27Apr2019
25Apr2019
Two philosophies for deploying Microsoft Teams in an organization
IT admins throughout the world subscribe to one of two worldviews today: Control mindset: IT's job is to control and restrict, and of course, to protect the clueless users from all of those scary threats out there in the world today (including themselves)Empower mindset: IT's job is to educate and...
06Feb2019
We have to talk about Intune
There was a time, not long ago, when I would have conversations with others like me, who work for other managed service providers around the US--we would all say the same thing: "We don't want any part of Intune--we have our own RMM tools..." Let me be clear--I still do not...
10Jan2019
Busting the myth behind Secure Score
For someone who writes so extensively on Microsoft / Office 365 products, especially with regard to security, I haven't said much about their Secure Score tool on this site yet. Probably I have mentioned it once or twice, but I haven't opined on it, officially. So here's the thing. It is...
19Dec2018
Why Microsoft 365 Business should include Azure AD Premium
I have written at length about this product; for the most part, I really love it for the SMB. But there is one thing that I wish Microsoft would have included in this bundle, even if it meant increasing the price point a little bit. And that one thing is:...
26Nov2018
Coming soon to an Azure AD/Microsoft 365 subscription near you: Life without passwords?!
I previously commented when Microsoft released new password guidance, which is backed by their own research as well as that of NIST. A quick recap of that: Require passwords have at least 8 characters. Longer isn't necessarily better, as they cause users to choose predictable passwords, save passwords in files,...
16Nov2018
Three Azure solutions to SMB problems: The first rule of Azure is you don’t sell Azure
Different MSP's out there embrace the cloud to more or less extent. Most providers are doing Office 365 nowadays, but Azure (or IaaS solutions like it) is still nebulous or even a little scary: Some providers feel threatened by services like Azure, because deploying and managing on-premises servers still makes...
09Nov2018
My three wishes for Teams in 2019
Everyone knows that Teams was a late answer to Slack. But it's done a lot of catching up over the last year or so, and is starting to gain some real traction now. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement, so let's keep pushing Microsoft on this one. Now that...
18Oct2018
Microsoft 365 Enterprise: What Windows 10 goodies are included that you don’t get with Pro/Business?
In this article, I wanted to highlight some of the key differences between Windows 10 editions, which are available through subscription in Microsoft 365 Enterprise SKU's. Small business admins and consultants are going to be interested in some, but not all, of these features. There may be others I'm not...
15Oct2018