Google Buys Motorola And What It Means For Small Businesses

UPDATE! – It seems my musings about a “SuperApple” type strategy have not gone unnoticed.  For example, the musings of the Wall Street Journal….. Which begins “Google Inc.’s proposed $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Inc. underscores the allure of a business model pioneered by one of the company’s rivals: Apple Inc.“

Big News this morning..  Google just announced they’re buying Motorola Mobility.  Which (we believe) will generally benefit our small and medium sized business customers.  Here’s why:

• Google Doesn’t Discriminate Against Small Businesses.  All their platforms are universally available (i.e. AdWords, Video Advertising, Voice, Search).
• Google Integrates their Acquisitions.  Blogger, Gmail, Docs, Voice, Google+ are tightly integrated.  Expect the same from their Motorola Products.
• Google Gives Away Android.  The Number One Mobile Platform.  Expect Motorola’s innovative adoption of Android to continue.

In the short term, don’t expect to see much.  Just the Xoom Tablet, excellent phones, etc. to keep coming out the doors of Motorola.  But downstream (and I would expect sooner rather than later, Q1 or Q2 2012) I would expect a significant rollout of more advanced tablets and what we call “crossover” systems…  Essentially tablets with all the power and storage of netbooks and notebook computers.  All with tight included integration of Google platforms on Android.

Of course, there is another possibility…  Could Google be looking to build themselves they’re very own “SuperApple” type of company?  Where they control Android, and the hardware?  All coupled to Google’s virtual services?  Might be a little far fetched, but stranger things have happened.

OPENRSM Unleashes ITaaS

Feb 28, 2011 – (Kansas City, Feb 28, 2011) OPENRSM (the Kansas City IT Company) has launched IT-as-a-Service (ITaS) targeting SMB customers. ITaS integrates hardware, networking and applications — Accounting, CRM, Data Integrity, AntiVirus, Office Applications, and more) — on the cloud and is available on a pay only for what you use basis.

“Customers may need a single application, some additional computing power, deploy an application of their own, or an upgrade to their entire IT Infrastructure”. They would also “get to use a variety of business applications, or their own existing applications, without integration or management headaches”, said Scott Medlock, CTO of OPENRSM.

OPENRSM has leveraged upon its years of business engineering and implementation experience with it’s existing Kansas City SMB customers to deliver a flexible, reliable, and scalable cloud service for those business customers to not only reduce cost, but to help increase productivity and profitability. While most Cloud Services are delivered on a temporary ad-hoc basis. OPENRSM’s ITaS Service is delivered as an integrated platform to enhance, extend, and reduce overall IT costs for it’s customers. The company also said that most third party solutions were targeted for large customers and did not meet the needs of small and medium sized businesses.

OPENRSM has crafted a platform especially for the SMB market that provides “Big IT Resources for SMBs”.

OPENRSM Founded over 15 years ago, OPENRSM, Inc. is a Kansas City IT services firm with offices in Odessa, MO and Cheyenne, WY. OPENRSM focuses on providing business customers with complete lifecycle IT management services as a valued partner for their customers byimplementing their “IT is a Process, Not a Project” philosophy. For more information on OPENRSM, please visit www.openrsm.com or call 816-200-2220. # # # Founded over 15 years ago, OPENRSM, Inc. is a Kansas City IT services firm with offices in Odessa, MO and Cheyenne, WY. OPENRSM focuses on providing business customers with complete lifecycle IT management services as a valued partner for their customers by implementing their “IT is a Process, Not a Project” philosophy. For more information on OPENRSM, please visit http://openrsm.com or call 816-200-2220.

OPENRSM Partners With Lenovo

Untangling Internet Management

OPENRSM’s Kansas City IT Group “Untangles” Internet Management

KANSAS CITY, MO – OPENRSM, Inc., announced that they are now part of a select group of IT companies authorized as a Untangle Internet Management Partner.

OPENRSM will be providing Untangle Internet Management as a service with integrated network appliances for it’s customers as a part of it’s overall mission to provide “IT is a Process, Not a Project” approach to cloud based managed services, network management, hardware and software solutions, and proactive continuous monitoring and maintenance of network, hardware, and software resources for it’s Kansas City IT customers.

“As a company focused strictly on the needs of businesses, the addition of the Untangle platform and services to our portfolio was a natural and important addition for OPENRSM. Our Kansas City IT Services Group is thrilled about the addition of Untangle which will help us to increase the productivity and reduce costs for our partners and clients,” adds Scott Medlock, OPENRSM’s Chief Technical Officer.

For more information on the Untangle Internet Management Platform or OPENRSM, Inc., please visit www.openrsm.com or call 816-200-2220.

About Untangle

Untangle, a network software company, provides a new breed of multi-function firewall and Internet management applications that are optimized for the unique needs of smaller organizations. With a free multi-function firewall at its core and a suite of Internet management applications, Untangle’s superior solutions are available at the Industry’s lowest cost, and are easy-to-deploy and manage. Untangle’s proven network software solutions are installed across 30,000 organizations, protecting more than 1.7 million people and their computers. The company’s innovative open source approach takes the cost out of Internet management and with its try-before-you-buy approach organizations can now take control of their network within minutes and at no risk. Untangle is located in San Mateo, California.

About OPENRSM

Founded over 15 years ago, OPENRSM, Inc. is a IT services firm with offices in Odessa, MO and Cheyenne, WY. OPENRSM focuses on providing business customers with complete lifecycle IT management services as a valued partner for their customers by implementing their “IT is a Process, Not a Project” philosophy.

For more information on OPENRSM, please visit www.openrsm.com or call 816-200-2220.

* Untangle is a registered trademarks or trademarks of Untangle.com in the USA and/or other countries. OPENRSM and “IT is a Process, Not a Project” are registered trademarks of OPENRSM, Inc. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Amazon’s Cloud Problem Shows Why Hybrid Systems are Best for Business

Amazon’s EC2 and AWS Cloud Computing and storage services have been down now for over 24 hours .  Peter Pachal writes in his PCMag article today, “Since so many businesses rely on Amazon Web Services, a host of sites, many major, were down for hours, possibly days. I haven’t seen any estimates on the amount of potential dollars lost because of the incident, but it’s no doubt in the millions.”.  Many major businesses are no doubt impacted (Reddit and Quora for example), but this isn’t all that’s on what I normally think of as a quality cloud platform.  No indeed.  For there are hundreds and thousands of EC2 and AWS customers that provide virtual services for small businesses…  like yours!

Lots of small businesses who have no clue that everything they use to run their businesses are all really at Amazon arn’t very happy today.  And are losing money hand over fist.  Think about it, could you afford to lose nearly two full business days (so far) with the Amazon “Cloud Problem”?  How much would simply losing two whole days cost?  No sales, plenty of employees to pay, electric, water, answering phones and racking up loads of catch up work for when you would get your systems back.  The costs in lost productivity alone are very high.  Let alone the loss of faith by your customers when they see how helpless you are and that you made a decision about your IT (most likely without really knowing) to put everything in a single location.

Which brings up a very good point.  Cloud Computing isn’t the answer to everything.  It’s just another “Arrow in the Quivver” for IT Professionals to use when appropriate.  You see, it isn’t the “shiny” new techno tools that should catch your attention.  Nor the pure cost savings.  Nor the productivity gains.   IT is a Process, Not a Project.  It isn’t good enough to just put everything in the Cloud.  Just as it isn’t good to use a single anything in the IT world.  Diversity is a good thing insofar as if any one thing breaks, everything else runs.

Which is why OPENRSM only utilizes the “Hybrid Cloud” for our Cloud Computing services.  The most essential data stays onsite.  Backups go offsite (and out of region).  Some tools are located in one cloud off in the East.  Others are in another cloud in the West.  With no one element so essential that losing it would hurt you much (or, it would be easily and quickly replicated).

Which is why if your a small business in the Kansas City area, you need to contact us here at OPENRSM so we can show you how you can take advantage of Cloud Computing without being taken advantage of by Cloud Computing.