Managed Support
Mass Deployment of Apps Now Available in NZ
Up until now apps have had to be tediously loaded on to each and every iOS device one at a time. Apple’s Volume Purchase Program (VPP) now makes it easier to find, buy, and then distribute the apps your business needs. Apple’s new VPP isn’t restricted to just Apple Store apps. It’s also a simple way for businesses to get custom B2B apps built and deployed from third party developers.
To enrol and find out more about VPP visit http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/
Ditch Windows XP to reduce support costs
PC Magazine May 2012
Microsoft this week continued to push for the demise of Windows XP, arguing that it is more expensive for businesses to remain on the aging OS than it is to upgrade to Windows 7.
Pointing to a report it commissioned from IDC, Microsoft’s Erwin Visser wrote in a blog post that “staying on Windows XP is an expensive investment when Windows 7 provides dramatic savings.”
Specifically, IDC said that base IT and end-user labor costs associated with Windows XP are about five times as much as those for Windows 7. “That’s a significant amount of money IT shops could put towards modernizing their departments and adding value to the businesses,” Visser said.
Those prices are also still on the rise. “IDC found the longer you wait, the pricier supporting Windows XP gets: IT labor costs go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past deadline, and user productivity suffers as well, with an increased cost of 23 percent,” he said.
Read the rest of the article here
Group Policy update in Windows 8
ZDNet
The new Group Policy Update feature in Windows 8 could be a real time-saver for IT admins. Here’s how it works.
I’m taking a couple weeks off before the busiest part of Microsoft’s 2012 kicks into full gear. But never fear: The Microsoft watching will go on while I’m gone. I’ve asked a few illustrious members of the worldwide Microsoft community to share their insights via guest posts on a variety of topics — from Windows Phone, to Hyper-V. Today’s entry is all about a new administrative feature in Windows 8 is authored by Alan Burchill.
As most IT administrators know, group policy is the feature in Windows that allows you to configured large number of windows computer easily and automatically. These configuration settings are stored in Active Directory (AD) for the workstation to then poll on a periodic basis for any configuration changes. This polling typically take 90 minutes (with some random offset), meaning that any configuration changes that an IT admin makes takes up to 2 hours or more to take effect.
One of the great new features that Microsoft has added to Windows 8 is now the ability to force a group policy update to run. This new feature called “Group Policy Update” can effectively give admins the way to push out configuration changes to all the computers online in less than 10 minutes. This is of course very handy if you want to quickly push out a quick policy change or quickly undo a setting that you might have configured by mistake.
check out the rest of the post from ZDNet
Maclean Becomes First Kaseya Certified Partner in Australasia
Enfusion, a division of Maclean, provides remote monitoring and maintenance solutions, based on the Kaseya platform. Offering a range of consultancy and hosting, Enfusion enables its partners to automate the monitoring, alerting and maintenance of its clients server and PC infrastructures. By offering a wholesale managed services program, Enfusion facilitates the movement of businesses to enter the managed services industry.
Steve Wilson, Enfusions General Manager, says, Our relationship with Kaseya enables us to stay ahead of the competitive managed services business. Direct access to the Kaseya priority support team means our customers benefit from higher service level agreements (SLAs) and priority access to beta testing and pilot programs before they are released to the broader MSP market.
Ensuring the highest level qualifications of our team reflects our commitment to keep one step ahead of the game in New Zealand and Australia, ensuring our team is the most qualified and experienced in the business, Wilson says.
Enfusion has grown in the last twelve months by responding to demand from managed service providers who are looking to scale their businesses. Prior to partnering, many of the engineers working in break fix environments lost hours of productivity responding to miscellaneous problems or reactively managing client issues on their help desks. Using Kaseya technology, Enfusions managed services promote MSPs to add value to their clients by focusing their time on proactive IT projects.
Dermot McCann, Managing Director, Kaseya Australia and New Zealand, says, We are committed to creating the tools and training that help drive partner profitability through improved productivity and return-on-invested capital. With the Kaseya certification, Maclean is empowering its customers to be the best MSPs in competitive markets.
Maclean announced Kaseya Australasian Managed Service Provider of the Year 2010
Maclean takes Kaseya MSP title off the Aussies
SYDNEY, December 10, 2010 Kaseya, the leading global provider of automated IT systems management software, today announced Auckland-based Managed Services Provider (MSP) Maclean as winner of its second MSP of the Year Award. For the first time, the competition was open to Managed Services Providers (MSPs) from both Australia and New Zealand.
Maclean was selected for its outstanding ability to successfully deploy a managed services strategy in New Zealands mid-market. Working closely with their clients in-house IT teams providing complementary services such as system maintenance and monitoring has won the company a healthy portion of the lucrative 100 to 500 seats segment in New Zealand.
Maclean has been a strong advocate of managed services within the wider IT community. The MSP is actively involved in the Kaseya NZ User Group, and has started assisting smaller resellers to deliver world-class managed services as a Master MSP.
“Customer feedback clearly indicated that decreasing system downtime, decreasing response time and increasing the value businesses get from their IT departments were the most important things an MSP can do. To that end, we sought technology, people and processes to achieve these things and have made great progress- in no small part thanks to Kaseya’s technology” said Chris Maclean, CEO of Maclean.
In two years, having recognised the value of a managed service versus the traditional hourly rate service agreements, more than 65% of Maclean clients have moved to a fixed price agreement. By driving efficiencies through the Kaseya managed services flagship solution, Kaseya IT Services Edition, and its advanced automation features, Macleans contracted annuity revenue increased by 2000%, and the company’s engineer utilisation rate has increased 20%.
Martin Ashby, Executive Vice President APAC, commented: “Maclean impressed us with their clear vision and well-defined go-to-market strategy for managed services.” He added: “The ANZ managed services market is one of the most advanced in the world. Maclean demonstrated that they are not resting on their laurels, but pro-actively driving specialisation and maturity in the industry.”
Earlier this week, Kaseya underlined its commitment to the ANZ region with the opening of its new state-of-the-art Global Customer Service Centre in Auckland, which provides ‘follow-the-sun’ support together with a second facility in Dublin, Ireland. The service centres are the primary contact points for all customer related inquiries from the company’s extensive customer base of over 5,000 organisations around the world.
Kaseya has pledged itself to the continuous development of the local managed services community in Australia and New Zealand, by recognising vision, excellence and leadership among its MSP partners with the MSP of the Year award.
Candidates had to demonstrate to a panel of independent judges how managed services have become a catalyst for innovation, business acumen and company growth.
About Kaseya
Kaseya is the leading global provider of IT Systems Management software. Kaseya solutions empower everyone- from individual consumers to large corporations and IT service providers - to proactively manage and control IT assets remotely, easily and efficiently from one integrated Web-based platform. Kaseya solutions are trusted by IT service providers and a wide variety of industries including: banking, consumer packaged goods, education, financial services, government, healthcare, military, real estate, retail and transportation. The company is privately held and based in Lausanne, Switzerland with 33 offices in 20 countries. To learn more, please visit http://www.kaseya.com.au/ or http://www.kaseya.co.nz/
