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Welcome to the August 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:
·
Affinia
Hospitality
·
Esseco
USA LLC
·
Winebow
QTS
OFFERS FREE SYSTEMS STRATEGY CHECK-UPS
Having developed this award-winning
engagement jointly with Microsoft, QTS is now
offering Systems Strategy Check-Up engagements to
qualified customers and prospects throughout New Jersey
and New York. This
high-value, half-day consulting engagement helps
businesses evaluate how they are using Microsoft
technologies and identifies best practices and
recommendations for how to best deploy Microsoft
technologies in a business.
For more information on this no-charge
engagement, contact your QTS Account Manager or visit www.QTSnet.com/SSCU.
QTS
IS HIRING!
QTS is recruiting for senior level technical personnel,
as well as entry and senior level sales
staff/telemarketers. 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.
PRESS
RELEASES
QTS
ADDS RAINFINITY FOR HIGH AVAILABILITY SOLUTIONS
8/16/2004:
QTS today announced
that it has become a Certified Partner of Rainfinity,
developer of high availability software, RainWall and
RainConnect. The partnership will offer end-users
with reliable and optimized firewall and Internet
connections. Read
more at http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr55.htm
QTS
ADDS EXPAND NETWORKS’ ACCELERATOR TO IMPROVE
CUSTOMERS’ WAN PERFORMANCE
8/9/2004:
QTS today
announced that it has added Expand Networks to its
line card, and is offering Expand's Accelerator
appliance to its customers to improve performance on
private WANs and site to site VPNs.
Read more at http://www.QTSnet.com/stayinformed/l3_stay_pr54.htm
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EVENTS
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events currently scheduled.
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PRESIDENT'S
CORNER
Any
of you that know me well probably know I’m an avid
skier. It’s
how I recharge, enjoying a day or week in the fresh
mountain air, taking in the views, and hopefully finding
a steep chute or two.
After reading numerous news reports that say
within 50 years most of the resorts we ski today will be
too warm to hold snow, I’ve taken an interest in
global warming, as well as other environmental issues.
In
my last vacation in Telluride, Colorado, I stopped in at
a local café/bookstore (ReStore Our World) that focuses
on environmental issues, and after talking to the owner
for a while I picked up a book called State of the
World 2004, an annual report from the Worldwatch
Institute. The
book focuses on how we are consuming natural resources
at a wildly unsustainable level, and the long-term
impact this will have on the ability of the planet to
sustain human beings.
Needless to say, it’s not a particularly
uplifting or cheery book.
One
might wonder where I’m going with this, and how it
relates to technology (which is, after all, the purpose
of this column). Many
of you are now preparing for a wave of new desktop
computer purchases, either to “clean sweep” your
organization or perhaps to replace 1/4 to 1/3 of your
systems. This
raises the issue of equipment disposal as the old
systems are cycled out of production.
I’m
guessing a few of you, like me, tend to work past 6
occasionally and say hello to the cleaning folks.
Despite efforts to have separate baskets for
recycling of paper products, I’ve yet to see a
cleaning crew that doesn’t dump the recycle bin into
the same garbage can as everything else.
Most of our garbage simply ends up in landfills,
locally or shipped elsewhere.
This doesn’t bode well for our computers, which
many folks simply mark as garbage and leave out for
disposal. A
walk through the streets of Manhattan’s residential
areas highlights this problem, with old computers left
on the street with the garbage for disposal amidst the
rest of our trash.
Yet an even larger quantity are just sitting in
offices, closets and storage areas.
Most old computers, even very obsolete ones, are
simply in storage awaiting disposal.
At some point, these will be disposed of.
The question is, how?
Computers
and monitors are a major component of e-waste, the
leftover garbage of the electronics industry, which
happens to be the fastest growing manufacturing segment
in the world. From
1988, the number of computers on the planet rose from
roughly 105 million to over half a billion, a five-fold
increase. Since
our technology tends to cycle every 3-5 years, the old
equipment becomes “e-waste.”
Many
of the components in computers and monitors are actually
quite dangerous. For
example, a CRT monitor contains lead, phosphor, barium
and other toxic components.
PVCs are part of the plastics in most computers,
and are particularly difficult to recycle.
The toxins from e-waste, which constitutes
roughly 70% of the heavy metals in US landfills, can
cause damage to the central nervous system, brain, and
other organs.
Much
of the recycling that does occur is done aboard,
primarily in China, India and Pakistan, due to economics
– it is 10 times the cost to recycle here than there.
However, there is a reason.
The way recycling is done in those countries is a
manual and dangerous process.
Computers are broken open by hand to extract the
reusable components, with many of the remnants simply
discarded into landfills or dumped into rivers (causing
contamination of local drinking water from lead and
other compounds).
California
and Massachusetts have recently instituted legislation
to promote environment-friendly disposal of IT
equipment. Hopefully
this will spread as other states’ citizens begin to
understand the challenges posed by improper disposal of
this equipment. Ultimately,
it will be up to the IT industry to take some ownership
and self-manage in this area, and up to us as leaders
and participants in our industry, to demand it.
There
are several ways you can more safely dispose of your
equipment. Of
note, HP and Office Depot have recently launched a
program where they will take in unwanted PCs and related
components for recycling, free of charge, through
September 6th. Visit
www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/040713a.html
and www.officedepot.com/recycle
for
more information on this.
HP also offers a program for recycling where
customers do need to pay shipping charges, but the
recycling occurs in the USA and avoids the environmental
problems described above from overseas recycling (see http://www.hp.com/recycle).
When purchasing a new PC, Dell offers customers
free shipping to recycle your old one (www.dell.com/recycle).
Many businesses have instituted programs to give
away used computers and monitors to employees for use at
home (just be sure to properly set their expectations
relative to support!).
The Cristina Foundation provides services to take
your computers and provide them to not-for-profits and
other organizations – you can visit their web site at www.cristina.org.
Of course, be sure to cleanly erase all computer
hard drives before any type of disposal takes place.
If
you are interested in learning more about the
environmental issues I’ve discussed above, take a look
at State of the World 2004 from the Worldwatch Institute
(W.W. Norton & Company, 2004).
For a more positive perspective on how these
problems can be addressed, you can read Lester Brown’s
Eco-Economy (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001) or visit
the web site www.earth-policy.org.
You might also wish to visit www.environmentaldefense.org
for broader environmental information, including how you
can get involved.
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 its business solutions
partner, AKA Enterprise Solutions. AKA is a highly
focused solution provider that provides services around
Microsoft Business Solutions – currently, the Dynamics
(formerly Great Plains) and Axapta accounting systems,
and Microsoft CRM. These solutions are a great fit for
most of QTS’ mid-market customers.
For
more than a decade, AKA Enterprise Solutions has been a
leading partner dedicated to the sales, consulting,
service and support of Microsoft Business Solutions. AKA
Enterprise Solutions provides solutions that address
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer
Relationship Management (CRM), e-Commerce and Business
Process Consulting and Custom Application Development.
AKA’s
dedication and focus on the Microsoft Great Plains and
Microsoft CRM products benefits their clients by
providing increased access to knowledge and dedicated
resources for all areas of customer care. As a certified
Microsoft Business Solutions partner, AKA shares
Microsoft's commitment to long lasting customer
relationships exemplified by a 93% client customer
retention rate and consistently high satisfaction
ratings.
AKA
Enterprise Solutions has been the recipient of numerous
industry awards and national honors that serve to
reflect the combined talents, innovation, and enthusiasm
of the team members. AKA was the 2001 recipient of the
Eagle Award, the highest award given to Microsoft
Business Solutions partner organizations recognizing
strong leadership, a commitment to excellence and
extreme dedication to customers and partners. Of the
4,000 Microsoft Business Solutions partners worldwide,
AKA is routinely ranked within the top fifteen companies
in the world. As part of their dedication to Microsoft
Business Solutions, AKA has maintained the only North
East certified Microsoft Great Plains Education Center
for the past three years.
As
an InterDyn company, AKA Enterprise Solutions offers
clients the advantage of specialized talents and
industry expertise of each of our locations to maintain
the highest quality of customer care services. With more
than 500 certified professionals in locations around the
world, InterDyn supports over 3,500 customers- making us
the largest, most comprehensive, and most experienced
Microsoft Business Solutions partner worldwide. For more
information about AKA Enterprise Solutions visit http://www.akaes.com,
or contact your QTS Account Manager.
QTS
and AKA Enterprise Solutions work together for our
customers to build new solutions that create competitive
advantage, reduce costs or create opportunity - with QTS
providing the infrastructure and AKA the software
solutions, in a highly integrated fashion.
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