May 19, 2009

In this issue

• How to finance your next IT upgrade
• Are your computers a ticking time bomb?
• Stop the Clock with LANcare
• Jargon Unjumbled - SEO
• Number Crunching
• Team Talk
• Datastor Forum - where those in the know, went
• Don't be shy - it's your turn to offload

Little Bytes

Website of the month
A highly addictive website! Think you know all there is to know about your car? Find out here . Then find out about your friend’s car, your mum’s car, your boss’s car…

Have you got the bug?
We’ve mentioned the Conficker virus before and this report is a timely reminder to be vigilant. It’s thought to have been silently affecting millions of computers around the world but is only now starting to do damage. However, it is possible to check if your PC has the virus, just click here.
 

Pass it on

Sign up

Hi

How to finance your next IT upgrade

If you’re thinking about upgrading your IT infrastructure or refreshing your workstations, but don’t want to spend your cash right now, there is an alternative. Financing it instead has a number of key benefits for your business:

• There is no need to find the capital to complete your upgrade.
• Renting allows immediate access to the latest technology.
• All contracts can be tailored to suit your budgeting requirements over 2 or 3 years, with a number of specialist IT Finance companies offering flexible contracts.
• Being an 'off-balance sheet expense', the monthly rental payments are fully tax deductible.
• Monthly payments are spread evenly over the term of the contract allowing ease of budgeting and management of your cash flow.
• When you’re due your next upgrade in three years time the monthly cost will already be in the budget and you are likely to receive more for the same dollars at that time.

Microsoft offer a range of financing options, including SmartPay, a promotional offer giving you a complete IT solution including software, hardware and partner support, with no payments for the first 6 months. This offer is only valid until the end of June, so find out more today.  You can also read about other Microsoft Financing options here , or contact your local Microsoft Gold Partner (us!) with any questions or cost comparisons for your business.
 

Are your computers a ticking time bomb?

Many companies are keeping a close eye on their expenditure right now – and the last thing you want is the cost and inconvenience of unexpected IT failure.

If your business is running between 5 and 200 PCs, a good way to manage your IT expenditure is with a Managed Services Agreement. You pay a set amount every month, allowing you better control of your IT budget. Plus, all the basics such as security patching, hard drive capacity and service performance are taken care of remotely, 24/7, so you don’t have to spend time monitoring these. And if something does go wrong with your IT, systems are in place to identify and fix the problem long before it affects your business’ productivity. In the long run, you’ll be better off as your IT company will be much more familiar with your network and better positioned to solve your problems, in less time (and therefore cost) compared to the pressured situation of an ‘out of the blue’ call-out.

So, how do you know what to look for with Managed Services Agreements? Check out our handy guide here.

And if you’d like to know more about the benefits of a Managed Services Agreement for your company, please call the Sales Team on 04 494 9675, or email sales@lantech.co.nz .
 

Stop the Clock with LANcare

Of course, the team at LANtech is happy to look after your IT whether you prefer the ‘wait and see’ or ‘be prepared’ option – but we do believe the latter is the best for your business.

LANtech’s proactive managed services option is called LANcare and we have 3 different service level agreements available; essentially the more we do for you, the less risk there is to your business of unexpected (and costly) IT infrastructure failure.

Find out more about the different levels of LANcare Proactive Managed Services here, or contact the Sales Team on 04 494 9675 to discuss the benefits of LANcare to your business.
 

Jargon Unjumbled - SEO

We’re in the process of updating our website – and came across this little gem. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. This is essentially the process of developing your website’s code, content and structure so that it ranks highly in the most common search engines – in order that people can find you. It’s best to do this during the development of a new website, but you can also make improvements to the rankings of an existing one. Check out these guidelines from Google. 
 

Number Crunching

And while we’re on the subject of searching in Google, did you know, there are 31 billion searches in Google – every month? What did we do before Google? Check this out – it’s something to think about!
 

Team Talk

As you know, we have a tendency at LANtech to employ people with the same name. No, we haven’t found yet another Jason – but we are delighted to welcome Paul Mac (v2). Who’d have thought there could be another one?

Paul Macnicol joins our Help Desk for the next few months, following an interesting sojourn to Vietnam where he combined tourism and technology. Glad to have you on board Paul.

Datastor Forum - where those in the know, went

Finally, it was fantastic to see so many of you at the recent Datastor Forum in Wellington. Congratulations to the Datastor team for an incredibly informative event. Attendance at the various sessions was overwhelming, and in most cases, standing room only. Our team was particularly interested in the sessions on Data-Domain, VMware and Storagecraft products. If you didn’t manage to get along to the Forum, keep an eye on future LANlines for more details. If you can’t wait until then, please do give us a call.
 

Don't be shy - it's your turn to offload

Thanks to all our LANcare clients for completing the Customer Satisfaction Survey. We really do appreciate your feedback. If you haven’t returned yours yet, time is running out! Your responses (good and bad) are vital to ongoing improvements to our service, so do please get yours in before 31st May. We’ll share the results in the June edition of LANlines.

And if you haven’t received the link to the online survey, call Angela today on 04 499 2661 (ext 127). Thanks!

Until next time
the team @ LANtech