IT Partners is an early adopter of new technology because we want our customers to enjoy its benefits ahead of their competitors. Unfortunately this technology often has glitches for which we are forced to develop work-around solutions. Fortunately Apple is more on the ball than most vendors and their latest iPhone update will save us a lot of time and trouble.
There were a few small teething problems with the world’s favourite mobile phone but Release 2.2 of its firmware seems to have addressed all outstanding concerns. We are especially impressed with its integration with Microsoft Exchange through using Active Sync. If you’ve been holding off until the dust settled – now is the time to act.
Bullet Proof Server Infrastructure
Yesterday we completed a major milestone for IT Partners with the creation of a fully redundant, multipath IP SAN. For the lay person, that means we’ve created a resilient system for accessing data using IP (Internet Protocol). The work we have done internally, will be implemented at many client sites and will help many of our clients with lower costs and/or increase in system availability.
We used Cisco and IBM hardware and our virtualisation platform of choice was Citrix Xen Server. Senior Systems Engineer Greig McGill had to push the envelope to find a solution and in the process became an absolute guru on the IBM Blade Centre S, IBM DS3300 and Citrix Xen Server. Again, these are skills that will be invaluable to our clients.
Full credit to Citrix for quickly implementing changes to their documentation on multipathing within XenServer 5.0 and to the great support provided by Rob Marshall of IBM NZ.
My favourite advert of all time is Apple’s “Think Different”. And the only way we’re going to start turning things around in the current climate is to do exactly that – we need to “think different”. Fortunately, some positive news is starting to flow through.
In the recent Roy Morgan poll, only 23% of New Zealanders said they expected to be worse off in 12 months time – compared to 48% in Sept 08. If we continue this positive change of mind-set, happy days will soon be here again. But, you don’t just need to have faith.
IT Partners can help you use the latest technologies to drive business growth and resiliency. With Frazer Thompson - another great addition - joining us early February, we'll have 11 dedicated professionals to help you lower costs and improve productivity.
Productivity gains through technology
At IT Partners we’re always looking for new ways to be more efficient or responsive. One of our biggest productivity gains last year came from moving to Apple iPhones and Research in Motion BlackBerry’s.
We made further efficiency and cost savings by moving to a complete Voice Over IP (VoIP) solution, that now integrates with a GSM Gateway – giving us lower call costs between the office and mobiles. As a Vodafone partner we’re well placed to assist clients leverage new technologies for both cost savings and business efficiencies.
Another productivity gain has been access to plentiful international and domestic bandwidth. When you’re assessing Internet Service Providers (ISPs), download speed is only one part of the equation. The other important consideration is quality - how it is delivered, latency and the number of users are critical in determining the responsiveness and reliability of your broadband connection.
We have now connected a number of clients via the Velocity network and the feedback has been very positive – from a technical perspective we love it because there are fewer faults and outages.
Online Accounting Recommendation
For our personal accounting, I have moved to using Xero - a software-as-service online accounting provider. I would highly recommend you check it out. It has some very smart automation of tasks, great reporting and is very easy to use. And I would encourage you to check out their blog – it’s inspiring and great to see another Kiwi company taking the world by storm.
Made from New Zealand
Speaking of all Kiwis, have you seen the Made from New Zealand ad? IT Partners has joined and if you’re eligible I’d encourage you to get on board too – www.madefromnewzealand.com