Year In Review & 2010 Predictions

Solve-IT Newsletter

Volume 1 Issue 12

By Ed Duncan, Consultant, SBSC, MCSE, MCSA

This is the last issue of 2009 for our fledgling newsletter, and it's been a pleasure providing you with topics that we hope you found interesting regarding the world of IT. This has been quite a challenging 2009 for most of us, so I wanted to end the year on a lighter note. We'll start out by reviewing some of the highs and lows this year in technology, and then I get to have a little fun by predicting what events we might see in 2010. Please note, I am not clairvoyant, I can't see into the future, nor do I have any insider information. My predictions are all in fun, and may not happen at all, but don't be surprised if they do, because you heard them here first. Now that the disclaimer is out the way let's begin. First a look back:

February 2009: This was the start of multiple Gmail outages for the year. To be fair, Gmail didn't have as many outages this year compared to last year, and the outages that occurred didn't last long. Most outages were resolved within a few hours. Yahoo and Windows Live users experienced outages this year as well. Considering that the email services are free, users really didn't have much to complain about.

March 2009: The stock market hit lowest levels since 1997. The tech industry, which is usually immune to sharp market changes, wasn't spared this time. Massive layoffs hit even the stalwart companies in the tech industry. Some of the tech companies with the largest layoffs include Adobe, Microsoft, Citrix, Sprint, IBM, Ericsson, Lenovo, EMC, Motorola, Logitech, Intel, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, and Cisco, with layoffs totaling more than 45,000 jobs between them.

April 2009: Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems for 7.4 billion dollars. The purchase allows Oracle to position itself as a single source supplier of the hardware and software for its database solutions.

June 2009: Twitter is used to report the uprisings in Iran after the Iranian government censor all other forms of communication in the country. The US government even asked Twitter administrators to postpone a scheduled maintenance outage so news from Iran can continue to flow in from civilians reporting updates as they occur.

July 2009: Microsoft and Yahoo sign a deal that allows Microsoft to power Yahoo's search results while Yahoo manages ad-selling for both companies search sites.

August 2009: Google's CEO Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple's Board of Directors citing a conflict of interest after Apple rejects Google's Voice application for the iPhone.

October 2009: Microsoft launches Windows 7 on the heels of what some consider a disappointing adoption of the Windows Vista operating system. Most analysts hail this version of Windows to be the best to date, and sales have exceeded expectations so far.

November 2009: Motorola launches the Droid mobile phone to compete with Apple's iPhone. The Droid runs Google's Android OS, has a touch screen interface, a hideaway keyboard, longer battery life than the iPhone, and operates over Verizon's 3G network. It doesn't have the number of applications that the iPhone has, but it has only been out for a month, so stay tuned.

Now for some predictions:

1. Microsoft will enjoy success with Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010, however companies will be slow to deploy Office 2010. Most businesses running Office 2007 will not upgrade to Office 2010.

2. Lebron James and Dwayne Wade will re-sign with their respective teams, however Chris Bosh will leave Toronto and sign with the New York Knicks.

3. 32-bit pc's and notebooks will no longer be manufactured by any hardware vendors. Desktop and server sales will remain flat. Laptop sales will increase as more of the workforce becomes mobile.

4. Iron Man 2 will be the top grossing movie of 2010, but will receive no Academy Award nominations.

5. Blu-Ray and DVD sales fall sharply as downloadable and streaming media become the new norm for renting movies. Netflix will adapt to the market change but will face stiff competition from Amazon.com and iTunes. Blockbuster files chapter 11.

6. A collection of unreleased Michael Jackson songs will be found and released to the public.

7. Palm and Research In Motion will discuss plans for a merger.

8. Stock market will hit 14,000 by the end of 2010.

9. New advances in wireless technologies will help improve wireless transmission speeds to double or even triple the speed in some cases, to what we commonly see now.

10. Google Voice will be the hot application of 2010.

Happy Holidays everyone, and I wish you a successful 2010!

Technology Spotlight: Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management solution for small business, mid-size companies, and large enterprises. It provides a complete suite of powerful marketing, sales, and customer service capabilities. The Dynamics CRM client can run within Microsoft Outlook, or you can run it within a web browser. The CRM server can run on premise, where the business hosts the servers on site, or you can run a hosted Dynamics CRM solution, where the servers are hosted by a Microsoft channel partner.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables businesses to make smarter decisions regarding customers and prospects with greater confidence. The sales module supports your sales team at every stage of the sales cycle, from leads and opportunities management to fulfillment and invoicing. You can manage all details of accounts, including maintaining customer history and activities, sync all sales functionality into Outlook, qualify leads and track sales opportunities, and automate business processes for leads routing, and pipeline management.

Since the data is centrally stored, it makes it easy to access, update, and share information across teams and departments. With order management, you can automatically update orders with product catalogs, quotes, and invoices. You can measure peformance of your sales teams and see if they are meeting sales goals. You can even create a sales library of searchable sales and marketing literature.

The customer service module helps customer service representatives deliver stronger, consistent, and efficient support. Your customer service representatives can create and assign cases for customer service requests and manage those cases from creation to resolution. Dynamics CRM workflow rules allow you to automatically route service requests and cases to appropriate resources for resolution or reassignment. Dynamics CRM allows businesses to create searchable knowledgebase library of articles and support documents, so customer service representatives can quickly look up solutions to common issues. After a case is resolved, use Dynamics CRM to send automated follow-up emails to the customer.

The marketing module enhances the efficiency of your marketing engine. Create and manage lists of accounts, contacts, and leads. You can also create marketing campaigns including planning tasks, marketing lists, follow-up activities, sending support literature, and tracking cost and revenue goals. Use Dynamics CRM to assign tasks to different members of your marketing team, convert leads into opportunities, and view and assess the effectiveness of the marketing campaign. You may find more information regarding Dynamics CRM here, or you may contact us at Duncan Technologies.

Tips & Tricks: Allow A Program Through Windows Firewall

Windows Firewall is a built-in stateful firewall included with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. The firewall blocks all incoming traffic that does not meet the requirements of defined rules that state what kind of traffic is allowed into the computer.

The firewall however, can work in both directions by not permitting programs on your computer to communicate with applications or services out on the Internet. In order to allow some programs to work over the Internet you have to define Program Exceptions. Program Exceptions tell the Windows Firewall which programs are allowed to communicate through the firewall.

In Windows XP SP2, this process is fairly simple.

Go to the Control Panel.
Click on Windows Firewall. (Classic View)
On the main Firewall page, click the Exceptions tab at the top.
Click the Add Program button.
A list of programs installed on the computer will appear. Select the program you want to allow through the firewall. If the program is not listed, you can also search for the program's executable.
If the program requires a specific port to work properly, and you happen to know what it is, you can specify that as well by clicking the Add Port button.

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Go to the Control Panel.
Click on Windows Firewall. (Icon view)
Click the link in the left pane "Allow programs to communicate through Windows Firewall".
A list of programs installed on the computer will appear. Select the program you want to allow through the firewall. Also select the type of network you want to allow the program through. In most cases this will be Home/Work (Private) if you have one network connection on a private network. If however you have multiple network connections, like a wireless connection at a public hotspot, you will may also see Public listed. Select this option if you want to allow the program through the Public network. Be extremely careful when using this setting because you are potentially exposing your computer to outside threats on the Internet.