January 16, 2009

In this issue

• Welcome back
• A blast from the past
• IT health and happiness - our gift to you
• Jargon Unjumbled
• LANlines - a customer's perspective

Little Bytes

Team talk
Congratulations to Mark Roles, vOffice Technical Manager and his wife Trudy, who have announced they will become parents later this year.

Websites of the month
Looking for a bargain? Check out www.offtheback.co.nz for “New Zealand’s greatest deal every day.”

Don’t wait for the warning email from your ISP - keep track of your broadband internet usage in real time at http://tuc.swaziboy.com/  - you’ll need your ISP user name and password handy.

Got a comment?
We’d love to know what you think about LANlines; what you like (or even dislike), suggestions for improvements or even ideas for articles. Please send your comments to feedback@lantech.co.nz . We’d also welcome any feedback on our products, services and our company in general, so please do drop us a line.

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Hi

Welcome back

We hope you’ve had a chance to relax and enjoy some downtime with your loved ones over the festive period and are refreshed and ready to meet the challenges that 2009 may bring.

Here at LANtech, we’re looking forward to an exciting year ahead. The current economic climate will provide opportunities for businesses to flourish as they look at what they can do differently to remain competitive and gain efficiencies in their operations.

And that’s where technology can have a significant impact.

Have you thought about how best to handle the vast amount of information your organisation is presented with? What’s the most efficient and most cost-effective way to manage your communications? Information and communications technology offers countless opportunities for companies to minimise their costs, while maximising their investment to achieve their goals.

2009 will also bring about technology developments and a whole new set of technical terms and acronyms - providing constant content for LANlines’ Jargon Unjumbled section! Look out for CRM, IP-Sec, IP-Telephony, SAN, OCS, virtualisation, cloud computing, to name but a few...

We spent some time over the holidays gazing into our computer generated crystal ball and came up with our key ICT Predictions  that will impact business this year.   Of course these are generalisations – if you’d like to know how technology can specifically improve your bottom line, please do give us a call.  Not only can we help you develop an IT strategy for your company, we can even manage it all for you, so you can focus on what you do best.

And if you’d like to read what other industry experts are predicting for 2009, check out these articles:

Feature: Challenges and Opportunities,
Source: www.computerworld.co.nz

The Death of Desktops. 
Source: stuff.co.nz

IDC Predictions for 2009
Source: http://www28.discuss.com.hk/archiver/?tid-8712805.html
 

A blast from the past

While researching content for this month’s newsletter, we came across this article, apparently written in 2002, forecasting what computers would be like in 2009. Possibly take it with a pinch of salt, but interesting reading nonetheless.   Check it out at http://web.mit.edu/dmytro/www/FutureComputers.htm .
 

IT health and happiness - our gift to you

As well as wishing you health and happiness for the New Year, we’d also like to ensure the same for your IT systems. That’s why, for a limited time only, we’re offering a free IT health-check. Valued at $1500 (+gst), this includes:
- an audit of all your software and hardware
- a forecast of future usage so you know if your current infrastructure will cope
- development of an asset register
- checks for software licence compliancy
- plus a performance report with at least 5 recommendations

to ensure that your IT is in tip top condition for the year ahead.

This offer is only available to the first 5 callers before 30th January 2009, so call us today on 04 494 9670.

Jargon Unjumbled

Cloud computing is a computing paradigm in which tasks are assigned to a combination of connections, software and services accessed over a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known as ‘the cloud’. Computing at the scale of the cloud allows users to access supercomputer-level power. Using a thin client or other access point, like an iPhone, BlackBerry or laptop, users can reach into the cloud for resources as they need them. For this reason, cloud computing has also been described as ‘on demand computing’. You can find out more about cloud computing here or check out cloud computing in action at www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html .
 

LANlines - a customer's perspective

We received this feedback about our newsletter at the end of last year, which we’re absolutely thrilled about…

“Just wanted to provide some feedback (hopefully useful!) about your newsletter…… there is information about what is happening with the Lantech team which is always kind of fun and makes it quite personable. I particularly like the bits where jargon and technical things are explained or unpacked for the everyday Joe/Jane – very useful!! It’s always nice to learn something new. And I notice there is always included helpful strategies and tips for the business unit, which must be very useful for individual users with their PCs. All in all I think the newsletter is great and I always keep an eye out for mine to see what other bits of jargon I can unscramble and feel ‘smart’ about!”

Shelley Grace

Thanks Shelley for the feedback!

So don’t keep it to yourself. If you know of anyone else who wants to keep up to date with the latest news and ICT developments, please  do tell them about LANlines.

Until next time
the team @ LANtech