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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
QTS AND
PARTNER NEWS
WELCOME TO NEW CUSTOMERS
QTS offers a �welcome aboard� to the following new
customers:
�
American Bible Society
�
Fiske
Brothers Refining
�
The
Star-Ledger
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.
MICROSOFT CASE STUDIES
MICROSOFT PUBLISHES CASE STUDY FOR QTS WINDOWS SBS 2003
IMPLEMENTATION AT BROOKLYN BREWERY
Brewery Sales Force Gains Remote Access, Improved
Productivity with New Server System. For the Case Study,
visit
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/
CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=16274
MICROSOFT PUBLISHES CASE STUDY FOR QTS EXCHANGE SERVER
2003 IMPLEMENTATION AT NEW YORK ROAD RUNNERS
Nonprofit Organization Increases Productivity and
Reliability with New Messaging Tool. For the Case Study,
visit
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/
CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=16288
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EVENTS
QTS,
Econium and Microsoft are
hosting a lunchtime seminar on Thursday, February 3rd
at the South City Grill in Mountain Lakes, NJ. This
event is for senior IT decision makers in organizations
with 200 or more users, and will cover how to empower
employees to work together and leverage knowledge more
effectively, review collaborative solutions from
Microsoft, and discuss how to properly secure remote
access and collaborative solutions as well as the
Microsoft platform. For more information or to
register, contact your QTS Account Manager or visit
www.clicktoattend.com and enter event code 100710.
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PRESIDENT'S CORNER
I
have been meeting with customers for several years now
to review how their businesses are using Microsoft
software � both through our Systems Strategy Check-Up
initiative and otherwise. One of the things that I have
consistently seen is a general lack of awareness of the
benefits customers are eligible to take advantage of
under their Microsoft Software Assurance (�SA�)
benefits, assuming the customer has stayed current with
the program. Although the primary benefit is upgrade
rights to the newest version of the program, there are a
number of additional benefits that customers can take
advantage of depending on which program they are in, and
what their license count is.
I
have called on our partner,
Softmart, to help me with this column to review
these benefits. We leverage
Softmart to deliver Microsoft Select and
Enterprise Agreements to our larger medium business and
enterprise customers, and in my experience their
excellent service nicely complements their good pricing
� matching the service level and consultative focus we
provide to our customers.
The following benefits are applicable to customers with
a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, though several of them
also apply to customers in a Select Agreement and some
iterations of the Open License program. If you have
questions about your benefits, contact your QTS account
manager for clarification.
For
customers purchasing desktop products (specifically,
Office), the Home Use Program (HUP) grants the
customer�s employees rights to run Office 2003 and other
Microsoft desktop applications at home. Employees order
the media sets for a nominal fee from a secure MS
website and install the software (which comes with its
own product key code) on their personal desktop or
laptop. Each employee is allowed one free tech support
incident for installation assistance per product, so the
employer�s IT staff is not burdened with additional help
desk calls. The license agreement for each product
purchased under the HUP is between Microsoft and the
purchasing employee, which absolves the employer of any
liability. Unlike previous Microsoft Home Use offerings,
the HUP under the SA Benefits package does not require
the employer to share the company�s media or product
license keys with the employee.
The
Employee Purchase Program (EPP) allows the
customer�s employees to purchase a wide variety of
Microsoft products, including software, hardware,
peripherals and X-Box games. EPP pricing is up to 30%
off of suggested retail price, which is a valuable
employee benefit your Human Resources department can
offer to prospective new hires.
The
eLearning benefit is
a series of computer-based training titles for Microsoft
Office family applications and servers. The
eLearning courses are a
subset of the Microsoft eLearning
Library (MELL) and may be installed on company desktops,
servers or on employee-owned machines. One set of free
media is provided for each enrollment but the
eLearning content is also
available via download from the Microsoft Volume License
Services (MVLS) website. While
eLearning is an excellent learning tool in its
own right, it is also useful as a means of reinforcing
material learned in classroom or online training
courses.
Training Vouchers
are one of the most sought-after SA Benefits. Each
voucher is redeemable for a full day of instructor-led
classroom training at any Microsoft Certified Partner
for Learning Solutions (formerly CTEC) facility. While
the vouchers are earned with the purchase of Windows Pro
and Office Software Assurance licenses, they can be used
for any Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) class,
including server courses. For example, a customer could
use five vouchers to pay for a five-day Windows Server
or Exchange Server class that typically costs $400-$500
per day for a savings of up to $2,500. Typically,
customers with SA receive one voucher (day of training)
for every 50 server licenses purchased, or two for every
50 Office licenses.
For customers purchasing Server products, the Problem
Resolution Support (PRS) benefit provides
customers with free technical support for each server
that is enrolled in Software Assurance. Standard
Editions servers qualify for Web-based support, while
Enterprise Editions of servers can access telephone
support. SA is required on both server and related
Client Access Licenses (CALs).
This support provides assistance for problems with
specific symptoms encountered where there is a
reasonable expectation that the problems are caused by
Microsoft products.
For server licenses with Software Assurance (SA),
customers receive access to the TechNet series of
IT professional tools. TechNet Managed Newsgroups and
TechNet Plus subscription media feature resources such
as the Microsoft Knowledge Base, software updates,
utilities, drivers, and how-to articles to help
customers succeed.
Software Assurance customers may request
hotfixes for products under
the Extended Lifecycle Hot-Fix Support benefit
without signing up or paying an initial fee prior to
determining a need. This means customers do not pay for
extended support unless hotfixes
are required. Current Software Assurance customers
should note that the 90-day time frame to sign up for
two years of additional non-security
hotfix support beyond the
mainstream period of five years has been removed. As
always, security fixes are automatically extended to
customers.
Customers with Software Assurance for Microsoft server
software, as well as related Client Access Licenses (CALs),
are eligible for complimentary �Cold� Backup Server
licenses for the purpose of disaster recovery. Use of
the software under a complimentary disaster recovery
license is subject to the use rights for that software
and certain terms and conditions.
Clearly, the Software Assurance program provides a
considerable number of benefits, and considerable value,
beyond upgrade rights to the software. It is important
that you understand the benefits your organization is
eligible for, and ensure you are taking advantage of
them.
I
would like to thank our friends at
Softmart for providing much of the content in
this column.
Softmart
has been a Microsoft reseller for over 20 years,
and is certified by Microsoft as a Large Account
Reseller (LAR); an Authorized Education Reseller (AER);
and an Enterprise Software Advisor (ESA). As an ESA,
Softmart is authorized to
manage Microsoft Enterprise Agreements for both domestic
and international contracts. Currently,
Softmart manages over 330
Master Select Agreements and 138 Enterprise Agreements.
If you are a QTS customer with 250+ desktops and are
interested in discussing how
Softmart can help you with an Enterprise or
Select Agreement, contact me and I will put you in
contact with the local Softmart
account manager.
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 a key partner for
training services, New Horizons. Founded in 1982, New
Horizons is the world�s largest independent computer
training company with a network of over 250 training
locations. QTS has been working with the New Jersey New
Horizons franchise, which has two locations: one in
Iselin (MetroPark/Edison)
and one in Parsippany. New Horizons New Jersey is
celebrating ten years of operations this year and has
been a certified Microsoft training partner since 1995 �
it is currently designated by Microsoft as a Certified
Partner for Learning Solutions (CPLS).
New
Horizons offers a broad range of technical training,
desktop applications and business skills courses for
users of all levels, from the beginner level to the most
advanced level. New Horizons provides customer-focused
computer training choices in multiple formats and
delivery methods, offering businesses and individuals
top quality computer training that is tailored to meet
their needs.
When
companies install new software, create networks,
implement new architecture, a major issue that must be
dealt with is how to educate their staff to be able to
maintain and support those new products so the company
can benefit from all features of the new technology.
New Horizons is the one-stop solution for the technical
and end-user training needed.
New
Horizons New Jersey has an extensive public schedule,
with classes offered days, evenings, and week-ends,
offering Instructor-led training delivered by certified
instructors in a comfortable classroom environment.
They also provide customized training and will deliver
private classes at the client�s location or at one of
the New Horizons locations. A unique feature of New
Horizons is that they will actually bring PC�s and set
up networks at client�s sites, to deliver standard or
customized training, if that is what the client
requires.
New
Horizons prides itself on understanding customer�s needs
and developing creative solutions to meet those
individual and business needs. And, from a quality
perspective, New Horizons New Jersey has utilized a
KnowledgeAdvisors product,
called Metrics That Matter, for the past two years.
KnowledgeAdvisors provides
independent data analysis using student evaluations that
are collected every day, in every class, via the
internet. New Horizons� goal is to ensure that their
customers are not only satisfied with New Horizons�
training offerings, but that their services align with
the client�s business strategies back on the job. In
2004, New Horizons New Jersey technical instructors
achieved an over all rating of 8.68 out of a scale of 9
and their applications instructors achieved 8.66 out of
nine, putting the New Jersey location in the top 10% of
all training vendors nation-wide as measured by MTM.
For
more information on New Horizons, please view their web
site at www.newhorizonsnj.com, where you can see
complete course schedules, class outlines, technical
training and certification updates and directions to the
learning centers�all in an easy-to-navigate format. You
can contact the Vice president of Sales, Steve Sweeney,
at
ssweeney@newhorizonsnj.com or by phone at
(732)767-1000 x102.
Or,
contact your QTS Account Manager for more information
about New Horizons.
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