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Body: July 1st marks the end of one age and the start of a new era in the SBSC space in Australia. Hilton Travis has ended his term as SBSC Pal for Australia and passed the baton to Keira McIntosh for the coming 12 months. The SBSC PALs role is to act as a channel to communicate to Microsoft on issues affecting the SBSC community. Keira started a blog a few months back and you can get to it here http://smbmanifesto.blogspot.com/ Congrats Keira, you’ve bitten of more than you can chew, but I’m sure you can handle it 🙂 Category: … Continue reading SBSC’s listen up…

Body: Many in Australia are concerned that Microsoft are not understanding the needs of resellers in the SMB space. Some have made brash claims that MS simply don’t care. I can tell you from the meetings I’ve had inside Microsoft that those comments are extremely misguided. Most of the work I do inside Microsoft is covered under NDA and I can’t talk too much about it, however this is one thing that I specifically wanted to get out to the community so I sought permission to report it here. On June 26th when most business were busy focusing on closing … Continue reading Microsoft Australia focusing on the SMB space in Australia

Body: Today marks the start of the new Financial year here in Australia. As part of the new financial I’ve been giving due consideration to business planning and in particular what I will do different this year vs last year.  The world economy by all accounts is at it’s lowest in many tens of years. Here in Australia, the impact does not seem to be as hard as elsewhere in the rest of the world. Will it last? Will we be hit harder? Will it take a totally different tack?  All in all I think that no one can really … Continue reading What will you do different today?

Body: Microsoft today announced they will block access to MSN Instant Messenger for 5 countries on a sanction list according to the US government.  CRN reported it here Ok – so with all the hype about cloud computing, the users are not supposed to care where there data is as it’s “in the cloud”.  Here’s the catch – what if your data actually resides on servers on foreign soil and suddenly due to government action you no longer have access to that data? How will your business survive? Now I admit that the risk to many of us here in … Continue reading SaaS / Cloud Computing – interesting concern

Body: I heard people today in the Australian SMB community talking about a letter they got from Ingram Micro.  The letter talked about their account with Ingram and it stating that “your Ingram account is being transferred to Moneytech in May….” . Knowing from past experience that Ingram have not always been the best at communicating, I sought to clarify the situation. I just got off the phone with a senior executive at Ingram Micro and he filled me in on the story.  The long and the short of it is that Ingram were seeking a way to help the … Continue reading Ingram Micro, Moneytech and Australian SMB Community

Body: In all my life I have never really been vocal about politics at all – but there is one thing that really hits my heart and that is the SMB community that I work in.  Therefore this blog post is 100% my personal view which you may well choose not to agree with. Ok – so it’s now public that Microsoft have announced their intention to seek guidance from the community for the role of SBSC PAL for the next 12 months.  I think this is a great chance for us to let them know who we think would … Continue reading Vote #1 – Keira McIntosh for SBSC PAL for Australia

Body: Today people started to receive the new and improved CRN Magazine in the mail, and then shortly after I started to get phone calls and emails from people as my photo is on the front cover.  No, it’s not for some embarrassing gaff I made in public but because I’ve agreed to be part of the CRN Editorial Panel for the next 12 months.  Sholto Macpherson invited me along with 9 others to form the CRN Editorial Panel. The panel is made up of 3 people from each segment of the market, vendors, distributors and resellers.  For my part, … Continue reading CRN Australia – a new direction!

Body: You go against all the good advice that Microsoft offer when they design the product and you don’t even care enough for your clients well being to heed advice given by others.  Such is the case of some people who believe that they can put the Hyper-V role ONTO the main SBS 2008 server and still make it work.  Susan Bradley has a great blog post here on the issues that occur when you put the Hyper-V role on your SBS 2008 server.  She is doing this as a demonstration of just what NOT to do.  She is trying … Continue reading You know you are an idiot when…

Body: I’m excited to be attending the CRN Awards tonight here in Sydney. Last year I was invited to be there as a guest of Trend Micro not knowing that I had been awarded the first ever CRN Channel Champion of the Year award by CRN.  The award to me was a recognition of the efforts that I’ve put into the community over the years and I was deeply appreciative of the award.  Nothing more to say really other than I plan to have a good time and enjoy the night. Category: Business Focus Published: 7/11/2008 9:27 AM Attachments: http://blog.sbsfaq.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/264/image_2_7619000B.pnghttp://blog.sbsfaq.com/Lists/Posts/Attachments/264/image_thumb_3D022309.png

Body: I met Amber Naslund at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed event in Columbus, Ohio in September this year. We shared many a good chat about business and how social media impacts our ability to do things in a modern day world.  Today she has a post which I think matters a lot, particularly in today’s economic climate.  Her post talks about how we need to follow through with initial contact with people to allow that contact to develop into a relationship.  In both personal and business life, this is so true.  I’d encourage you to take a look at … Continue reading Follow Through Matters… particularly now