SMB Nation Blog

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the next version of Windows, known as “10,” at an event in San Francisco. Optically, it appears to be a hybrid between a traditional Windows paradigm and the “eight era” emphasizing touch and mobility. I have reason to believe it’ll emerge as a best of breed and be the most significant release since Windows 95 in terms of favorability ratings. Why?

Click the image to watch my blog video!

Pent-up Demand. Microsoft will fulfill a market gap. The eight haters sat on the sidelines the last two years using Windows 7 or (gasp) Windows XP. This is their release. No longer can they complain that they can’t have a “real” Start button. It’s back.

Final XP EOS Push. Look for Dell and other OEMs to make one last push to eradicate the still sizeable base of Windows XP in the marketplace. Windows 10 will break Windows XP’s last stand.

Everyone loves secrets. It somehow makes you feel you know something that others don’t know. LOL!

Long-time SMB Nation member Robert Nitrio shared a few Uber insights in preparation for the transportation needs of incoming attendees en route to Seattle for the 12^th annual SMB Nation Fall conference this weekend (Sept 26-28).

First – he surfaced the Uber option as one of the transportation alternatives to consider for the ride form the airport to the host hotel. He shared:

While your intentions are good to try to attend the in-person 12^th annual SMB Nation Fall conference, sometimes it’s not possible. But it’s now possible to attend online and listen to the Business (B) and Technical (T) speeches. Using Lync, we will broadcast three days of academic Office 365, Server 2003 EOS and many more lectures for just $99. For you, it’s the ability to participate from afar in the comfort of your office (or home) without time away and travel and accommodation expenses.

So what are the next steps?

• Discover what the conference can offer you at fall2014.smbnation.com.
• Note the times and dates. The conference is the weekend: Friday September 26 to Sunday September 28                                                                                                                          
• Register for the online event via this registration link: https://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1573788
• Order your pizza and make your popcorn for three-days of jam packed content!
• Hurry – online attendance is limited to 250 participants.

If you have any questions, call SMB Nation at 206-201-2943 and speak with Edna at extension 105.

Notice: In order to offer you this subsidized online attendee rate of $99, you agree to allow SMB Nation to share your contact details with the conference sponsors.

Turns out you still love Microsoft! Like a long-term marriage, there are ebbs and flows in the relationships. You’ve had your peaks and valleys in the Microsoft relationship, but at the end of the day, we’re family, and blood is thicker than water. Such are the findings in my well-received Microsoft Satisfaction survey for partners. I’ll share the results here.

On the surface, this isn’t news. But dig a layer deeper and there is a story about “innovate or perish” here. On my recent trip to the D&H Distributing Canada show in Toronto, I drove by, made a U-turn and took the following photo. The saying that a picture is worth a thousand words applies here. You are looking at a shuddered truck that niched on offering faxing and other services to long-haul truckers. I’d offer it’s a sort about technology relevancy.

Over the years, readers have followed the challenges and successes of my niece, Christa Brelsford. Today, I am happy that I can report success, and there is a lesson learned for all of us in the SMB IT Pro community experiencing “disruption” in our profession. Stick with me and think about this the next time you complain that “they took away Small Business Server.”

Pic 1. Christa Brelsford won gold at the IFSC Paraclimbing World Championship - Gijon (ESP) 2014 this past weekend.

Last time, I asked the question: “is there a simple, friction-free button to push in Office 365 (say the Admin console), to move my data corpus from OneDrive to OneDrive for Business 2013?” The answer is no. I expected a GoDaddy-like push-button experience (where you configure the DNS automatically in Office 365 for your domains).

Instead, I started to investigate how to efficiently migrate 33GB from One Drive to OneDrive for Business 2013. The native interface for OneDrive for Business 2013 felt too much like the traditional SharePoint file upload dialog box (it is). The modern OneDrive for Business application in the Windows 8 merely offers navigation features. It’s not a utility tool. My source on the Office 365 team asked if I had installed the Office 365 Office 2013 Pro Plus bits. I replied yes. He then asked if I could see the OneDrive for Business 2013 desktop application in the Microsoft Office 2013 program group. I replied NO that I could only see the SkyDrive for Business application. Puzzled, he asked if I was truly using the Office 2013 Pro Plus SKU from Office 365 as it should have automatically updated. We confirmed I’m using the proper Office 2013 Pro Plus SKU and we were both puzzled why the automatic update had not occurred.

My Office 365 team source asked if I had an Office application open. Yes. Then go to File -> Account and look to the right under Product Information. There we discovered that the update had not been automatically applied, which would bring me the current OneDrive for Business 2013 desktop client and allow me to complete my OneDrive journey!

So I manually installed the Office updates, resulting in access to the OneDrive for Business 2013 client and the elimination of the SkyDrive for Business desktop client. And since that “manual” update (which is contrary to the Office 365 experience), Office 2013 Pro Plus now correctly automatically updates on my system. Whew!

The journey continues.

Basically the net result is that, using the OneDrive for Business 2013 desktop client, I was able to bulk copy the data from OneDrive to OneDrive for Business 2013 using the traditional “drag and drop” behavior. Comprende comrade?

As a bonus, the OneDrive for Business 2013 desktop application “insisted” on syncing my data store down to the a local “OneDrive for Business” folder of my Lenovo Helix laptop. I have the space and it’s both a form of redundancy and supports offline use like when I’m on a plane without WiFi (increasingly rare domestically, but common on long overseas flights).

Today is a very important day. It is the day our Office 365 Nation community, known as “O365 Nation” is launching, and will start a new conversation that we predict will continue for at least a decade. Welcome aboard and enjoy the ride.

Pictured: September 4, 2014: O365Nation founder Harry Brelsford with the Microsoft Office 365 Support Managers spinning up the O365nation.com site!

So why are we here? Simply stated, you asked for an independent Office 365 community. As you know, there are Microsoft-based communities that we participate in but, at the end of the day, those are managed and supported by Microsoft. Our founder, Harry Brelsford, served as an “outside” Microsoft insider during the server-era from the mid-1990s forward, and he’s back as an inside-the-beltway, but keep it real, analyst blogger at O365nation.com.

We are here to take the Office 365 journey with you as your “guide-by-the-side.” Count on us to earn your trust with our credible, authentic analysis to help you answer your Office 365 questions and solve your challenges. We will engage in both technical and business Office 365 conversations in a safe, respectful and nurturing environment.

We have already received significant coverage related to our community launch. Here are a few O365nation stories:

• Channel Pro
• Telecom Reseller News
• Microsoft Princess
• SmallBizThoughts (Karl Palachuk)

Who should participate as a fan of O365nation?

We cater to a wide and diverse audience that wants to be “in the know” right now about the Office 365 platform. This includes:

• IT Pros
• System Administrators
• Business Decision Makers
• Consultants
• Customers
• Resellers
• Partners
• MSPs
• And all the rest (VARs, VAPs, System Integrators, System Builders, Distys, Vendors, Sponsors, ISVs, OEMS)

What segments will we be covering?

We are not limited to any single channel or niche. Our Office 365 conversation will span the business community to cover matters relevant to:

• Enterprise
• Government
• Education
• Small and Medium Business (SMB)

What can you expect from O365nation as a community fan?

• Content
  • Synthesized news
  • Unique analysis from our bloggers
  • Breaking news
• Newsletter
• Educational Opportunities
  • Events
    • Be sure to attend the Office 365 Nation summit, September 26-28 at Microsoft Redmond with the O365nation team AND the Microsoft Office 365 product group!
    • Details at fall2014.smbnation.com
• Webinars
• Services
• Forums
• And much more! Tell us how we can help you be more successful with Office 365!

O365Nation Writers

You can look forward to great, high-quality content from the following writers on O365Nation.com:

• Jenn Reed, author of Office 365 for Dummies
• Melanie Gass, Microsoft Princess and Office 365 expert, and author of A Day In The Worklife of Microsoft Office 365
• Robert Crane, Office 365 MVP and author of:
  • Getting Started With SharePoint Online 2013 for Enterprises
  • Getting Started With Powershell for Office 365
  • Getting Started With SharePoint 2013
  • Getting Started With Skydrive Pro for Office 365
  • Getting Started With Lync Online 2013
  • Getting Started With SharePoint Online 2013 for Small Business
  • Three Simple SharePoint Scenarios
  • Sharepoint Client Side

• Alex Anderson, SMB Nation Editor

Support Shout Out!

It takes a village. We wouldn’t be here without the kind and generous support on Day One from:

1. AttachedApps (an application suite on top of Office 365)
2. Idea2
3. StorageCraft
4. Microsoft
5. Intel
6. D&H events
7. Channel Pro events
8. CompTIA events
9. SMB Nation Team (Jenny, Heather, Marianne, Edna, Brook and all the rest!)
10. And many other community members!

So that’s it! Bookmark us. Share us. Most importantly, sign-up for the Office 365nation community so we can stay in touch. As the country western song says “Strangers are just friends who haven’t met yet!” Be sure to visit us daily for Office 365 news, analysis and even secrets and gossip. Every journey beings with a first step: click over to www.o365nation.com.

Questions? E-mail our founder directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A year ago last Fall, I predicted the end of the world was near. I was on a Windows XP migration mission to seek and destroy legacy XP assets. My pillar message was the security threat. My secondary messages focused on productivity, getting to modern, economic incentives and compliance matters. I used a few examples from the field. One of my “tales from the trenches” concerned Home Depot. As you might know by now, earlier this week, Home Depot reported a massive security breach exposing over 70 million customer payment cards to hackers. In the Kerbs report, please pay close attention to the Windows XP conversation.

In my personal desire to “get modern” with myself and the company, I am happy to say that we’ve all made the move to touch, we’re all on Windows 8 and on Office 365. So far so good. I recently decided to “clean house” and make OneDrive my primary data repository. That way I can access my information anytime, anywhere. As I started to move my “Documents” on the C: drive to the OneDrive via File Explorer, I hit a snag. The consumer-side OneDrive offers 15GB free storage. My Documents’ data corpus exceeded 33GB. So the copy operating failed just before mid-point. Read below for my interim solution as part one of my journey. In part two, I’ll complete the transition to OneDrive for Business 2013.

The short answer is that I increased my OneDrive storage to 100GB for $1.99 a month by making a frictionless online purchase from Microsoft. The transition was akin to buying a service from Amazon, perhaps the gold standard for online purchases. The file copy from “Document” on my C: Drive restarted at its point of failure and completed a bit later. Full disclosure: I went for a late afternoon bike ride while the copy function completed. My local C: Drive is nearly empty after this data migration.

Pictured: Bike ride with my son during the One Drive data migration

Folks – I’m always promoting portfolio diversification in the SMB IT Pro Community. My poster child of the month is Ken Edwards, longtime SBSer from Phoenix. With the sad demise of Small Business Server, wise SBSers like Ken are seeking to apply their small business acumen in fields far from technology. The case here is protective red BBQ gloves. I got my pair and started BBQing ASAP! Basically, I was able to manipulate my lamb on the foil on the grill without utensils. I give two unburned thumbs up on these oven mitts. You can help Ken, the community and yourself by purchasing a pair here and have them just in time for your Labor Day BBQ beast feast.

We’re only a month away from our SMB Nation 2014 Fall Conference, and I am happy to say that I was able to catch a few moments with one of this year’s speakers. I met with Ben Gower, Managing Director, Perspicuity (pictured), and I asked him, among other things, what his organization does to succeed.

I’ll start with a little background on Perspicuity. This is a UK-based organization focused on Managed Service Consulting, particularly for Microsoft SharePoint and Office 365. I first met Ben at during the Modern Partner Tour, sponsored by Microsoft, Intel and Actiontec, at our Reading, UK tour stop. Read on for my interview:

Harry: So tell me, what was the bookmark for your entry into the computer sector?

Ben: “Haha! I actually come from a farming background in SE England. I started in technology with a major global outsourcing company, and I loved to talk with people, as well as listen, so I quickly moved up the ranks. Then, I went to Xerox in the late 90’s. I did a lot of work in outsourcing on Microsoft contracts.”

Harry: So why choose the Cloud?

Ben: “It’s clear and understandable, and that’s what we built Perspicuity on as well. You know, it makes sense to most IT Pros, and people in general really seem to get it.”

Harry: Great. Let me give you a bit of background about our current situation, and I’ll ask you a question. In the US, we have a very small SMB reseller community, most of whom are coming off the SBS era. This has actually caused an ideological rift between the on-prem SMBs and the Cloud SMBs. Has this been affecting you as well?

Ben: “Not as much. We are very much focused on doing our own thing. Though we were warned about the potential for this conflict, Perspicuity has been just staying focused. To that point, however, we are seeing three types of people: those who love the Cloud, those who are transitioning, but not leading, and those who are staying with their profitable businesses.

Harry: Now, you all have a very interesting business model. Can you tell us, what’s your “Secret Sauce”?

Ben: “Haha, sure. Our secret sauce is that we took time and completely reevaluated what modern Cloud customers want from services. The key change these days is that the IT Pro is moving from the Selling to the Advisory/Educational. So the biggest way to actually gain new revenue is to explain to existing and potential clients the experience they can get. In fact, most cloud customers nowadays are asking, ‘How do I get there?’ more than anything.

Sure, customers will still have concerns about security, but in my view, there are a lot of well-written resources online that you can refer any customers to. Once you’ve told them how to get to a great business tech experience, you work to get them there.

This brings me to another key point, which is that we evaluated the type of staff needed to give the customer that great experience. The truth is that you don’t need a super high level of experience to complete a cloud migration and provide a good experience. The high experience staff should be used for advising. Once the customer is migrated and on our system, we can reach out to them and talk to them about 10 other things we can do to help them. This is not only an interesting model for us, of course, but also for the end-user, who is looking for something new.”

Harry: Yeah, that's very interesting! So let me ask, what’s your employee turnover like, if you are using college upperclassmen, etc.?

Ben: “That’s a good question. In wave one of our program, we had about a 50% turnover after 3 years. Now, we have developed programs to help retain these individuals past the 2-3 year mark, and our turnover is lots lower.”

Harry: Do you provide any kind of Management Consulting?

Ben: “Absolutely. We have SharePoint Devs on staff who are constantly creating new apps for our clients. Also, it’s important to note that when I started out in this industry, we had no Marketing department, the company owners did sales, and everyone else was a techie. Now, I’d say that we are approaching a 50/50 split between Marketing and Technical staff. Our next steps are looking at reselling and customizing packaged products for our clients.

This actually brings me to an interesting point in the Channel today. Most Channel members see that the sole opportunity is Office 365, but it’s not. In fact, that particular portfolio is headed quickly towards maturity, but there are other huge opportunities. Lync Voice comes to mind, and it’s available today.”

Harry: So, how do you get new customers?

Ben: “We do a lot of Lunch and Learns, and Go to Markets with Zynstra and Microsoft. I will admit that, to date, our referral processes aren’t as sophisticated as we’d like them to be, but that’s a major goal for us.

For the SMB Nation Community, I’d suggest that one of the best ways to get new cloud/migration customers is to use their existing list. Just call them and offer new services to existing end users. Depending on the number of clients, this can be very lucrative.”

Harry: Great, and you’re absolutely right. I just have one more major question for you: What tools are you using?

Ben: “The two major solutions are SkyKick and Zynstra, no brainer.”

So there you have it. I want to take time to say a big thank you to Ben for having a great discussion with me! Beyond his work in the IT field, he is a committed husband and father, and he is learning how to kite surf in his spare time. You can listen to Ben Gower speak (and even chat with him) more at our upcoming SMB Nation Fall Conference, September 26-28 in Redmond WA! Registration and agenda information is available at: http://fall2014.smbnation.com.

Hey folks, I recently had the chance to interview En Pointe Technologies, a Los Angeles, CA-based IT Solutions Provider. I spoke with Tyler Coppock the company’s Director, Microsoft Cloud Solutions, and we had a great conversation about the trends they are seeing in the IT space.

According to En Pointe, Microsoft has been receiving quite a bit of heat for their issues with the Office 365 support, particularly as it relates to wait time. “Even when our support desk calls Microsoft, we’re on there an hour and a half, two hours wait time, consistently,” said Tyler in our interview. “So this is really a resource thing for Microsoft.”

Recently, Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella (pictured), defined the Office 365 opportunity as the new gold rush. It’s a heartfelt and accurate statement. Nearly every day Microsoft is reporting new sales records confirming Office 365’s momentum. Simply stated, this is the real deal and you need to hear that message right here, right now!

Photo credit: Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

So what are the first steps along the long-term Office 365 journey? Consider attending the first independent conference dedicated to Office 365 this fall at Microsoft Redmond. Dubbed “Office 365 Nation,” this is a three-day deep-dive summit into both the technical and business conversations surrounding Office 365. Powered by the well-respected SMB Nation community, this conference offers, in addition to peer interactions, the following 20 impactful content sessions:

Hey folks, Harrybbb here! I am happy to announce that we have opened a short survey on Microsoft Satisfaction! It’s your time to shine and let us know what you think about the current and future direction of the company. We will have 3 questions, plus a comment box.

Want to chime in? Simply fill out the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2QSBBNJ One lucky respondent will win an Ooma device for business!

Somehow, some way, I recently lost touch with Intermedia. My bad. It’s been very busy. For example, this hosting company recently acquired AccessLine, an SMB telecom, to round out its portfolio. As I spoke with Michael Gold (pictured), Intermedia’s President, recently, it was apparent that Intermedia is driving is success strategically. Returning to the telecom conversation, here is what I know to be true. A lot of the Office 365 or Office 365-like solutions in the market address one side of the aisle: information. But few hosting companies provide a capable voice solution. Intermedia has filled this with its AccessLine acquisition. When I last visited AccessLine a few years ago, it was bringing to market a capable business class phone system that filled the gap created by Microsoft Response Point’s withdrawal from the market. I liked the right-sized fit it offered the small business with its reliance on a traditional on-premises phone system to keep it simple.

I caught up with a busy Rob Rae at the CompTIA ChannelCon event recently to ‘check-in” with Datto. It’s a well-known success story in the SMB IT Pro community, as its wunderkind Austin McCord now has the community shining his shoes. And he, along with Datto, have earned their success the old fashioned way: hard work.

“We’re a business continuity company that’s always innovating,” shared Rob Rae, long-time SMB channel veteran and VP of Business Development. “We’ve always been a hybrid solution with replication to the cloud.”

Podcast II!

View my podcast interview with RapidFire Tools' Mark Winter below:

Hey Folks, we're working on a new way to bring you our industry interviews!

Check out my first podcast below with Axcient's Joan Morales (pictured):

Sticking with my summer vacation theme for this newsletter, and relating it to my current trip to the CompTIA conference and the D&H Distributing New England show, I can state that I found a secret way to save big money in lodging accommodations. And it’s not what you think.

You probably expect me to point you to the Trivago “big data” site or the Priceline auction site to efficiently solve this problem to find the lowest cost hotel room that still meets your quality needs. Nope. Perhaps you think I’d send you over to AirBNB to take a walk on the wild side and stay in someone’s Manhattan rental unit. Nope. And you likely didn’t expect me to recommend you walk-in and accept the rack rate for a room at a hotel. That would most likely be the most expensive option of all.

On my current business trip, with its stops at the CompTIA ChannelCon conference in Phoenix and the D&H Distributing New England show in Boston, I am well and truly OOF. Don’t get me wrong – I mixed in a wee bit of pleasure along the way, visiting MoMA in NYC to look at modern art. It even had geek art!

It was at MoMA that I stumbled upon the OOF painting (pictured) by master artist Edward Ruscha (American, born 1937). While Ruscha has his own interpretation of the OOF as a cartoon strip utterance, I know it as a geek term:

In the world of business, investors have different liquidity preferences. For example, the investment portfolio of financial instruments such as stocks and certificates of deposit (CDs) are considered to be liquid. You can access the $$$ quickly. A real property portfolio top heavy in raw land real estate would be considered illiquid. The reason I’m seating the table herein is to weave in the world of Office 365.

A day doesn’t pass without an inquiry from a sponsor/vendor/PR agency in the IT community proposing a great partnership. Those making this offer are well-schooled in a solicitation dialect that is ambiguous at best and deceptive at worst. In our experience, it’s been like the famous “money transfer scam,” repackaged in 2014 for the IT community.

Partnership Opportunity

Here is a representative e-mail from a vendor in the cloud space:

HP is capitalizing on the chaos in the server market right now with its new Smart Choice campaign. It’s aimed at educating and encouraging HP partners to sell into IBM server-side accounts. Why? Earlier this year, IBM stated its intentions to leave the server market. This follows its departure from the PC market in the 2005/6 time frame. It’s part of IBM’s reboot to become a cloud and services company. One man’s loss (IBM) and another man’s gain ((HP).

According to Ancestory.com: “In general, we think of a generation being about 25 years - from the birth of a parent to the birth of a child.” With that understanding, by the end of this blog, you’ll either concur or dissent that we’re going to see the elimination of software piracy within the next 25-years. I look at Office 365 as a piracy elimination tool as Microsoft’s third greatest move. The first was acquiring the MS-DOS operating system from the north Seattle computer shop on the cheap (see the book “GATES” for details). The second was the creation of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) program where the best minds in the business provided no-cost technical support to customers on forum board and other “community goodness” vehicles.

This is how it will work:

A common question and concern in the vendor community is the impact of Office 365. On the surface, Office 365 facilitates the notion of doing more with a lot less. That’s not good for OEMs selling servers and other vendors whose business models are predicated on growth. But there bright spots:

Pictured: IT Pros looking at Office 365-ready devices at a Windows 8.1 device bar at a recent workshop in Toronto, Onatrio Canada

Seeking to bring order to chaos, Parallels recently launched SmartStart for Office 365 to help resellers, VARs and MSPs provision, implement and manage Office 365 and other services. But more on that in a moment.

Pictured: Todd Carter from Parallels demonstrating his company’s solutions

In meeting with John Zanni, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), he sees the market suffering from a service provider sprawl problem. SMBs are consuming more cloud services, with up to half of those purchases being direct. So you have SMBs having to manage different technologies from different companies with no integration. That’s causing SMBs to focus more on IT than running their business. “We need to get back to the VAR/trusted advisor model” Zanni stated. “Parallels’ mission is to help solve the service provider sprawl problem.”

In economics there is the concept of a free good. Over the past several years, using the free good analogy, Microsoft Partners participating in the cloud Essentials program were gifted 250+ Office 365 E3 licenses for internal use. It served my own small business well, as everyone had full licenses, including our college interns. As you know, the Office 365 E3 SKU is one of the most robust levels.

At last week’s Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), I had coffee with J.D. Sherry, Vice President, Technology and Solutions, Trend Micro. It was a chance to rediscover Trend Micro and thus reintroduce it to the SMB Nation community. To be honest, it’d had been too long since we last spoke, both figuratively and literally.

Pictured: Trend Micro’s “Go Big” Presence at WPC

I have to give credit to Cbeyond. It plays to win (versus being conservative and playing “not to lose”). I’ve tracked this company for many years and Cbeyond is always innovating and taking an aggressive posture in the SMB community. The “new” Cbeyond 2.0 is no different. The “old” Cbeyond was primarily focused on delivering high-quality telecom solutions to the SMB market via an aggressive direct sales model and a channel partner program. But times have changed and Cbeyond has reinvented itself to be a total solutions company with both voice and data packages. I wouldn’t say Cbeyond was or is necessarily known for being the lowest cost provider but it doesn’t have to be. It provides value. Read on.

Pictured: The Cbeyond gang with customers at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2014 event in Washington DC.

Call it the economic multiplier effect. Microsoft is one of the biggest economic engines in the Seattle area (along with Boeing and Amazon). As is common in a sector, there are newly-formed businesses being created almost daily by former Microsoft employees. One such company is BitTitan, a software company that has an Office 365 migration tool. In 2007, Geeman Yip left Microsoft to create a tools software company. His intent was to fill gaps in the market, such as a migration solution. It’s important to remember that this was literally at the start of the Microsoft Online Services with its Business Productivity Office Suite (BPOS) product.

Yip shared that his company, while starting as a cloud-based migration solution, has expanded into other cloud services, where BitTitan can provide solutions that reduce friction. It has the following portfolio in market today:

Pictured: Harrybbb and the G-man!

You remember the Worldwide SMB MVP tour a few years ago. There, a third-party Small Business Server (SBS) migration kit was one of the topics presented to Microsoft Partners. Fast forward the movie a few years and it’s déjà vu all over again. Today, the HP Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Migration Program was launched.

I recently caught up with Katy Hunter (pictured), long-time Microsoft SMB leader and discussed her role at BING and the Digital Advertising Competency. If you are attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference this week in Washington DC, you will want to attend the two relevant sessions (listed below).

There are two ways to interact with the Digital Advertising competency. The first way is to make it part of your service offering. What I liked about that is it allows SMB IT Pros to easily add another arrow to the quiver. As the world turns and we expand beyond the on-premises server solution mindset, I said, why not? That is, why not provide digital advertising services.

Hi! It’s Harry here. If you are attending Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington DC next week – you are invited to a global trade mission meeting that I’ll be hosting with Microsoft, IAMCP and Professional Options.

Sign up HERE:

Transatlantic Partner Link-Up - Exclusive Meeting at WPC

Four years later, it’s the same coincidence. The FIFA World Cup final falls on the on the Sunday prior to the start of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (and another coincidence – it’s in Washington DC again!).

So our friends, and yours, at the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) are hosting a party to watch the game from 2pm – 5:45pm Eastern. Harrybbb will be there cheering for Brazil or Germany (depends on the outcome) with long-time SMB leaders like Steve Hall from District Computers in Washington DC (an IAMCP leader).

Register here: http://www.iamcp-us.org/events/event_details.asp?id=454459&group

Learn more about IAMCP WPC activities here: http://www.iamcp-us.org/?page=WPC2014

Time stands still for no one. It’s now over 90 days since the April 8, 2014 Windows XP end-of-support. So where are we now? Basically, the migration cadence has accelerated since the April 8^th deadline. There was a surge in this past quarter as people finally took the matter seriously and motivated. SMB IT Pro partners and resellers have been embracing the opportunity, but their enthusiasm and excitement has been somewhat muted – to be brutally honest.

Pictured: Windows XP point-of-sale device seen mid-May 2014 in Dubai on my worldwide tour.

The 12^th annual SMB Nation Fall conference is open for registration. This is your bucket list chance to visit the Microsoft HQ and live like a blue badge for a few days. The theme is total immersion into Office 365. Why? Simply stated – in its various forms, including hybrid on-premises server-side deployments, it’s the new Small Business Server (SBS). It’s selling two (2) licenses a minute, or over 2-million licenses a quarter. To put that in perspective, it took the 16+ year lifespan of SBS to hit one million installations. (Check out my intro video at right)

Invest forward. I selected this tagline, as I think it really summarizes where we at in the SMB IT Pro community. Because you have selected a career in technology, every ten years, we have to reinvent ourselves. For example, when was the last time you worked with NetWare NDS? Not only has the SBS product reached End of Life (EOL) and is now starting to reach End-of-Support (EOS) for the SBS 2003 generation (July 15), and its decision-making time.

The sophisticated life learners in the SMB Nation community reading this will understand my reference to “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes (PORTFOLIO). We used it in our Pocket MBA program and it’s about 12 key sales strategies. It’s affectionately known as the Red Book. One of these strategies is the steak lunch-and-learn. And that’s where eFolder, a multi-facetted cloud service provider, kicks in.

Starting today, Carbonite is shipping an SMB on-premises hybrid backup and recovery solution that threatens to disrupt the SMB BRD oligopoly, that is effectively limiting channel partner choice to just a few high-end solutions. I liken Carbonite in the BDR space to Uber, a company currently breaking up the regulated taxi industry, and this is exciting stuff. Having met with Carbonite last week at its Boston headquarters (see photo right), I can see that it thrives on and embraces the role of being a disrupter.

And its good news for SMB channel partners. By my simple calculation, having more choices will lower prices. That’s what free and competitive markets do. Carbonite lands at about 50% less than the “Big Four” BDR solutions on the market. It all starts at $99/month with no upfront fees (hardware, program or license). And Carbonite further disrupts the status quo by introducing greater duration flexibility. There’s even is a 30-day refund period upfront. As of this writing, there is no annual commitment, so you can use this month-to-month and return if needed, though Carbonite reps said that they will be offering an annual option for clients who prefer that model.

A week ago at Autotask Live, Autotask reported it was being acquired by Vista Partners, an $11.5B private equity firm. The short press release, specifically brief and lacking details, roared across the MSP community. As I researched this topic over the past week, it was apparent that everyone has an opinion ranging the full spectrum. I’ll start with my own:

I was already scheduled for an MSP TV session, which was to be filmed at Continuum’s Boston offices (see photo), so that was a natural forum to discuss the Autotask acquisition. I offered that:

I periodically want to brief you on developments concerning the million mile Modern Partner Tour, a series of executive workshops that we are conducting globally for Intel, Microsoft and Actiontec. We’re just over halfway done for the current quarter and we’ve honed our message to truly daze and amaze the top 15 reseller partners who are invited to this exclusive event. It’s morphed into an Executive MBA gathering, versus the stand-and-deliver “death by PowerPoint” lecture we’re all too familiar with. And it’s been an honor and a privilege to be along for the journey. To be honest, I have learned more than I’ve delivered – just part of the ongoing US foreign trade deficit that’s burdened my motherland for more than a generation.

Here is my latest report:

Everyone of a certain age reading this blog remembers the famous dialogue between Benjamin (Dustin Hofffman) and Mr. McGuire in the 1967 hit movie “The Graduate.” It goes like this:

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

Now in 2014, substitute the word “Robotics” for “Plastics” and you’ve got the right context to proceed.

Hey you! Stop It!

Like many well-seasoned travelers reading this blog, I am a happy road warrior just trying to make a buck along the way. Part of my professional behavior is to utilize the in-flight WiFi connection services when I travel. I value my time, and get some of my best work accomplished on long flights. No questions asked. Until now.

This past week, I re-routed the last leg of my first round of travels on the WW Modern Partner Tour through New York. I had a day in the city that included meetings and a long Friday afternoon lunch. But as the day ended, I needed to get the airport. How was I going to efficiently get from Point A (mid-town Manhattan) to Point B (Newark Airport) in traffic without lugging the luggage around? And save a lot of money at the same time.

Fortunately I caught up with long-time colleague Grace Schroder for lunch. As the CEO of Idea2, Schroder prides herself on being in front of the technology power curve. A successful entrepreneur, you can always count on her to share what’s hot and what’s not. So as we bid our goodbyes, Schroeder suggested I try the Uber car services for my ride to the EWR airport. I was game! My experience follows below.

It’s a “true that,” according to me, that most successful entrepreneurs have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). None other than USA Today recently had a fantastic spot on article about accommodating hyper-activity children in K-12 education with free radical active learning approaches. The thesis was that confining (“chaining”) ADHD students to a desk is counter-productive and fails to tap into the child’s potential. Where was this research when I was a kid?

So fast forward the movie and now you and I are professionals who march to a different drummer as entrepreneurs. I’d offer that giving us a desk job is a jail sentence and makes us under perform. But un-leash us with mobile devices and cloud services and we’re world beaters. Case in point is Exhibit A: myself. I have the high honor of traveling the world right now telling the Modern Tour story surrounding devices and services on behalf of Microsoft, Intel and ActionTec. Its 30+ countries in 90-days to inspire and motivate top performer to leverage migration opportunities into get modern wins.

You know it’d be fast and furious as we skidded into the April 8, 2014 end-of-support (EOS) deadline for Windows XP (and Office 2003). It’s been a long year preaching the XP migration opportunity to the partner crowd, and many have heard the good word. But many haven’t. Here’s the good news: the party continues.

Looking forward, I see most of the Windows XP migration work ahead, not behind us. It turns out the econometric model that rational small business owners would plan for the April 8^th EOS deadline was wrong. Both SMB owners and SMB IT Pros proved too busy to effectively meet the deadline, and the real work starts April 9^th moving forward. This revised forecast is based on our own research both inside and outside of Microsoft, plus extensive domestic and worldwide travel. I’ll go into the details of this in my keynote speech at the Channel Pro SMB Forum on April 9^th in Southern California.

We’re one week away from what I affectionately call the Windows XP Election Day. As you know by now, Windows XP end of support (EOS) is April 8^th. For those political wonks amongst us, you’ll fondly note that politicians barnstorm hard the last week for every single vote. It’s called a “get out of the vote” strategy and our current worldwide Modern Partner Tour is akin to that exhausting final push. Voices grow hoarse, staffers catch colds, and we go 7X24 the final week. That’s exactly what’s occurring.

(Pictured: The Auckland Modern Partner Tour Workshop last week)

SMB Nation has successfully launched a worldwide tour visiting over 25-countries and 30-cities in Q2 2014. Led by Harry Brelsford, Jay Weiss and Sharon Fry, this tour has already visited Singapore and Kuala Lumpur with stops in Manila, Hong Kong and São Paulo this week.

The Modern Tour is an invitation-only partner event focused on devices, Windows 8.1, Office 365 and Windows XP migrations. At each location, top Microsoft resellers are nominated for the privilege of attending a four-hour executive briefing presented the SMB Nation team. The goal is to empower these elite partners to hold customer-facing events that result in more sales and partner revenue.

(Pictured: Jay Weiss presents in Singapore on March 14)

While your success is well-deserved, Salesforce, your accompanying hubris was ultimately your downfall with us at SMB Nation. We’ve left you for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Online for some very important reasons. I’ll share the story right here, right now.

Money. As we approached our annual Salesforce renewal date, it wasn’t lost on us at SMB Nation how expensive Salesforce had become. I call it the “CRM cost creep.” It’s funny how in year one (a few years ago), the entry-level for Salesforce looked very cheap compared to our then CRM/ERP system (NetSuite). But fast forward the movie and somehow, someway the costs had escalated. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but I felt “poorer” continuing my journey with Salesforce. Of course, a proper lady will never kiss-and-tell, but the amount of money in play was significant.

(Pictured: Jenny, Edna and Marianne wave "goodbye" to Salesforce)

A few weeks ago I reported that the Cloud Essentials title was being rolled into the Microsoft Action Pack (MAPS). It was an odd fit coming on the heels of Microsoft announcing a huge gain in cloud-based Office 365 earnings.

This past week, I received some additional insights into that roll-up strategy. Turns out that Microsoft is “cloud,” with its devices and services strategy and, ergo, MAPS is now more “cloudy” so that Cloud Essentials didn’t need to be an outlier. In other words, anything and everything cloud is mainstream at Microsoft. Thus the consolidation.

Photo credit: Microsoft Action Pack

The only constant is change, and that change arrived today when Microsoft announced long-time employee Satya Nadella as its third CEO. Bringing enterprise and cloud wins to the corner office unleashed a wave of SMB partner feedback synthesized below. At the request of one community member, I won’t speculate on the positive or negative nature of the comments and just present as is. I will tell you, though, that this is an important story because it will impact your paycheck, one way or another, as an SMB partner.

In the great SMB Nation tradition of letting fun find us, we are hosting a Super Bowl contest! Of course we’re partial to the Seattle Seahawks (in fact – SMB Nation employees are prohibited from playing) so I just wanted to put that out there up front!

Something Microsoft insiders have known for a few weeks has now been made public. Microsoft has officially announced the end of its popular Cloud Essentials program. Moving forward, Microsoft Partners will garner the generous Cloud Essentials benefits from subscribing to Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS). Personally I’m sorry to see this decision, which I respectfully disagree with, for several reasons.

It was a 5+ year love affair; I’ll never forget my first iPhone, which I got at the start of the recession. You comforted and amazed me during my darkest days. But today I’m leaving you. It’s not you, it’s me; I’ve changed and you haven’t.

When I received my first iPhone 3G as a Christmas present, I was instantly in love. It was a massive paradigm shift from other mobile devices I had used up to that point. And it was fast, which feels like a blast from the past before networks got clogged with mobile traffic. It was a time where people made more telephone calls than text messages. I submit that times have changed but successive releases of iPhone models have not inspired me with quantum feature and functionality leaps. To be honest, my current iPhone 5 isn’t that much different than my first iPhone 3G.

Pictured: A 12th Man Selfie!

Microsoft quietly posted a short blog in its Malware Protection Center on Wednesday afternoon that Windows XP malware updates will continue until July 14, 2015, an additional 463-days after the April 8, 2014 end-of-support (EOS) deadline. This amounts to “partial” extended support.

The move has caught industry influencers off-guard, as Autotask just held a well-attended Windows XP Webinar at 11:00AM Eastern on January 16^th, and our brand XP Migrations just held the New York City “Million Mile Migration Madness” workshop, featuring the Windows XP EOS matter, last night in Manhattan (see pic). In both cases, no mention of this latest development was made.

What does it mean?

Okay, I’ll be the first to propose that no active living business person has been through what you and I have just experienced: the Great Recession. Think about it: considering the Great Depression, which started in late 1929 with the stock market crash, if today you were an active business person who is 80-years old, you were born on Monday, January 8, 1934. If you are a 90-year old business person, I question how active you are in day-to-day business today, not to mention that you probably would have had a lemonade stand in the later part of the 1930s (which I’ll discount as running a true small business).

This was a softball (errr…snowball) if there ever was one. Long-time SMB Nation friend Ken Thoreson posted up a joke early today from his mid-Atlantic residence about the Polar Vortex engulfing much of the eastern US. It’s cold out there, and Ken says: “it’s a good week to make cold calls”. I couldn’t let that one slide by without a reply.

I’m all about living theology, and as a West Coaster, I’m open-minded and believe that people find their “source” in many different ways. I get that. But my “State of the SMB Union” is simple: stay positive. I’ll explain that in many different ways with this blog.

RR’s Facebook Post:

Today is the last day of 2013 and I’ve used the afternoon to organize some old author materials in my home office basement. I bumped into a bunch of Small Business Server (SBS) resources and it instantly occurred to me. Today is the end of life (EOL) for SBS. After tonight when the clock moves to 12:01AM and the year is 2014, you can no longer purchase SBS from any official channel (tonight is the OEM channel deadline).

Ahhh…it’s that time again, time for the old year-in-review article plus predictions for the year ahead. I’m shooting from the hip on this one, as I refuse to look at the other pundits’ prognostications being published in a year-end flurry in the partner community. You get the full Harrybbb with this one.

Spiceworks, well-respected a community of IT Pros, has released a very interesting study on the Windows XP migration matter. As readers know, the end of support (EOS) for Windows XP (along with any Server 2003 and Office 2003) is April 8, 2014. Before I go one step further, it’s essential for you to understand the Spiceworks audience. It’s historically been over 90 percent in-house IT Pro from all company sizes. In recent years, it has made strides in reaching into the SMB IT Pro Community and specifically, the partner channel. Keep this in mind as you review the study results with me.

You’ll notice I placed an asterisk on the headline where I wrote Windows XP* and there is a very good reason for this. The Spiceworks study, released in late December, revealed that 76% of IT Pros have *some* devices running Windows XP today and that over 1/3 (36 percent) will leave at least one machine running Windows XP after the EOS date. This study marches to a different measure, as it’s not a whole number macro measurement that would reveal approximately 30% of the world’s fleet of computers that are still running Windows XP. “The data clearly illustrates how prevalent Windows XP remains 12 years after its initial release,” said Kathryn Pribish, Voice of IT Program Manager at Spiceworks. “The next four months will be a busy time for the majority of IT professionals migrating XP-based systems and for the vendors who can provide professional services and support for resource-strained IT departments.”

What I like about the study is that it sizes up the Windows XP migration opportunity for the SMB Nation IT Pro seeking consulting opportunities. It’s unlikely you’d walk into a small business that is entirely Windows XP devices today. Rather – you are likely to bump into an SMB that has “some” Windows XP devices in its fleet. For the sake of example, assume a firm with 30 PCs might have ten Windows XP machines. The other machines in this example are highly likely to be Windows 7. In fact, the Spiceworks study found that 96 percent of IT Pros have Windows 7 present on their networks (versus 42 percent having some occurrence of Windows 8.x and 30 percent running at least one occurrence of Apple’s OS X). In talking with Pribish and Peter Tsai of Spiceworks, the “breakage” to Apple and even Google wasn’t really surveyed for this study.

Migration Upgrade Paths

When allowed to select multiple options, the majority of respondents indicated they’d do in-place upgrades to Windows 7 (49%) following closely by the rip-and-replace option (48%) of purchasing a new machine with Windows 7. I’m in complete agreement that Windows 7 is the popular upgrade path. However – I’m suspect that such a high percentage would even consider an in-place upgrade. My research doesn’t align with the Spiceworks study, and that’s okay as it’s a free country! The figure below indicates how the number exceeds 100%, as respondents could do both an in-place upgrade and rip-and-replace at their business establishment.

Migration Schedule

I’d like to offer no one has studied the Windows XP migration matter more than the team at SMB Nation over the past year. What surprised even us was the slow rush to migrate away from Windows XP. The Spiceworks study was the first that I’ve reviewed to address the scheduling and duration issue. In the current 4Q 2013 timeframe, as the figure shows, the movement is in the single digits. This migration motion will essentially triple in Q1 2014 and still have significant legs after the EOS deadline. I concur and endorse this finding, based on my own research and the learning from the Lenovo-sponsored “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour currently crossing the US presented by SMB Nation.

Bottom-line is that it all amounts to an unexpected delay in upgrades. Reasons cited for the delay (procrastination wasn’t an allowed responseJ) include lack of budget, time and resources. Application compatibility ranked last on this excuse list.

Are you needed?

This Spiceworks study give mixed results here. On the one hand, it reveals that 2 percent of the respondents will use outside help (that’s you, the SMB Nation IT Pro) for help. A whopping 97 percent of the Spiceheads say “We will handle ourselves.” I disagree and here’s why: lack of time and resources. Even internal IT resources will need to augment with IT Pro partners once the scope of the work is clear. Also remember the audience. I started this conversation sharing that the Spiceworks audience is arguably 90 percent in-house IT so it’s data is going to miss the “S” of SMB. Agreed?

Resources

So I really liked the Spiceworks study. It’s one of the best I’ve found to date and very real world. Titled “Getting Over Your XP,” You can find it here: Getting Over Your XP. Enjoy the read as I’ve only shared about half of the research with you.

One more resource: I found this bonus conversation at the Spiceworks site to be engaging.

Some of our more bookish readers will recall author C. Wright Mills’ conversations about the power elite. When I studied political science as a young man, I can tell you that I was intrigued, to say the least. How do these people get to be power elites? Where can I sign up?

Some news that flew by earlier this week is a case in point. Former Microsoft executive Kurt DelBene (chief of Microsoft Office) has accepted an UNPAID position to take over healthcare.gov, the troubled web site most associated with the noun “Obamacare.” Why would he do that? As a successful individual, isn’t his opportunity dance card full? The answer is simple: POWER. There’s something about motivated individuals and their need to achieve. And it’s not just headlines and bright lights. Rather it’s about the revolving door.

If you’ve ever defragmented a Microsoft server, odds are you dealt with Derek De Vette. The former VP Channel Development for Diskeeper Corporation (now Condusiv Technologies) was a staunch supporter of SMB Nation and attended numerous conferences from our earliest beginnings on the Microsoft campus. Few of us knew the once Channel executive was also a musician. And his band, Man Made Souls, has since taken off with a global debut on MTV Music Television and he now performs for audiences of thousands. I caught up with Derek for dinner a few months back in Los Angeles and asked him to talk about his new career and the impact technology plays in the life of a rock star.

(Pictured: Derek De Vette in performance. Photo Credit: Jessica Sterling Photography)

First off, congratulations on your debut on MTV and all the recent attention your band has been getting.

Thanks, man. It beats quarterly sales quotas (smile).

Do you draw upon your experiences in the SMB IT Channel to help you in your music career?

Yes, especially the knowledge gained from PC performance and optimization. Even storage devices, cloud and virtualization have come in handy. You can’t create an album these days without being computer literate. Music is composed and recorded completely in the virtual space of a PC with the majority of instruments, special effects and mixing tools all being software based. You also have to optimize the studio environment from hardware to software all the way down to the right drives used (in my case SSDs) to ensure no latency, delay or sound glitches happen. Most of these concepts I leaned from VARs doing Diskeeper server installations who wanted to ensure there was no performance hit on the production environments they’re responsible for. It’s the same with music. There are even specialized VARs who do studio installations.

What roles does technology play in the creative side of music?

Well it’s closed the physical distance gap on collaborations. For example, the bass player for Nine Inch Nails and Beck plays on our most recent album, Sleeping with Aliens. I never saw the guy. I paid him through PayPal, emailed an MP3 of a song, he recorded a few bass parts in his home studio, emailed them back to me as high res WAV files and we sync’d them up to the rest of the tracks in our studio. The song sounds incredible and we have a world class artist on our record as a result. For even larger projects, there are dedicated cloud storage sites for sharing huge music files back and forth between recording studios while albums are being worked on. This is the new norm.

In your opinion, how has the SMB IT Pro environment changed? Do you think this is for the better?

Better if you can keep up. Virtualization, managed services and some of the hybrid cloud offerings have brought incredible opportunities for VARs if they’re willing to step out of their comfort zones to learn and change old business models. Friends like Dave Sobel of Evolve Technologies are a good example of those doing it right. But the question is, what’s going to happen to the other VARs who are so used to the small consultant model of hourly billing and onsite management? I worry about them and hope they’re able to make the transition. Change can be bitter or sweet depending on how you view it.

On that note of change, what would you tell people who are thinking of changing careers? Any helpful tips?

I was mature enough to recognize that I’d given up a certain level of happiness for the security of a paycheck. I had a great Channel gig. But I realized it’s not where I wanted to be in five or ten years. So I made happiness my new priority. That’s the best advice I could offer. Make happiness your priority. I began consulting a research firm for income and made changes in my life which allowed me to operate out of my home office, spend more time with my gorgeous wife and concentrate back on the arts with my band. I’m the happiest I’ve been in years.

Any parting words for our readers?

Yes, buy the album or a song on iTunes—I have a wife to support guys! https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sleeping-with-aliens/id426730494. Seriously though, I love keeping in touch with the SMB Nation community. So if you know me, or want to know me, friend my band on Facebook. And if I’m touring through your town, I’ll hook you up with backstage passes. It never hurts to know the lead singer!

Check out Derek’s band, Man Made Souls, on iTunes or Amazon. Click on the music video here to see his most recent MTV performance, Sleeping with Aliens.

One of the most popular topics in our “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour concerns the economic motivations to upgrade your Windows XP, Server 2003 and Office 2003 infrastructure fast-fast! Here is why: Section 179. I start with a question:

What section of the US Tax Code, often called “The Hummer or SUV Deduction”, allows a taxpayer to elect to deduct the cost of certain types of property on their income taxes as an expense, rather than requiring the cost of the property to be capitalized and depreciated. This property is generally limited to tangible, depreciable, personal property which is acquired by purchase for use in the active conduct of a trade or business?

We’re nearly halfway through our current Q4 segment of the “Million Mile Migration Madness” tour that encourages you to migrate away from Windows XP, Server 2003 and Office 2003. I feel like I’ve seen extremes in the weather pattern, but that’s a whole another story. The other day in Denver, with the temps below zero, a handful of hearty SMB IT Pros braved the elements to attend our event in an empty southwest Denver mall.

Pictured: These folks traveling in -10F weather on a weeknight to attend the Denver workshop! It was a night fit for neither man nor beast.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the Hour of Code is a way for you to give back to the world by sharing your technology knowledge with students. The idea is simple: you reach out to a school (perhaps your kids’) and offer to do a one-hour coding session. It’s not too late as the Hour of Code is part of the Computer Science Education Week (Dec 9-13). And I have a secret: you don’t really have to know how to program. I recently did an online Hour of Code webinar (watch it HERE) that had nearly 100 attendees, where I displayed our Salesforce CRM system. Perhaps you’d like consider programming with Microsoft Excel – it’s all good.

The youth of today can benefit greatly from your technical prowess via the Hour of Code!

In our continuing effort to keep it real, we set Geoff Brelsford, a senior at Bainbridge High School, loose with the new Dell Venue tablet these past few weeks. Here is his report:

(pictured: Geoff’s entire world is Windows 8.1 with his Dell Venue tablet, Nokia phone and desktop. It’s total integration between devices.)

I was dazed and amazed at how each of the small businesses I visited on Saturday did not know much about the 3^rd annual Small Business Saturday shopping holiday. Late last week I implored YOU to go out and get local on Saturday that you can read HERE. Here’s my story:

Sometimes it’s easy to lament that “nothing’s working” with the agonizingly slow recovery for the SMBs down on Main Street. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of “things” are working, and I choose to focus on Cyber Monday as an example.

In past years I’ve broadcast to you live from the Amazon headquarters in Seattle on this day and mimicked what you can already read on popular financial sites like MarketWatch, or hear on the CNBC financial network. Today I have a different view.

Where did the year go? It’s that time again, to stroll down Main Street, and spend money locally. A year ago, I reported on my commitment to spend at the local technology store. Today I’m ramping up to roam around downtown Bainbridge Island (known as Winslow) to spend a few dollars at a few small businesses. Whereas last year, I had a Small Business Saturday strategy, this time I’m going free-form and will let the fall winds guide me. I’m excited about the possibilities and hope you are as well. In fact, if you are local, please join me on a shopping spree!

Do you ever listen to drive-time radio on the way to work and hear of a “show us your sticker” contest? Sure you do – it’s typically based on displaying the station’s call letters as a bumper sticker. A few years ago, in the Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) days, we held a “show us your sticker” contest in our SMB PC magazine. We received entries from around the world, and it was very exciting!

As many of you have seen, a popular Facebook game right now is to name your number. The idea is to list eleven things, five things or some number of things about your life. You get the point. So your number is six (with a twist). There are roughly six weeks left in the year 2013. What six things can you accomplish before end-of-year that will better your life? I’m suggesting that the delta gains you can make now would/could/should be both personal and professional. Most importantly, I want to hear from you.

Some high-level thoughts on what you can do to make a difference between NOW and end-of-year include:

Late last week, Microsoft released the much-anticipated Xbox One just in time for the holiday season. Over 1 million units were sold on the first day (remember it has a suggested retail price of $499) so those are some real numbers.

I attended the Xbox One launch party at the University Village Microsoft store in the Seattle area. A competition started at 6PM on Thursday, November 21^st, with actual sales starting at midnight, or technically, 12:01AM Friday, November, 22^nd. It was a made-for-TV event with all of the local stations (KOMO, KIRO, KING, KSTW) in attendance. I haven’t seen this type of frenzy since the midnight launch of Windows 95 on August 24, 1995 at pizza parties in various Computer City locations. Where did that nearly 20-years go?

I see it the same way Wall Street sees it: Lenovo is going flat out. In our quarterly 1:1 visit with Lenovo executive Chris Frey, I received the scoop on its latest quarterly results, plus gained some insights into the future. Ironically, this chit-chat occurred as I was zooming to my next Windows XP Migration workshop (where Lenovo and others are sponsors).

Windows XP analysts, such as myself, are hyper-focused on the percentage of market share that Windows XP holds today. Why? Because by definition, the number should be declining rapidly. You would expect such a decline with all the migration motion and message amplification occurring “out there.” But as you will see, there are mixed measurements in the real world. Hang on fast, as the measurements vary widely.

I’m BACK! I’m fired up to have my “feet on the street,” telling the Windows XP Migration story around the world via a series of “Million Mile” workshops. We’re literally using planes, trains and automobiles to teach partners about this amazing opportunity and customers about the need to migrate ASAP before April 8^th.

Over the past two weeks, it’s been an honor and a pleasure to see herds of my friendly nerds and meet new geeks. Here’s a brief summary of my WW Windows XP Migration madness!

Taking a vanguard position in innovation leadership, the well-respected team at SpamSoap has launched a new company called Nuvotera. The term is Latin for “new ground,” and reflects much more than a simple name change. It’s a firm in a race to the bottom, with e-mail spam filtering elevating to the cloud as part of its innovation evolution.

In a one-on-one conversation with Leonard Dimiceli, General Manager, Nuvotera, I discovered the following, much of which is captured in the video here.

Many in our community know Joe Foos, an executive at LanLogic in the San Francisco area. Joe’s firm is a traditional VAR that has grown up into a Cloud service Provider and Managed Service Provider, bringing over ten years of hosting experience (Microsoft Exchange in the SPLA program) to its area. I visited with Joe at the Cloud Expo conference last week in Santa Clara. “We are helping customers move off Exchange on-premises to hosted. Our expertise was helping firms migrate, etc.” Foos shared. He went on to deliver a fantastic speech titled “One Cloud, No Servers, Pure Joy” with the following insights:

Seems like everyone is converging on Orlando this week. Many Microsoft SMB MVPs are visiting Disney World before a busy next week at Microsoft Redmond for the annual MVP Summit. Heartland Technology Group (HTG) peer group members, along with ConnectWise users, are attending the IT Nation conference.

So we’re delighted to offer some additional diversity with our popular SMB Nation Partner Meetup that provides an exam cram session for SMB IT Pros seeking to earn the Master Certified Migration Expert (MCME) title as part of the April 8, 2014 deadline impacting Windows XP, Office 2003 and anything Server 2003. Our popular event is November 13, 2013 from 4:00pm-7:00pm Eastern. That’s perfect as the rides will be taken at Disney World and the content lectures will be concluding at IT Nation. So hop on over and join us! Sign up here. And for more information, you can reach out to Brook at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

As the study continues to assert that newer is better, it highlights that Internet Explorer 8 running on Windows XP has less protection than Internet Explorer 10 running on Windows 7 (SP1/8.x Internet Explorer won’t run on Windows XP). The delta protection features afforded in Internet Explorer 10 include things like SEHOP in protected mode. This is shown in the figure. If you expand it, it’s a “get your geek on” table. Truly.

The top three threats impacting Windows XP users worldwide are:

I’m a big believer that time is always your ally. That is my living theology, and when I don’t have the answers I’m seeking, I know that I can go into “waiting mode” and let the answers come to me. In business, time solves many problems. For example, in many cases, if you just wait, often problems will solve themselves.

So I was waiting for new Windows XP migration messaging from Microsoft, having heard all the regular talking points concerning the April 8, 2014 end-of-support deadline. Let’s just say I thought I’d heard it all until the new “Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, Volume 15” fell into my lap. Stick with me on this one.

Readers will recall that SMB Nation is an active member of the Microsoft “Voices for Innovation” (VFI) political trade association, and I’ve written many a blog about why you should be as well, regardless of your political affiliation. It’s called LEADERSHIP!

One way you can demonstrate your leadership is to consider the following political opportunities:

A couple of weeks ago – we hosted a popular Windows 8.1 feature creature webinar, also known as speeds and feeds. Actually it was much more analytical than that. :) You can watch the replay of the webinar here by selecting the “Essential Windows 8.1 Primer for Partners: New Technical Features” link.

Wall Street is reporting that the $4.7B buyout deal with Fairfax Financial Holdings has been replaced with a plan to issue $1B in convertible debt. The Wall Street Journal reports on that here. So the BlackBerry saga continues, and the SMB Nation IT Pros are starting to get restless. Here is my advice on this matter:

Strange times these are.

I’ve been in some very bizarre conversations with both SMB Nation members and our community of sponsors. You, the reader, are now consistently asking the question “what do I do now” in a Goldilocks economy that’s not too hot, not too cold, but not just right either. In the U.S., the political stunts are creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), which effectively creates a deer in headlight look. If I’ve seen it once these past several months, I’ve seen it a hundred times. Trust me.

The “stuck” look is often followed by a request that I provide insights and observations into what the future holds and what direction our readers should go. I’m happy to hit that one head on and suggest that the future is brighter than you might imagine. I call it the disappearing middle class and it’s my SMB Nation Fall keynote.

Read the rest of this article in the Q3 2013 Issue of the SMB Nation Magazine!

Drawing from the “Pay It Forward” and “Send The Elevator Back Down” mantras that we should be embracing, there is a leadership opportunity to participate in the Hour of Code event being held at local schools in your area. The mission is simple. Every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. Period.

It’s official! We’ve launched this past week in LA with a daytime customer event and an evening partner exam cram (pictured here) with the Lenovo Combat Kit! Upcoming tour location include the Bay Area, SoCal and Florida. Learn more here. 

It was both an honor and a privilege to assist prominent SMB IT Pro Jay Weiss in launching his retail division for ComputerHMO in Pasadena late last week. The concept is simple. Using a medical metaphor, Jay has brought health care protection to IT assets. At its core – it’s a flat fee for monthly support. To date, Weiss and team have been focused on the senior citizen market. What’s interesting is that’s a segment that can use support services the most. In talking with Weiss, it became apparent he has two customers in the senior citizen segment: the seniors, and their offspring. Why? Because, speaking for myself, I’m delighted to pay ComputerHMO to support my mom in her retirement community, freeing myself from something I’m really not very good at.

A living legend in the SMB IT Pro community, Dino White, has fallen victim to a severe stroke. Dino currently is in critical condition and is scheduled for surgery today (Tuesday, October 29, 2013). Therefore, today, we are asking you to please take a moment to show Dino your support.

How to Get Started on XP Migrations Segment Targeting

By Harry Brelsford, Founder and Chairman, SMB Nation

Capitalizing on the WindoWs XP migration opportunity demands that you prioritize the segments you service first. Why? Different industries have different behaviors. And there are flight to quality considerations. Let’s get started on your vertical targeting.

Accounting
Just to level-set, the deadline for extended support for Windows XP is April 8, 2014. In the U.S., the tax filing deadline is April 15, 2014. This duration gap of one week theoretically creates a dangerous condition where the accountant has potentially exposed financial information to intruders. How? Wise hackers might well be developing an April 9th zombie that specially targets accounting applications and data, seeking to exploit this duration hole. Accountants typically go “heads down” right after the holi day season. So from Thursday, January 2, 2014 to Wednesday, April 16, 2014, accountants are focused on tax season, and no system conversions are allowed. Because of that, and as of this writing in early 4Q, it’s essential you target the accounting vertical first. All I can say is get ready for a busy holiday season as you migrate accountants away from Windows XP.

Read the rest of Harry's article in the Q3 2013 Issue of the SMBNation Magazine!

SMB Nation today announced that Lenovo, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, has joined the Windows XP Migration Million Mile Tour as an official sponsor. The North America tour is bringing together small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to learn about the forthcoming April 8, 2014 deadline at which time support for Windows XP will terminate.

I’ve always had a wandering eye for sexy user interfaces (UI). For it was I who worked on an early Apple Lisa computer when the IBM PC ruled. I quickly followed by purchasing an original Macintosh and salivated at the famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial reflecting the Orwellian “Big Brother” message of shattering conventional wisdom, and the MS-DOS view of the world. I raised the flag for the Windows NT Advanced Server release in the early 1990s when my fellow NetWare red heads sneered at the “comical” UI. We’re at the point again in our IT history. Windows 8.1 is here complete with the Start button the early “eight haters” missed so much.

We did it once. We’re doing it again. In the middle part of the first decade--between 2004-2007--it was an honor and a privilege to travel more than 1 million miles evangelizing Windows Small Business Server (SBS). Guess what? We’re back, and for some very important reasons.
First – you the partners have asked for it. Not a single conversation occurs today where an SMB IT Pro asks me what to do next. With the SBS life cycle complete and the alternatives seemingly spooky, I can report that you should strongly consider embracing the here and now: Windows XP and any Server 2003 migration opportunity.

Attend our COMPLIMENTARY pizza party exam cram session to discover how to pass the Master Certified Migration Expert exam from SMB Nation and XPmigrations.com. In this packed two hour session, you will:

• Learn about the Windows XP and Server 2003 (all editions including Small Business Server 2003) opportunity:
  • The April 8, 2014 end-of-support deadline.
  • Top Reasons to migrate including security, obsolescence/ageism, performance, improved applications.
  • Overcome migration objections such cost, ”good enough,” application compatibility, compliance issues
• Observe the tools you need to successfully complete a small- and medium-business (SMB) migration for both the desktop (Windows XP) and server (Server 2003):

• • Assessment tool
  • Migration transfer programs
  • Security solutions
  • And more…

Bonus: Pizza, Beverages, Door Prizes!

This exam cram session is delivered by SMB Nation’s Harry Brelsford, a 17-time SMB author and career geek!

DATE: October 23, 2013
TIME: 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
VENUE: Westfield Century City Microsoft Store
10250 Santa Monica Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA, 90067

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A day ahead of retail availability, you can now download Windows 8.1 from the Windows Store. There are many important reasons to do this. First – you’ve got your START BUTTON back! And there is the Lock App screen, helpful hints including the new Help+Tips app, new Mail app, improved People view, new desktop themes, improved power menu, IE 11 reading view, improved tracking protections, more disclosure in Express settings, and SkyDrive acts as a local file manager. Plus there are a lot of internal programmatic patches/fixes and updates but these aren’t as dramatic as you might think. Why? Because the reality is the periodic updates (yes – where you reboot your machine or it automatically does so in three days) incorporate patch pacing – a different paradigm from Patch Tuesday. Does that make sense?

Seriously – this is our PhD thesis on the Windows XP migration matter. It looks at the situation from the obvious market measurement and deadline perspectives to the cost of keeping an aging PC to look forward alternatives such as, eeek, cloud solutions.

According to a recent survey sponsored by Quest Software and conducted by Dimensional Research, companies of all sizes are grappling with a host of migration issues and concerns. A poll of nearly 500 IT professionals with responsibility for corporate desktops and laptops at global organizations revealed that 47 percent still haven’t completed their migrations off Windows XP. As industry averages for the time needed to complete an OS migration range between 12 to 24 months, it’s clear that many in-process migrations won’t be completed before Microsoft’s April 2014 end-of-support deadline for Windows XP.

Today we have announced the Master Certified Migration Expert title based on the overwhelming demand for our Certified Migration Expert (CME) certificate.