18May2022
09Mar2021
There is no panacea, there is no silver bullet
I had a really interesting question come up during one of my recent online courses. One of the participants asked whether device management, and even MAM (application-based management) were necessary anymore, now that we have stuff like MIP and Sensitivity Labels. I was taken aback by this question and I...
29Jan2021
Devices or Users: When to target which policy type in Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune)
A new reader question came across my desk the other day. In truth, it is not the first time I have answered this question, but I realized that I could probably repeat myself less if I simply write an article and publish it. The question is: When working in Microsoft Endpoint...
10Dec2020
Your customers are coming to me…
I wanted to bring up an interesting trend that I have been seeing in my website's contact form. I still get plenty of messages from IT Pros, independent consultants and Managed Services Providers. But, in recent months, I have also been seeing an increasing number of SMB customers coming to...
01Dec2020
Why aren’t you charging your customers to take care of Microsoft 365?
This is a simple question. The way I see it, there are many opportunities to provide Managed Services for SMB customers with regard to their Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Yet to this day, hardly anyone is doing it. Why? I suspect some folks have difficulty connecting all the dots and putting...
18Aug2020
Behold: The Power of Sensitivity Labels
Even though some people are aware of the concepts of Data Classification and tools such as Microsoft 365 Sensitivity Labels, I do not think that many of us out there have yet grasped the full implications, or taken the long view, so to speak. Note: this is a longer read....
28Jul2020
Is “Best Practices” a myth?
I often find myself musing over this question these days. Granted, I actually do publish something called The Microsoft 365 Best Practices Checklists--but really these are more like recommendations. In fact, I recently updated them to include governance decisions around collaboration (e.g. affecting apps such as OneDrive for Business, Teams...
07Jul2020
Yes, you really can let go: Microsoft 365 Groups and Teams creation policy, revisited
I have to laugh because this is still such a seemingly controversial idea. "Should users be allowed to create their own Teams?" I have written about this topic many times before, but I still get the best comments about it from non-believers. The real issue is that these folks have...
15Jun2020
Implementing the ACSC Essential 8 with Microsoft 365
I have had this request on my backburner for a while, and I finally got around to knocking it out: from a reader in the Land Down Under--Australia! Update: Microsoft has a much-improved set of Learn articles on the Essential Eight, with detailed guidance on implementing the three Maturity Levels (MLs)...
12Jun2020