bruceb news

A few days before Christmas, Microsoft delivered the “Office 365 Integration Module for Small Business Server 2011 Essentials,” a long awaited add-in that integrates Microsoft’s new server software for very small offices with its hosted Office 365 service.

In some respects this is what SBS 2011 Essentials should have included all along, and the combination is a compelling choice for many very small offices considering their first onsite server or a replacement for an aging Small Business Server 2003 tower. You’ll find a full description of Small Business Server 2011 Essentials here:

• Overview
• Remote Access
• Backups

Separately, the two products are already compelling choices for small businesses. […] continued

Western Digital is shipping the first device available in the US with Microsoft’s small business storage and backup software, Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Microsoft has a gift for names, doesn’t it? It’s a little embarrassing to gush over a product that is brand new on the market and very appealing when it has a wince-inducing name like “Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.” It is closely related to Microsoft’s other new small business server, the one named “Small Business Server 2011 Essentials.” Couldn’t this have been named “Storage Server 2011 Essentials”? That’s a nice name. Maybe it was taken. […] continued

Previously:
Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Part 1: Overview
Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Part 2: Remote Access

Small Business Server 2011 Essentials has one overlooked feature that fills an important need in most small businesses. Every night, SBS 2011 Essentials backs up all of the workstations in their entirety.

Microsoft originally developed this backup technology for Windows Home Server. Microsoft did some of its best technical magic on the backup system to use the least possible space on the server hard drives and to make the backups quick (although they’re done in the middle of the night, so speed isn’t really an issue). […] continued

Previously:
Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Part 1: Overview

Microsoft has done more than anyone else to promote remote access to small business networks. Almost ten years ago, Small Business Server 2003 opened up Outlook Web Access and safe remote desktop access to small businesses for the first time. SBS 2008 and the various iterations of Windows Home Server refined that first portal to make it easier and cleaner and more likely to work properly.

SBS 2011 Essentials brings something new to the table: remote access to files. Hold that thought and let’s look at some of the other features first. […] continued

Small businesses are finally in a position to set up Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, the perfect server for many small businesses with fewer than 25 users. Today’s technology world does not offer any one-size-fits-all solutions but SBS 2011 Essentials should at least be closely evaluated by almost anyone with 2-25 users looking either for a first server or a replacement for a dusty server in the closet.

The idea is to blend an onsite server and cloud services. In broad overview:

• The server runs the network onsite, authenticating people as they log in and passing out files;
• Email is handled separately, ideally by Microsoft’s hosted Office 365 service.

[…] continued

In April, with little fanfare, Microsoft released three new server products to manufacturing and to the hardware vendors: Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Windows Home Server 2011, and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials.

Small Business Server 2011 Essentials is so well-designed and fits its niche so perfectly that I expected that it would become the standard platform for many very small businesses, as ubiquitous as SBS 2003 was in its day. I excitedly previewed SBS 2011 Essentials back in November 2010, and I began using it in my own office earlier this summer. It’s great! Ever since the final product shipped in April I’ve been waiting to detail some of its best features – waiting until the inevitable burst of promotion from Microsoft, waiting until Dell and HP start selling it preinstalled on their servers, waiting until there was something concrete for you to look at and consider buying for your office. […] continued

Previously:
Office 365 Part 1 – Overview

Exchange Online is the compelling piece of Office 365 for small businesses and law firms. Even the smallest business should be considering the advantages of using Exchange to run its mail system, and Office 365 is now the most effective way to get the benefits of Exchange.

I have been promoting hosted Exchange mailboxes for small businesses for years. For a small monthly subscription fee, small businesses can get the full value of mail hosted by Exchange Server, without the complexity and risk of running Exchange Server onsite.

This is what hosted Exchange mail offers to small businesses. […] continued

Microsoft is sending out email notices to subscribers about changes ahead for Microsoft Online Services, the service providing hosted Exchange mailboxes for many of my clients. Let me give you some background to understand those notices.

Later this year Microsoft Online Services (aka “Business Productivity Online Suite”) will get a new name, Microsoft Office 365. Expect a huge promotional push. Microsoft is trying to stay ahead of Google in the emerging market for hosted business services and will use Office 365 to demonstrate that it is still nimble enough to be a step ahead of the competitors.

From Microsoft’s perspective, the big money is in midsize and large companies and government agencies, so the new services will have a lot to offer to companies that have an in-house IT staff. […] continued

Feeling confident about your ability to keep up with the pace of change? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Small businesses will soon have the option to have all of their computing power hosted offsite. No servers in the closet; no workstations under the desks. Onsite you’ll have a monitor, a keyboard and mouse, and a fast Internet connection. Everything else will be in the sky. And yet when you sit down, you’ll log in and see a Windows 7 desktop and click on the Word icon and browse through your files and start Outlook and read your mail.

Sounds odd, doesn’t it? […] continued

I am excited to announce a new service for all my clients – patching and updating your workstations.

Bruceb Consulting Monitoring will review and install updates to Windows, Office, Firefox, Java, Flash, Adobe Reader, and other important programs and utilities – automatically and silently.

I will review the updates that are necessary for you to be safe online, and I’ll install them on your computers.

There’s a monthly charge for my monitoring service. It’s a small price to pay for two important reasons:

• SECURITY You’ll be at less risk from malware delivered by poisoned web sites, because browser add-ins like Java and Flash will be up to date on your computer.

[…] continued