Delivering What Businesses Are Looking for in IT Capabilities
One cliche about business is that "we want our customers to be our partners". But it works both ways: we also want our customers to be partners with us. What that means for our information technology customers is that we want them to define what they need in advance so that we're ready to support their long term business goals.
We were happy to meet with some of our business customers recently. We got feedback about the kinds of services they need today. This discussion confirmed areas where we were able to deliver certain services immediately. They gave us direction for potential areas of growth. We were also pleased to learn about how we could continue to enable their business.
Their current priorities included things like:
- driving efficiency and productivity
- mitigating their security exposure
- dealing with a mobile and potentially global distributed workforce
- developing infrastructure to allow them to consolidate services
- getting more value out of existing IT assets
We're already defining new offerings based on our customers' anticipated future needs. Announcements will follow in future issues of the Pacific Coast Informer.
We're always interested in learning and sharing other companies' insight about IT trends, business needs and best practices. We would love to have your feedback about your organizations' currents and anticipated IT needs, so that we can best prepare to provide the kinds of services you need. Your opinion may also be a featured topic in future issues of the Pacific Coast Informer. Feel free to contact us at info@pcis.com
Look forward to news and opinions about the latest tech trends, online and network security, identity management and other important issues in the tech sector from the Pacific Coast Informer.
Case for Security Webinar: Top 25 Dangerous Programming Errors, Part 1
Continuing our series on web application security, in this webinar we will discuss the top 25 web application programming errors that lead to security issues.
The discussion will cover definitions of the programming errors, how to identify and assess risks in your application, and references to resources surrounding best practices in web application development
How to Register
1. Go to http://boonbox.webex.com/meet/boonbox
2. Click "Show All Meetings".
3. Click the "Register" link on the right in the Status column for "Part 1: Top 25 Dangerous Programming Errors" and fill in the short registration form. You will be sent your registration confirmation information and instructions on how to participate.
Who Should Register
Business owners and IT professionals looking to improve their business operations through better use of IT solutions.
As an additional benefit of signing up for this Case for Security webinar, you will also receive a complimentary subscription to our newsletters, Cyber Security Informer and Pacific Coast Informer.
More event information for Top 25 Dangerous Programming Errors, Part 1
When Is A Good Time to Upgrade Your OS?
It looks as though many companies will be migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7 en masse, skipping Windows Vista entirely. For many organizations, “hotly awaited” upgrades to Vista like the Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will not be relevant as they prepare to move to an OS that is already getting a lot of good press. This leads naturally to a discussion in your organization about when to switch from a legacy system to the latest version or product.
The decision about when to migrate should not be dictated by marketing material, but by the business requirements. Wait until the moment the business applications critical to your organization are certified by the vendor that they will operate with the new OS.
As well, even if you're really enthusiastic about an OS' advertised capabilities for enabling business functionality, you should still wait at least until the release of the first service pack. That means waiting at least a year for the first bugs to be found and fixed.
There are clear advantages for moving from a legacy technology, whether it’s an operating system or a piece of software. Obviously, you’ll get the latest features and you tend to get better support from the manufacturer. While a company like Microsoft can provide patches and support for older systems, third-party software developers may not ensure that their products run on all versions of Windows (hence, you have the little square on the back of the software package that lists the requirements for running the program). And building in backward compatibility into an OS makes for more problem-prone computing for the end-user.
As in other aspects of IT, the timing of an OS migration is something that has to be planned for carefully in advance. Get the advice of IT experts before you do the migration to ensure the move is really necessary and that your applications will continue to work in the new setup.
"When Is A Good Time to Upgrade Your OS?" republished from the Pacific Coast Informer Blog
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WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK Our purpose for providing this free service is to keep our clients and business contacts informed of technology developments. This information can help them resolve common problems and achieve their full potential by strengthening their business processes and infrastructure. Your input is important to us and we welcome your ideas for new features and how we can continue to improve our service to you. Send your comments and suggestions to informer@pcis.com or contact us directly at 604.844.7558
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