AMRCON » In other news…

AMRCON's New Product Offering Brochure

arudko — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:52:26 +0000

Recently, we spent countless hours developing the best representation of our company in a full-color printed brochure. We redeveloped our Mission Statement and executive staff biographies and learned what our clients think about our company. We wanted the brochure to tell the story. And when you read it, I think you will find we did just that.

Although AMRCON is not the only Managed Service Provider ”MSP” out there, we know we set ourselves apart. In fact through the process of speaking to our clients for this brochure, we found several instances where we earned the business because of our native abilities. I think the MSP business is about customization and adaptation. We’re very proud to have Proctor & Gamble from a competitive experience. When we asked what made the difference, we were very surprised to find that our experience and thorough process of treating each client’s individual needs as the template to provide our ODS services. Although we have guidelines, protocol and process, one of our biggest assets is the ability to make sure we fit the client and not the other way around. I see other MSP’s out there doing the opposite. Read the testimonials in the brochure or under Testimonials.

For those reading and learning about Managed Services for the first time, we discuss what it’s all about and where it spawned from. Although many MSP’s come from a combination of other service models, AMRCON is proud to say that it was formed back in 2005 as a native MSP. Our clients recognize this through our process always having the Managed Service practice in mind. This is quite evident through our SLA, agreements and other aspects where you will find AMRCON providing unprecedented guarantees and service offerings such as using the term “unlimited” quite often. I think this says a lot because we show that we stand behind our preventive and proactive methods by providing guarantees. This is yet another difference.

I don’t want to give it all away so I invite you to read the brochure or look through the top navigation of this site to learn more about AMRCON. If anything perks your interest as a company in need of our services, a consulting firm looking to get into Managed Services, or just curious to learn more, feel free to give us a call.

Upon completion we found that our website really needed to reflect the great job our creative vendors did with our brochure, so we closed the old website and converted everything over to the blog where the blog and website prefixes now resolve. It was a key step in taking advantage of the blog content which has done very well for us in SEO “Search Engine Optimization” and building traffic to our site. We do this by keeping the site living and breathing. AMRCON was lucky enough to have started a newsletter following back in 2007 which we eventually migrated from paper, to email, to web-based content which far outlives previous media. Now our posts are available forever online. This helps us build a presence. If there are any companies out there looking to learn more about the use of a blog and other social media objectives, know that AMRCON has not only developed these solutions for ourselves but countless other businesses. Contact us for more information.

Microsoft License Enforcement – anti-piracy efforts

arudko — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:03:39 +0000

In an effort to level the playing field for honest partners, Microsoft continues to file cases against companies and individuals caught selling infringing software and systems. Every month, Microsoft receives hundreds of piracy reports from customers and from the system builder community. These reports enable Microsoft to investigate and address piracy across the country, and they are critical to the success of our anti-piracy efforts.

Almost all of the cases that Microsoft has recently filed resulted from either customer or channel piracy reports. The most recent round of cases were filed against 15 companies and individuals, including:

VioSoftware (Lafayette, CO)
Royal Discount (Boulder, CO)
SaveintheUSA.com (Los Angeles, CA)
Dallas Computer (Plano, TX)
Daroc Computers (El Paso, TX)

For a full listing of all of the cases that have been filed this month and in the past, click here.

Genuine Windows: What’s New with Genuine Windows Volume Activation (VA)?

With the availability of Windows 7, Microsoft has further improved the technologies and tools used for volume license activation. Administrative requirements have been reduced making the VA process easier. Improved interfaces support greater usability and customization. VA Services are now more fully integrated, very manageable, and offer you even better administrative control. To improve performance, VA now has a reduced memory footprint for greater system and network efficiency.

For Partners this all means more efficiency and higher quality delivery of Windows 7 license activation for your clients. The key VA tools are still Key Management Service (KMS) and Multiple Activation Key (MAK).

KMS remains the most efficient way to help your client activate all of their Windows 7 installs automatically, rather than requiring each computer to connect to a hosted service.
For systems that are not network attached or that don’t have access to a KMS server, you can still also use MAK to independently activate eligible systems directly with Microsoft, either over the Internet or by telephone.

What happens if I help my customer deploy Windows 7 and the genuine software license is not properly activated?The proper activation of the genuine Windows 7 license is an important part of the deployment process and your services portfolio. If your clients do not activate installations of Windows 7 software within the grace period, their computers will default to a “Notification Mode.” Users will still be able to use their systems, however, they will begin to see activation reminders during Logon and in the Action Center. In addition, their Desktop Background color will be set to black as a further reminder that the license needs to be activated.Microsoft listened to your feedback and worked to improve Volume Activation so that you could provide even better service to your customers. You can find additional resources to help you plan and understand Volume Activation here:

Video – VA Fundamentals
VA Expert advice column
VA planning guides
VA deployment guides
VA FAQs

Re-published from –Genuine News and Tools from Microsoft

Piracy of any kind is a serious offence and not being taken lightly in the industry. Acts of piracy add to cost for law abiding clients like yourselves. Not to mention make our jobs more difficult with managing licensing and activiation. I know I’m glad to hear Windows 7 will make administration easier and more difficult for dishonest OEM’s to pirate. –Dee Rudko, CEO

Windows 7 launch October 22nd 2009!

arudko — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:50:24 +0000

I’ve received many questions about the big launch so I wanted to take a few minutes to give you the real scoop from a trusted Microsoft Certified firm. As many of you remember Windows Vista was not a very successful product. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated that Windows 7 is the result of learning from the failures of Vista through meticulously ironing out most of the wrinkles that annoyed Vista users. I’m not hear to talk about if it will have successful launch, but more of an open information forum about what it might mean to our clients. I would like to inform our clients on the do’s and don’ts as well as other easily understood facts that you should know. Let me be clear that I don’t think an XP user should run right out and upgrade, I believe a Vista user would be first in line but not right away. Be sure to ask us if its a good idea in your specific environment before making any major decisions. Our team here at AMRCON has been working with the operating system for months in our lab environment. We’re not ready to give the green light just yet.

Here are a few facts that should be pointed out:

Windows 7 will require a clean install: One of the lessons learned from Vista was that not enough integration between OEM hardware and 3rd party software vendors was provided. Thus everyone had issues with drivers and getting applications to run. To ensure a clean slate, the Windows 7 OS will require a complete format of your current drive from scratch, then and only then will you be able to recover your data and install your applications. From a technical standpoint this is generally the right way to go and will help alleviate headaches. I would not recommend doing this yourself with out some form of technical proficiency.
The Economic role: The economy might play a strategic role in how our clients might look at migrations. In the past new migrations were done along with hardware upgrades, it just made better sense. In today’s economy budgets and planning have been reduced. However, with the leaner version of windows you can get away with migrating on older hardware where in the past new versions meant more horsepower requirements. Both the size and memory requirements have been reduced in Win 7. An eventual migration to Win 7 might be a more cost effective solution to those behind the times. Windows XP stands as the solid OS with 71.8% market share and Vista with only 18.8%. Windows 7 will end up taking most of the Vista share and heavily over time into the XP market. Now depending on just how old your hardware is will determine if an upgrade migration is in order or going with a complete hardware refresh along with the new OS.
XP Mode?: Since Microsoft caught a bad image with suggesting to XP users to migrate to Vista then to Win 7 when it’s launched, many people had great concerns. Business owners expressing the bad taste they had provided a plan. Win 7 will have a XP Mode where a virtual XP service pack 3 environment can run under Win 7 to avoid breaking compatibility with their older applications. We’re still on the fence with this really bringing resolve to those issues.
User Account Control: Microsoft boasts about having the right fixes in place from the Vista era. But it has been reported on some blogs that some underlying issues may still exist, it may change with the full version release but something to think about.

Is Windows 7 worth it?

It’s going to be a case-by-case basis so talk to AMRCON about your specific thoughts. We believe it will be a reasonable option for companies looking to upgrade hardware in the new year, but not if they require any 3rd party application such as trading and business automation. These companies will need to wait for their respective vendors to play catch up first. However, they would want to consider bundling an upgrade license when they become available. It would be one less cost they will need to worry about in the future. Besides Microsoft has extended the support for XP a few more years but I hope no one waits until the very end. Reason being we’ll loose out on the full integration and usage of the already deployed Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and Office 2010 when they become available. Most major vendors have already provided fixes to make themselves Windows 7 friendly.

Keep posted as we continue to report on actual build-outs and migrations. If you have any questions in the meantime feel free to give us a call.

Mint.com to Join the Intuit Family

arudko — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:16:52 +0000

Really quick, this is some interesting news about where the Intuit personal software direction might go. As you know Quicken has been a real industry leader. Mint.com has put together over 1.5M users in only 3 years. I think there is something to be said there. This is something to watch. Dee Rudko, CEO AMRCON

Mint.com to Join the Intuit Family

We’ve got exciting news to share with you! Quicken and Mint.com are coming together to take personal finance to the next level. Intuit just announced our intent to purchase Mint.com. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2009.

Mint.com is a fast-growing provider of online personal finance solutions, providing more than 1.5 million users a fresh, easy and intelligent way to manage their money. Intuit and Mint.com share a common goal: to help you do more with your money through innovative, easy-to-use solutions.

Rest assured, we’ll continue to offer the easy-to-use Quicken Desktop software you know and trust. And you’ll get the same level of great service you have come to expect from Quicken.

In fact, you can look forward to new ways Quicken will help you spend smarter, save more and live richly.

If you have questions you can keep up-to-date on the latest by visiting the Quicken Blog.

Todd Stanley, Vice President & General Manager
Quicken

Bloomberg Sep 8th, 2009 – Legislation to police trades – mandates cost you $

arudko — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:17:02 +0000

Sept. 8 (From Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators will need budget increases “orders-of-magnitude larger” than current levels to police trades in the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market, according to Tabb Group analyst Kevin McPartland.
Congressional legislation now being considered mandates that repositories be established to record and monitor every swap trade entered into between banks, hedge funds and other users of the private market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve are possible regulators.
The world’s largest banks will spend about $4.7 billion on risk-management technology systems this year, according to a report by McPartland to be published tomorrow by Tabb Group. The combined budgets of the CFTC and SEC amount to $1.3 billion in comparison. The CFTC’s technology spending was $26 million last year, he said.
“Investment banks spend more than three times that amount each month on technology,” McPartland writes in the report.
He suggests a transaction tax on OTC trades, increased fines at the CFTC and SEC or mandatory contributions from banks and investment firms as three ways to pay for the regulatory technology upgrade.
“The answer is not for Congress to allocate more money to regulators as the U.S. federal budget deficit is big enough already,” McPartland wrote. “Required up-front contributions would be higher as the new infrastructure was built from scratch, and later lowered as the system became more mature.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Leising in New York at mleising@bloomberg.net
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AMRCON’s engineering staff has extensive experience in compliance and regulatory IT planning and implementation. It seems to be a very difficult combination to find in an IT support provider. In fact our ODS managed services practice provides many native attributes that provide instant compliance solutions at little or no additional cost to you. Written compliance policy, virtual compliance officers, document archiving, email & IM archiving, backup and disaster recovery solution are just a few of AMRCON’s highly skilled areas of expertise.

This is especially important to see coming down the line from our legislation. If businesses wait it could cost more than they can afford, creating fines, excessive spending, and business failure.Dee Rudko, CEO AMRCON