So have you seen the ResponsePoint that Microsoft Recently announced? This promises to be pretty darn cool stuff. Long, I have been saying there needs to be a VoIP product designed for the SMB market place that fits the SMB mold and becomes part of the toolset. There are a couple of options on tap already, Packet8, Vonage (maybe), trixbox and home brew…btw I love Trixbox, with all the nerd-vittles customizations…but alas they are not built to be INTEGRATED with Microsoft Small Business Server!!! So Microsoft has developed, in partnership with a couple of hardware vendors, ResponsePoint. Click on the link for whatever info is available on it. The one thing I don't see is that it is designed to be separate and apart from the Small Business Server. BAD MOVE as that also assumes DIY VoIP for SMB…and this I am against. My biggest pet peeve for Packet8, besides Credit Card billing is that there really is no Channel built for partners to leverage their experience and market reach. The one thing I can say for Microsoft is that they maximize the Channel, from the enterprise down, and especially the smaller marketplace. Microsoft's Small Business reach is dependent entirely on it's Partners and especially us Small Business Specialists to sell and deliver Small Business Server and the Small Business Desktop to the Market.
I hope for EVERYONE's sake that Microsoft is building the ResponsePoint to plug in to SBS. If they miss this boat, then they really don't get small business. By reviewing what info is available there is still some time for it, but it does not look good for SBS'ers.
So let's look at features that I think it ought to have…
- SBS Management Console integration
- Switchboard
Exchange Integration (begs the question on CRM Small Business Edition integration as well)
- Email, calendar, contacts, to-do list (the whole Unified Communications thing)
- Mobile integration, so that it knows that (fill in generic name here) is out on her/his SmartPhone and automagically forwards calls to him/her.
- Organization awareness, so that for example it knows, through ActiveDirectory who is the boss of personX and who their assistant is and who are alternative contacts for personX and automagically offers them up as alternatives to leaving a message.
- Distrobution Group aware, so that when it's a snow-day, the boss can call the office and using a series of choices it will call out to all the employees and let them know not to bother coming in, but instead werk from home, and oh by the way PersonX will be on her/his Smartphone all day, forward that ext. over to them…
- Billing integration, so that it can create a report for those people who are in time-sensitive businesses and they can bill accordingly…(perhaps directly to Office Accounting and Small Business Financials)…out of the box!!!no third party app for that, now for other accounting apps, perhaps make them build it…
- Multi-Provider config. This is one thing I particularly like about Trixbox and the tutorials on nerd Vittles, they say have multiple VoIP line vendors, that way in case one dies or is unavailable you can still pick up the phone and get dial-tone from another vendor, and keep multiple accts open. I really like that idea, and this should have the ability to configure a secondary outbound vendor, just in case…
Fortunately I have not seen ANYTHING in real life about this product, have not even seen the demo/walk through press announcement yet, but will soon enough. I just hope the plan is not to sell this through the retail channel like BestBuy (4 Biz), Staples, etc. That would be such a wrong move and poor message to the Loyal and dedicated SBSers in the Channel.
Recently, as part of a separate project I have been learning more and more about Microsoft Operations Framework, Microsoft Solutions Framework, and Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization Initiative. A lot of big words in there, and you can go learn more and get up to speed on those 'thinks' as time permits. Basically they are a methodology for IT consulting and management that is focused on identifying a company's current IT landscape and mapping that to business needs, IT standards and opportunities for further Microsoft Product penetration. Let's not beat around the bush, it is about Microsoft, they developed it and spend a great deal of time evangelizing it and even more money implementing it. Here's the thing, even when you eliminate the Microsoft Software the concepts ring true. Further, why eliminate the Microsoft Software from the consultative system. The fact is that they are spending vast resources to make software that is People-Ready for the enterprise as well as the SMB market. It works and is becoming the standard against which all others will be judged. Like it or not, Office is not going to be replaced by 'Google Apps.' Like it or not WordPerfect has not been for several years and will not be as heavily adopted as Word. Linux desktops and Mac desktops, no matter how trendy the advertising, will not be the mainstream system in the information world. They do well when given a chance, but I like what Microsoft is doing. By unlocking features in applications that can only be used under the 'right' scenario, Vista and Office 07, better together, they are not stifling completion but eliminating it. But I digress, which I am apt to do…
Standardization is the foundation for any Small Business that is looking to take that 'next step.' Often Small businesses are born and grow technologically one PC at a time, very organically, with no plan and no real foundation. This describes your average SOHO. Single PC or sneaker net or peer2peer. This can server a small business well for a period of time, some last this way years and years. The problem is that it has a logical cap of effectiveness. That could be in how people work together, Collaboration. That could be in how they process information linearly, Infrastructure, or how they consume information, Business Intelligence. The fact is that all small businesses will come to a point that they cannot grow beyond without a shift in how they operate. It's fundamental and demands an expert to overcome. Just like pests, for some an ant or two crawling around is ok and perfectly acceptable, but when it's all over the trash can they can't do it themselves and so they enlist an expert. Likewise a business will not grow, without an expert who can help them navigate that growth. Interestingly, it is the same all the way up the business world, whether it is Joe's Fish and Salad emporium or a Fortune 100 company, there will be times that they cannot do it technologically without some help. So the frameworks and initiatives I spoke about above apply here. And the interesting thing is that they apply throughout the business world, again whether it's a small business or a huge multi-national corporation, the frameworks and initiatives apply.
So it basically breaks down like this…a business maps into one of 4 quadrants on a circular graph, in terms of 'standardization' of technology and processes. That in turn maps them to a set of 'lifestyles' of the business, which then prescribes how to approach next steps, etc… As an example, let's say your company does not do change management well. Then you may fall into say section (b) and in there we describe your change management processes if they exist, your successes and failures, and mostly your hurdles to success in change management. By doing htat we can map you to say a basic level or reactive level of IT standardization. Meaning that when change is required you react to it to make it happen. Pretty simple, right, but here's the thing, your spending ALL your time and resources chasing change, so you cannot grow your company. The frameworks and initiatives prescribe steps to transition to a more rationalized state whereby you control change, not react to it. Taking it a step further, it prescribes steps to take to become dynamic and affect change before required or even requested. Making you a more agile company and able to deal with change more effectively. So that was a rather simple look at it, but it kinda drives the point home. Think about this little piece of change management and how you deal with it…a spambot attacks your domain name. How do you deal with that? It starts spamming your mailboxes to the tune of 1000 messages per day per address. What's that going to do to your users? What's that going to do to your servers? What's that going to do to your network/internet? You have to close a deal, but that is dependant on an email from your vendor, but it gets stuck in Spam Hell… Or how about this, a disgruntled employee, before walking out walks back to a server with all of your critical data on it, opens a command prompt and types FDisk and reformats the C partition wiping everything off the company's Server. Are you prepared for that? Do you have ways to protect against it ever happening? Or even knowing before/as it happens?
Those are some drastic 'change management' scenerios, but it could be as little as you hire a new sales rep out of (fill in remote location here) to sell your wares and services. How do you get them up to speed and integrated quickly into your world? So I am working with a group of like minded partners and we are learning more about these initiatives and frameworks, and are starting an evangelical campaign for it. Honestly, not many SMB's have the tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to move from a basic state to a dynamic state over night. What we are doing is helping customers map the growth of their company and using the framework to migrate them from basic to dynamic within their growth projections….
Call Abbie or Me anytime to discuss this, it's a great time to be working with small businesses, there is SOOOOOO much growth opportunity for those that take the leap. Look for some successes and honest failures along the way with some of our client stories.
-bill
I read another blog predicting that Microsoft is bringing BI to the masses and that other BI Vendors are going to need to be more innovative in order to keep up.
Interesting, as for as long as I can remember, Excel has been the tool of choice for analytics. During the last 5-10 years, many companies and developers have created 'solutions' to help customers 'analyze' their data more efficiently. Many of these solutions are in fact built upon Excel and derive a vast amount of horse-power from backend servers like Microsoft SQL. Having worked in both enterprise and small business, it occurs to me that the Small Business needs BI sometimes more than Enterprise. Many are steep in BI, but that intelligence is locked away in the owners head or in a notebook under the secretary's desk. Few SMBs invest in the tools to help them take that BI from the notebook to the whole company's stakeholders. This is where the new Microsoft Office Platform comes in. On the Desktop: Outlook for communications and organization, Excel and Access for Structuring and analyzing data, Word and PowerPoint to share the knowledge. There's a lot more in it that I'm happy to share. Then there's the backend, and if you're a Small Business w/out Small Business Server, you are really missing the boat, especially moving forward. Office relies heavily on Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint to unlock the real power behind Office '07. Customers who have invested in ACT!, Quickbooks and Line of Business Applications press developers and vendors for 'plug-ins' for the Live Desktop Search. Why not Google? Keep Google at home. Microsoft's Live Search is integrated with the enterprise, even the small enterprise, delivering the right info to the right people in a safe and secure manner. And what's the big deal about search? That is the way Microsoft delivers REAL BI to the masses. It's contextual, it's safe, and it's accurate. This is not by accident, but by design. Most Small Businesses are inundated with Documents and Data that is redundant, old and inaccurate that they don't know heads from tails. For some consultants and techies the answer is simple…Add another hard drive, they are cheap and easy. The problem is that only makes the problem worse. Search helps unlock the 'hidden' gems of data buried deep in the nested folders on network drives. So rather than investing years worth of budget on a structured data application, simply invest in the right tools, and some training, and soon, you'll be a BI poster child.
Call or email Abbie or me for more info and a free Business and Technology Assessment.