Skype for Business

Achieve More with a Fully Integrated Communication Solution

We believe that the heart of productivity is great teamwork, and the heart of great teams is great communication.

Productivity today is centered on conversations – sometimes a quick instant message or call, and sometimes a meeting planned in advance including voice, video and content sharing. Office 365 is a world-class productivity service that helps great teams to accomplish great achievements.

At the heart of Office 365 communications is the Skype for Business service connecting your teams with the experience they love, in the Office applications they use every day. With Skype for Business you can simplify your infrastructure with one platform for calling, conferencing, video, and sharing.

Our company offers a fully integrated communications solution based on Office 365, our services, and certified hardware to ensure the best experience for your end-users. We help our customers along all the steps of the productivity improvement journey, starting with deployment planning and roll-out, to making sure your teams are up to speed with the new solution and comfortable enough with the new ways of communication. By leveraging our company’s offering, your teams will be able to communicate like never before using Office 365 and Skype for Business.

Skype Across Devices

Connect with your team anywhere using our mobile apps across Windows, iOS and AndroidTM, or bring remote participants into meeting spaces of all sizes with Skype for Business Room Systems.

Complete Meeting Solution

Work like you are all in one room, even when you are not. From collaborative team sessions to large broadcasts or dialing into a conference using your phone, Skype for Business is designed for all your meeting needs.

Modern Voice with Cloud PBX

Make, receive, and transfer business calls in the office, at home, or on the road using phone, PC, and mobile. Increase agility and consolidate management with voice services in Office 365.

Security, Control and Compliance

Get end-to-end security, control and compliance that span from the user to the enterprise. All powered by the on-demand scale and manageability of Office 365.

Skype for Business Voice

Our integrated communications offering helps you take advantage of the following services and capabilities of Office 365 and Skype for Business:

Anywhere Access – ability to make and receive business calls in the office, at home, or on the road, using your business number on your smartphone, tablet, PC, or desk phone.

PSTN Conferencing – provides the flexibility to dial in to a meeting from a traditional phone, in addition to the existing ability to join a meeting with a single click on your PC or mobile device.

Skype Meeting Broadcast – makes it easier than ever to produce large virtual meetings for up to 10,000 meeting attendees, who can join from virtually any browser or device (see it in action). Now Skype for Business truly is a single platform for every type of meeting.

Cloud PBX – enables companies to eliminate separate PBX systems and transition to the cloud with Office 365 as the center of communications management.

PSTN Calling – ability to subscribe to Microsoft managed calling plans and phone numbers.

Skype Connectivity – Connect, communicate, and collaborate with colleagues, consumers, other businesses, and friends and family – anyone who uses Skype – with both voice and HD video.

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Computer Tip of the Day: Are You Managing Your Passwords Wisely?

One IT security strategy used by various businesses and other organizations is routine password replacement. At regular intervals, such as every three or four months, employees change the passwords to their accounts.

The purpose of this strategy is to keep cyber criminals and other unauthorized individuals from successfully using a password.

People assume that if the password changes every few months, its older incarnations will lose their relevance, giving legitimate account holders additional protection.

However, a recent article published in Business Insider highlights a major flaw in this approach. To comply with the requirement of regularly changing their passwords, employees and other authorized account holders often rely on convenient tricks that wind up weakening their passwords’ strength.

For example, they may create their new password by changing only one character in the old one, or by reusing passwords that they’d already relied on months earlier. That means that someone who knows an old password can guess at a new one and obtain unauthorized access to an account.

Furthermore, as pointed out in the article, the tricks you try to use to protect your password don’t mean much if hackers exploit other vulnerabilities to get into your system.

Rethinking Password Strategies

The computer tip of the day is to rethink your approach to password security. Always evaluate the efficacy of your company’s cyber security tools and strategies, along with making sure they belong to a larger, comprehensive IT security plan.

When it comes to good password policies, the following are a few tips to consider:

Make sure your passwords have sufficient complexity; for example, they should be long and contain a variety of characters.
If you rely on password recovery questions, don’t answer them with information that’s available for anyone to find out.
Two-factor authentication provides an additional layer of protection; even if hackers steal your password, they would also need to have your phone to type in the verification code and access your account.
You can rely on a reputable password manager that generates strong, complex passwords for different accounts and protects them with encryption.

Contact us to further discuss the best cyber security practices for your company. It’s important to not simply rely on received wisdom or imitate what other companies and organizations are doing.

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Virtual Desktop vs Web Apps: Which Should You Choose?

Companies face the challenge of fostering greater collaboration and increased productivity among employees. New or updated software applications keep emerging, with promises of improved security and fast performance.

Employees may work from different locations and with different types of devices, while needing to stay in sync with each other. What kinds of software solutions are best for addressing these issues?

Virtual desktop vs Web apps: Which is better for your business?

A basic and important decision companies need to make is whether to opt for virtual desktops or Web apps. For structuring your employees’ work environment, which works better?

Instead of getting stored on hardware in your office, virtual desktops run off of remote servers. Compared to traditional desktop environments, they generally offer greater flexibility and reliability; they’re also easy to manage and update across different devices.

Web apps are Internet-based, and to use them, you’ll also need to download some data from the Internet to your computing device (for example, the apps you install on a tablet or iPhone). There are a number of popular Web apps, ranging from Google Drive to Twitter. They can help you accomplish a variety of important work tasks.

When deciding between virtual desktops and Web apps, the following are some key questions you should consider:

How much control do you want? With virtual desktops, you can achieve greater control over your system and its accessibility to employees and third parties. With Web apps, you have less control; for instance, you may not always know how a company like Google or Twitter is sharing your data with another party.
Is security a major concern? If you manage your virtual desktop well, you may be able to ensure a higher level of security for your system overall than if you use Web apps.
How much time and money do you have? Virtual desktops are more expensive than Web apps and require more time for maintenance. Web apps are generally less expensive, easier to install and more intuitive to use.

Whatever decision you make, you should rely on experts to help you manage your IT set-up and come up with solutions that best suit your company.

To figure out whether you should choose a virtual desktop vs Web apps, don’t hesitate to contact us.

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Computer Tip of the Day: Quickly Find & Delete Duplicate Files

computer tip of the day quickly find and delete duplicate files

Sometimes you accidentally download the same document twice and tell yourself that you’ll delete the duplicate later. But you forget to complete that small task before heading home in the evening. Don’t you wish there was a quick and easy way to delete duplicate files?

Well, there is! A duplicate file finder program will locate duplicate and similar files. From there, you can delete, copy, or move the files as needed.

Here are three free duplicate file finders that don’t come with junkware:

DupeGuru

This program searches for similar files, not just exact replicas. Thus, if you start more than one document for a project on accident, you can delete the old one that’s not being used.

DupeGuru has two other editions, a music DupeGuru and picture DupeGuru. The music edition searches for duplicate songs – a program only helpful if you’re in the music industry or have music on your work computer. As its name suggests, the picture edition of DupeGuru detects duplicate pictures on your computer, so you can delete the unnecessary photos.

DigitalVolcano’s Duplicate Cleaner

If you don’t like the barebones interface of DupeGuru, then you’ll prefer DigitalVolcano’s Duplicate Cleaner for locating duplicate files. The downside is you have to upgrade to pro for searching through your music and pictures.

VisiPics

This free application scans your images for similar and identical files. It will locate images that have been rotated, resized, or edited in some way. VisiPics is good to use if you have a lot of pictures on your computer because it has a more visual interface than other duplicate file finders.

Running a duplicate file finder every once in a while is important for freeing up space and maintaining organization. Some duplicate file finders install junkware and toolbars on your computer when you download them, so be careful if you try one that wasn’t on this list. DupeGuru, DigitalVolcano’s Duplicate Cleaner, and VisiPics are clean programs that won’t mess up your computer.

Did you find our computer tip of the day helpful? Follow us to stay updated on our latest IT tips and information.

Contact us if you want greater security for the data stored on your computer. We offer various IT services, including data recovery, contingency plans, and consulting.

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3 Ways to Stay Organized with Microsoft Office 365

Businesses can improve their organization with Microsoft Office 365. New programs included with the Office package, such as Lync and Sharepoint, improve its functionality. Businesses can now collaborate and stay organized with Office 365 Online. Here are three examples of how you can do just that:

Organize Your Projects

With Office 365, you can encourage collaboration among employees. Even if employees are on different teams or in different departments, it’s easy to collaborate with Microsoft Sharepoint.

This improves project management simply by making it easier for businesses to stay organized. Rather than having to send files back and forth through email, employees can work on the same project together.

Organize Your Team

With Microsoft Lync, businesses can make internal communication easier than ever. Lync provides an optimal user experience that focuses on simplicity and functionality.

If you already use VoIP, then you can use Lync to keep your client base and employees more organized. If you’re considering switching to it, then Microsoft Lync makes the transition easier for employees.

Organize Your Documents

When you use Microsoft Sharepoint to save documents, you have the option of storing them on the cloud. Although this isn’t necessary, it helps businesses to keep track of their documents on a company-wide basis.

As a manager, it’s important for you to have access to all files from accounting spreadsheets to marketing presentations. Storing your documents on the cloud will make this easier.

Businesses that take full advantage of Microsoft Office 365 notice an improvement in organization and an increase in productivity. With Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Sharepoint, communication and collaboration are easier than ever.

To talk more about Microsoft Office 365, or anything else, please contact us.

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