Beware - Vendor Dirty Tricks

My career includes almost 20 years in very large, internal IT organizations with much of that time spent managing vendors. I worked with some wonderful, fair vendors and others that I couldn't wait to replace with another vendor or solution.

A couple of weeks ago Dan Tynan blogged at InfoWorld about dirty tricks that IT vendors pull. While his list is targeted to larger IT vendors working at the enterprise level, some of these issues apply to more areas than technology.

One of the services we provide for our customers is vendor management. The two types of customers who see the most value in this service are 1) those that have run into some of the vendor dirty tricks listed below and 2) those who know exactly how much time they are spending managing their vendors instead of managing their business.

When I began working in the SMB space (small and mid sized business) I was surprised at the number of businesses I talked to that either really didn't understand the time and effort that they were spending on managing their technology vendors or were frustrated with the cost of dealing with them. Much of that frustration (or cluelessness) revolves around the Voice/Data vendors.

If you're managing your own technical vendors, here are some things to watch for:

Dirty vendor tricks

Call or text me at 1-949-212-2168.

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Time to Start Seriously Thinking About Windows 7

Here at On-Site Technical Solutions we're still selling PCs with Windows XP Pro as the operating system. It looks like we're going to be able to bypass Windows Vista for our customers.

But ready or not, now that the Windows 7 launch is next month businesses will have to start thinking about migrating from Windows XP Pro to Windows 7. We really don't have another operating system ready to run on a business desktop yet.

Here is the Microsoft Windows 7 comparison page for pre-orders Compare Editions and here is the page listing options for Licensing Enterprise Desktop Solutions for your organization

Here is the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor for you brave souls that will be upgrading to Windows 7 on your own. That page also includes a link for System Requirements.

Here are a couple of other links, the first at InformationWeek on the upgrade process; How To Upgrade To Windows 7 From Windows XP. But Randall Kennedy at InfoWorld is not happy at all with the Windows upgrade process at Windows 7 upgrades: Why so slow?

We'll definitely be posting more on this as the Microsoft world turns!

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Twitter harpooned, Internet survives (just barely)

Everyone knows Twitter was down with a denial of service attack yesterday - and I haven't seen that anyone knows why yet. Robert X. Cringley at InfoWorld has an amusing take and interesting links on that big event.

Twitter harpooned, Internet survives (just barely)

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Google Chrome Operating System: "It should just work."

Google Chrome Browser has been out for about nine months and now comes Google Chrome Operating System. Google's web-centric OS will of course compete with Microsoft's Windows products, but also Mac and Linux. It looks like consumer versions of Chrome OS powering netbooks will be available in the second quarter of 2010.

Google is a web centric company, so it makes sense they would develop an OS geared to the web. According to Google, "Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds." Google suggests that with this new operating system users "Don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work."

This is an open source operating system and Google says it will open-source the code later this year. Google says it's working with multiple OEMs to get those netbooks to market next year.

While the initial focus is on the netbooks, Google says Chrome OS will work with both x86 and ARM chips, meaning they can run the netbooks as well as more powerful desktops.

Here's another view of Google Chrome OS from a blog on InfoWorld.com.

Chrome OS: Cloud computing made real

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Does Apple really have the greenest notebooks?

Green computing is taking on more significance - especially in data centers where power consumption is a pressing issue.

Computer users are also taking note of the impact of their technical purchasing decisions on the environment. Companies are responding by marketing to that consumer need.

From InfoWorld here's Ted Samson's take on Apple's place in the laptop green marketing wars.

Does Apple really have the greenest notebooks?

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Google vs. Bing

The search engine wars continue...

Google vs. Bing: The fear stops here

From InfoWorld

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California launches green IT effort with smart IT

Power has turned into the biggest single cost in data centers. In 40 work-hours California was able to outline how the state may be able to reduce its power costs by $44 million over four years. That also translates to a reduction of associated CO2 emissions by more than 205,000 tons over that same period.

From Infoworld

California launches green IT effort with smart IT

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