Bringing business to the cloud

With so many acronyms being invented because of the "cloud" we'd like to explain what SAAS or Software as a Service means and give an example of a splendid use of the concept for auto dealers. At the end of this blog post we have a link to a story on just one dealer who has adopted this solution. In a survey that we did at one of my companies, Microsoft Cloud Services, we started to scan dealership technology and survey how many P.C.s are on the lot inclusive of laptops as well as details like which operating system and version of Microsoft Office they have installed because in our studies the two were a requirement to get business done.  We also asked how many unique email addresses are being utilized and what those email addresses are being utilized for.  We also asked which provider they used for email services as well as how many mobile devices are in use at the dealership. We have the surveyed information from thousands of dealerships from Digital Dealer, Driv

Dealerships were amongst the first community businesses to be computerized. So why are most dealers having such a hard time with e-mails, spam, viruses and other computer issues?  Dealerships are essentially behind because they were so far ahead. Dealer management systems were developed long before the technology reached the masses — long before there were PCs, e-mail and today’s plethora of PDAs and smartphones. Today’s dealership looks nothing like the dealership of the past. Remember when there used to be satellite dishes (lots of dishes — one for each franchise) on the roofs of dealerships and dumb terminals on the desks? That was how we communicated with the DMS and OEMs. Remember the day of servers underneath a desk or in a closet next to the reams of paper and extra toilet paper? Unfortunately, this early  computerization delayed the utilization of PCs and certain common programs. We now have PCs on just about every surface of the dealership, and smartphones and tablets sp

When the rumors became reality this morning about Dominion releasing a DMS at NADA this year I was delighted!  I had multiple people email me, call me, tweet and even text me asking if we knew about the "BIG NEWS!" and they all asked how I feel about it. And then I read Ralph Paglia's post.  What an absolute pollution of the industry some posts have become and this one in my humble opinion tops the list as the most poorly written blog post in history.  If you're going to get all emotional and sprinkle the internet with your bathroom opinions, do it there.  Why would I say something this bold?  Allow me a moment to explain the reality of what is going on instead of the garbage you might read elsewhere. Microsoft doesn't build DMS systems, they empower their partners who have earned Microsoft's respect.  The relationship between Microsoft and Dominion is simple, Dominion is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network.  This means that Dominion has access to pe

Go to Settings > Cellular > Network selection      choose "tap to select" and wait for a few minutes      choose the second AT&T option Go to Settings > Access Point      choose the second option "AT&T - LTE 2 - Lumia"      wait for it to say "active" Reboot phone Note: I tried every other configuration including building a custom APN and Internet profile.  None worked. This only took me three hours tonight to figure out... figuring out internet sharing next.

The Small to Medium Businesses in the U.S. make up for over 90% of all companies! Most of these companies cannot afford the cost of the internal infrastructure resources like trained IT staff and high powered servers. With Microsoft's cloud products any SMB can equip themselves with PC management, corporate mail solutions, websites and a blog in minutes.  That wasn't the good news. The good news is that they will need trained professionals to accomplish the lofty goals they have for getting current with technology and what better way than to reach out to a competent Microsoft Partner? This is the great news, that Partner can be and should be you .  According to the U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/econ/susb/   ·              There are over 10,837,269 SMBs in the U.S. with less than 99 employees ( Over 95% of all businesses ) ·              The SMBs in the U.S. make up for 60,866,558 employees ( average of 6 employees per business ) ·              These S

What are you doing to ready up for Windows 8?     The most important take away from any of the WPC’s that I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot of them, is to listen to Kevin Turner’s message. His staff composes the best of the best in storytelling, readiness campaigns and you guessed it; resources. So it’s no surprise that RyanTech has re-tooled its office with touch screen enabled all-in-one PCs and new laptops that fully support the Windows 8 experience. We have trained our staff on the usage of Windows 8 and found many resources provided by MVPs and Bloggers that help in the transition. If you aren’t yet a partner of the ignite experience that Microsoft is putting on to bootstrap you into place so that you can support Windows 8 for your customers than be sure to look up the information on the web after the events in Vegas and Orlando. Kevin Turner’s message was the simplest complex message from any WPC thus far. Simply put, Microsoft is all in again and they’ve got sk

WPC12 – Excitement, Accomplishment Boarding my flight this morning on the way to WPC I recollect my two favorite moments this year. Being a guest on MPN Live was a real highlight and I can hear my own words echoing in my head. “Don’t say you’re a partner, be a partner.” The second moment was the release of “Surface” where Microsoft introduced a revolution of evolution in tablet technology. I am so excited to arrive in Toronto this evening and get things started. WPC Connect email alert notices have been attacking my inbox and are making me even more anxious to see what Microsoft has in store for us. One of my colleagues is coming up from Costa Rica so for the first time, we’re a real participant of the WPC with a presence not JUST from the USA. Top on my list is Deepak Chopra, Steve Ballmer and Jon Roskill. Kevin Turner is sure to turn our heads in a new direction and I can’t help but feel like a child in a classroom looking up to my teacher on stage and waiting for every wo

* When Partners Partner, great things happen.                Such is the case for RyanTech and eLeaderTech. Microsoft Partner eLeaderTech, located in Salt Lake City, UT had been developing a product called Executing the Standards, a.k.a. "ETS",  for over 3 years.  In their attempt to build out the software in the .Net framework as well as many other third party objects, the system began to take a road of its own in the sense that the software almost seemed to have a mind of it's own.  Due to the many different programmers and companies involved in the buildout over the years, the code had become unmanageable and the software suffered a potential self destruction. Enter RyanTech, another Microsoft Partner that had been providing ETS with Data Services through its API for a product called DMSi.  The relationship between the Founder of eLeaderTech, David Ibarra, and RyanTech's Founder, Kevin McMillen started to bloom when David asked Kevin to take a peek

Our project which started in November of 2011 is aptly named: "The Dealership of the Future" for more reasons than one might think.  I'm going to share a timeline of all the events that happened and what's to come in the near weeks.  This particular blog entry is an overview of what we're doing.  I'll be blogging separately on each piece of the project to provide more detail which I hope can help you implement Microsoft cloud solutions more successfully.  So enough of this, let's talk about the "Dealership of the Future" which is located in Salt Lake City, UT.  Enter Murdock Hyundai. What we had to overcome: The spam in email was overwhelming Email server reliability was non-existent Telephone calls were echoing, dropped calls, limited features Desktops were bogged down with bloatware, spyware and viruses Internet bandwidth was 10% of the purchased speeds No policy for email was enforceable Employees were frustrated Executives we