Microsoft are currently offering a saving of 50% on the first year’s payments for any company taking out an Open Value Subscription agreement before the end of September. 

Open Value Subscription (OVS) provides your business with the ability to spread the costs of your Microsoft licensing over three years.  During that time you pay only for the number of staff you have at the annual declaration; for any additional staff you add between declaration dates, you dont pay until the new declaration date.

To qualify you need to be currently using one of these:

• Microsoft Office Professional 2003 (N-2)
• Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (N-1)
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 (N-1)
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 (N)
• Microsoft Office Small Business 2003 (N-2)
• Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 (N-1)
• Microsoft Office Standard 2003 (N-2)
• Microsoft Office Standard 2007 (N-1)
• Microsoft Office Standard 2010 (N)
• Windows 7 Professional (N)
• Windows Vista Business operating system (N-1)
• Windows XP Professional operating system (N-2)

If that is of interest to you, please give us a call on 0800 783 6170.  For more information about the licensing services we provide click here.

Very useful meeting with the TMA this morning - thank you Seamus - so that I understand more about what they do within the theatre industry.

Managed Networks has a great deal of experience working with a significant chunk of the West End’s theatres so it is definitely a market for our IT support services.  IT support for theatres is an interesting area of work.  Not only are there the usual requirements for Office and email, there is a significant amount of work needed to ensure that they box offices can constantly sell tickets.  Ticket sales are the life blood of the theatres and so any impact of their ability to sell can have consequences.

The purchasing pattern varies dependent upon the show and the stars involved in the show; let me explain.

Shows that are more serious or have an older generation of actors taking part attract, generally, an older audience.  Ticket sales are therefore more likely to be through the box office window or over the phone.  Shows that attract a younger audience have a higher %age of online sales. 

Imagine the impact of losing the box office on the day a new show launches!

Liaison with the ticketing system providers such as Enta, AudienceView and Blackbaud is a key part of our role as IT support providers to theatres.  It is vital that we maintain a good working relationship with them

The Cloud is the biggest thing in IT at the moment, with everyone from Microsoft down talking about “cloud computing” and cloud-based IT.

The iPad is the latest device from Apple to stir up the consumer market and drive a whole new way of working.  What would happen if they were combined?

Would it provide the ultimate way to work from anywhere (assuming you have a SIM card and data tariff), moving between music and spreadsheets, electronic books and Outlook-based emails?  Would staff love their bosses for giving them the latest and greatest gadget of the age?

Let’s find out shall we?

Managed Networks has been providing IT support for more than 11 years so we should know all the reasons why people outsource -shouldn’t we?

Just to find out whether this was the case our Business Development Manager carried out a bit of research on LinkedIn.

Although most of the answers were expected, some were a big surprise:

• only 3% said that price was an issue
• Just one person said relevant industry experience was required
• less than 2% of responses said they wanted the IT support company to be local

The biggest requirement from outsourcing IT support was a return on investment (17.5%).  This was not a surprise

Do you agree of disagree with these points?  More findings from the research to follow

Managed Networks is delighted to announce that Microsoft has awarded us with their Desktop Competency.

All very good, but what does that mean to you?

1. we have demonstrated the skills our IT support engineers have around Microsoft’s desktop products so you can be sure we will delivery a good job
2. we can assist you in getting the most out of your desktop; improved productivity, better performance etc.

if you have issues around the use of XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Office, give us a call and we can help

Our new financial year has started well; so well that we need to recruit a number of new staff:

• Regional Business Manager for London & the South-East
• Helpdesk engineers - London based
• Network engineers - London based

The engineers are needed to fulfil a combination of new contracts and current client contract uplifts and more detailed job descriptions are on our website

the Regional Business Manager is needed to ensure the new engineers are kept very busy and we can fulfil the constant stream of new enquiries we are getting.

If you are interested in any of the positions we are currently looking for, e-mail us at recruitment@managednetworks.co.uk

NO AGENCIES.  IF YOU CALL FROM AN AGENCY EXPECT TO BE DEALT WITH APPROPRIATELY

Today’s fire meant that a great many companies were unable to get to their office - were you one of them?

Did it mean you were unable to do any work or could you work from home?

Remote working technologies such as Citrix, Microsoft Terminal Services, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Outlook Web App (OWA) can all be set up to quickly and easily provide you and your business with the ability to work from other locations when your office in unavailable

The new version of Microsoft Exchange is out now and there is a great deal that will help your business:

• you can use Exchange for your voicemail, so you no longer need voicemail on your phone system
• you can send and receive text messages from your Outlook or Entourage - with Windows Mobile 6.5
• Outlook Web Access is much better and far easier to use
• the resilience is significantly improved
• the back-end databases take up far less space and so the storage you need to allocate is far less
• archiving is improved and can be controlled for compliance reasons

Want to talk about it?  call us on 0800 783 6170

It has been a while since anything was added to this blog - sorry about that. Over the coming weeks and months, we intend for the blog to become a number of things:

• a source of technical information - postings of unusual or interesting IT support issues that have arisen recently and our solutions to the problem
• how Managed Networks is changing - a way to keep an eye on us if you wish
• how Managed Networks resolves the business problems of our clients.  Mostly the unusual ones rather than everything - that would just get boring

We welcome you to subscribe and comment on our postings.  We dont mind if you agree or disagree with our postings but please be polite as it makes our life easier when editing!