As promised, as part of my program of adding value, please find below a selection of articles, updates and interesting titbits that I thought you may find useful from the last month or so – straight into your inbox. Always happy to receive input of what areas you may wish to see here in addition !
Tops Covered in July:
- Microsoft price changes
- Acronis
- 365 add-ons – Whiteboard
- Security Accreditations
- Uses for old mobiles
Firstly, we have a LinkedIn page that we intend using a lot more going forward, so I would be grateful if you could give us a cheeky ‘follow’, if you aren’t already: https://www.linkedin.com/company/alchemy-systems-international-limited/.
Feel free to say hi there too !
Microsoft 365 Updates – pricing
Summary: no change for the UK this time.
As I’m sure you’re aware, Microsoft have publicly committed themselves to a twice-yearly review of their global 365 pricing, with the last (first) one resulting in a c9% price-rise for us in the UK. This is only applicable upon contract expiry mind, so hasn’t fully filtered through to 50% of the installed base on the yearly contract model as of yet.
Well, now MS have announced their 2nd ‘harmonisation’, and this one looks like it is NOT going to affect us over here – rather only Australia, New Zealand & Canada specifically – with rises between 6 & 9% on their Cloud offerings.
Interestingly though, Switzerland has been hit with a DECREASE of 9%, which bodes wells for the future, as literally no one was expecting the ‘harmonisation’ to ever move BOTH ways, despite the intention originally being described as that ! Kudos to Microsoft for that one.
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud
As I’m sure you’ve seen on our website & email signatures, we are a major Acronis provider, ranking well within the top 10 MSP providers in Europe ! Acronis themselves are ranked ‘visionary’ in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for “Backup and Recovery Software Solutions”.
Acronis is not just a backup product though as not only does it have many extra security features included in the standard product, but many layers of additional services than can be added on top as required… all within the one lightweight agent on end machines.
I have spent a fair chunk of my first month getting up to speed with this product suite and am keen to explore areas of business which I feel may benefit from one or more of the additional Acronis feature set. Expect to see some use cases on Social Media, and our website – outlining solutions to common issues – as I put these together.
MS Whiteboard
I’m always keen on using more of the things included in what I’m ultimately already paying for, and I’m going to presume you’re the same. WHITEBOARD is the digital whiteboard app tucked away within the 365 Suite, that you can use either as an online app, or via the downloadable version if your home/work subscription has those included.
It’s a powerful little collaboration tool – pretty simple in its premise – that is designed to work well with Teams and other similar multi-user interfaces. Stick on text boxes, add multimedia, create templates – all during meetings – then save the screen (or the whiteboard itself) and share around after.
While it might not revolutionise your workspace, it can certainly help provide some much-needed clarity when working online with multiple agencies.
More 3rd-party info HERE.
Thinking of getting Cyber-Certified..?
The Government is certainly keen for businesses of all sizes to up-scale their security posture by adding a certification or two. The benefits are too numerous to mention, for your business and the country as a whole, but can also give you access to restricted tender lists by way of having additional qualifications.
“Cyber Essentials” is the usual entry point for business, run by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and I am currently in the final stages of having Alchemy authorised to run the certification scheme for our customers. This would mean we control it end-to-end on your behalf, submit the assessment ourselves and even issue you the official certificate when you pass.
<< Watch this space >>
Uses for Old Mobile Phones
And finally… we all have them stashed somewhere I’m sure. I know I do – boxes of them – various old work phones, car phones, kids phones, old tablets, old Apples…even the odd Psion organiser & Palm Pilot too in my case. Are we keeping them for any particular reason though..?
- Why not keep one charged and use it as a backup device, just in case..?
- Why not use one for extra laptop storage..?
- Media player..?
There are plenty of uses – full article HERE.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more industry / IT related posts that may be of interest.
Here if you need me.
