08Sep2020
12Jun2020
Managed Services Opportunities within Microsoft 365
I still regularly receive questions from independent IT consultants as well as Managed Services Providers about Microsoft 365 in relation to "regular maintenance" tasks and the like, which can be translated into Managed Services opportunity. Everyone intuitively understands that something like this is possible, but they do not know where...
19Mar2020
Microsoft 365 Business resources & community
Obviously the Microsoft 365 Business product gets quite a lot of attention on this blog, since it covers such a vast range of customer scenarios in the SMB space (defined as under 300 seats per the licensing framework). But in the interest of building out the community network a bit, and...
22Jan2020
Why you should take a real hard look at upgrading from Office 365 to Microsoft 365 this year
Readers of this blog are probably already familiar with the differences between Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans. But I still run into plenty of folks out there who think these are the same thing, or who believe this is for "cloud only" customers, and there are still others who...
21Nov2019
When would I recommend Windows Virtual Desktop to a customer?
Call me crazy: I don't see the value in a Remote Desktop or Virtual Desktop experience for its own sake. The purpose of this kind of solution is to provide centralized management and remote access to specifically Windows-based applications. In short: Remove your dependency on Windows, and you've removed the...
19Nov2019
Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) vs. traditional RDS or VDI
I want to talk about Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) as the successor to on-prem deployments of Remote Desktop Services (RDS), and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Many small and mid-sized businesses are already familiar with using Remote Desktop or similar (e.g. Citrix, VMware View, etc.). Usually this type of service was...
08Aug2019
Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive best practices? More like considerations… Part 1: External sharing and communication
This article is part of a series. Also see Part 2, Part 3. Ever since I released the Office 365 Email Security Checklist, I have had a lot of people asking me for similar best practices checklists related to the "other" Office 365 services--especially Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The...
28Jun2019
Does Microsoft backup my data in Office 365? Do I need more or additional backup?
A new reader question came in, and frankly it's one that I hear a lot. I'm sure I have smatterings referring to this issue in other articles, but this one should stand to clear up the questions once and for all--this will be something I can point people to moving...
17Jun2019
Updated Licensing Graphics
With the recent changes to Microsoft 365 Business (which now includes Conditional Access--hooray!), it was time to dust off the old licensing guide page, which is also linked on the top banner of my site. Here are the resulting images which were updated just this month, describing each of the major...
16Nov2018