial vendors have not. Interestingly,
this model is actually more in line with the old days and the model that
mainframe and midrange software vendors often applied – yet another
example of the cyclical nature of change in our industry.
Under
its new licensing program, Microsoft has now moved to this model, and
effective July 31st Microsoft will not be selling
“upgrades” to its products. This
is a sharp paradigm shift for many of you, who are used to (after years
and years of conditioning) buying upgrades whenever you are ready to get
your system current (or in some cases, only one revision behind).
Under Microsoft’s new model, you purchase Software Assurance to
keep your software current during a particular window of time, and you are
entitled to all product updates during that window of time.
To
best explain this, some examples are in order.
Let’s assume I currently own 100 copies of Microsoft Office 97
(this could be any other Microsoft product, but I’ll use Office as the
example). My scenarios are as
follows:
*
If I do nothing until after July 31st, then when I am ready to
upgrade my users, I need to buy 100 new copies of the current version of
Office, and my investment in the old Office licenses is valueless (because
after that date, Microsoft has no upgrade part numbers);
* If I act before July 31st and purchase Upgrade Advantage,
which includes Software Assurance, then receive the current version of
Office (XP) and will receive all versions of Office released during the
term of the Software Assurance (most likely, another 1-2 versions).
I
do not have to actually install the software, I simply have the right to
do so. At the end of the
Software Assurance term, I own the rights to whatever version of Office is
current, and I can either continue on Software Assurance after that date,
or stay with that version (but lose future upgrade rights).
Like most other manufacturers’ subscription models, the incentive
is to stay current in the program.
Part
of what Microsoft is trying to do is to keep its customers’ software
base current – there is a very high cost to manufacturers to maintaining
and supporting old versions of products, especially when there are
multiple old versions out in use. For
example, Microsoft is currently developing the next version of Office, but
needs to continue supporting the current one (XP/2002), the last one
(2000) and the previous one (97) while running at a rate of one new
release a year. That does not
even count the base of people still using Office 95.
Whether one likes what this approach is doing or not (everyone will
have their own opinion), there is at least good business reason, and
industry precedent, for the direction Microsoft is taking.
I
would strongly recommend that QTS customers take a good look at your
software licensing situation this quarter, and work with your QTS Account
Manager to formulate a plan for how to deal with this.
For some of you, the change is not of huge impact, but for some it
could be a significant financial issue if this deadline is ignored.
We are holding a series of seminars with Microsoft at their
Berkeley Heights, NJ office to discuss the program changes, and this is
another avenue to become educated (registration information is in the
Seminars section of this newsletter).
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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SPECIAL OFFERS & FEATURED SOLUTIONS
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MICROSOFT
OPERATIONS MANAGER 2000 PROMOTION
Microsoft
Operations Manager is Microsoft’s tool for managing Windows 2000 and
.NET servers and services, and can be extended with add-ons from NetIQ to
provide a complete SNMP network management solution.
Under a promotion running through April 30, 2002, MOM Base
Processor Licenses and Application Management Pack Processor Licenses are
available for $349 each, compared to a normal price of $849 and $949
respectively.
CHECK
POINT FIREWALL-1/VPN-1 COMPETITIVE UPGRADE
Check
Point Software is offering a 50% discount to customers with Network
Associates Gauntlet or Cisco PIX/Altiga products where the product is
traded in for a comparably priced purchase of Firewall-1 or VPN-1.
Contact your QTS Account Manager for more information.
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ã2002 Quality Technology Solutions, Inc.
This site last updated 03/28/02
© 1999 Quality Technology Solutions, Inc.
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07079
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