By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President As we embark on a path toward cloud hosting for state government, I’ve been in search of solid resources that will help inform our new role as a contracted hosting provider to support Virginia’s eGov Services. The National Association of State Chief Information Officers has been very helpful … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President We are often asked, “How do I make the case to upper management that outsourced hosting of our mission-critical data and apps is the way to go?” First, because many businesses rely upon their Web site as their primary public face and their IT infrastructure as their office … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President Do you remember what you were doing in 1993? We do. AISN started its hosting business back in 1993. Remember the way IT management used to work back then—in the 20th Century? The vast majority of small- to mid-sized businesses ran their mission-critical servers in-house, often ad-hoc. Frequently, … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President Choose a provider based on its ability to provide a cost-effective architecture and high-quality customer experience for your envisioned use case. —Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Web Hosting and Hosted Cloud System Infrastructure Services” So, you’ve decided to outsource your hosting. How do you choose a provider? It’s … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President Looking for some good use cases for SharePoint or for some user adoption resources? Last year, Microsoft launched their “That’s Why I Use SharePoint” site with some super resources to promote SharePoint user adoption. It’s not just our clients. SharePoint 2010 is making life a little easier everywhere. Just … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President Move over enterprise. The cloud is where it’s at for small business too. New research, announced today by Microsoft, predicts a significant increase in paid cloud services among small and midsize businesses (SMBs) over the next five years. Conducted by Edge Strategies, the research includes survey responses from … Read more
What is Microsoft Office 365? In June 2011, Microsoft released Office 365, essentially bundled online software hosted in the cloud. Office 365 replaced Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) and bundled the latest upgrades of its SharePoint, Exchange, and Lync Server solutions. So, when you hear “SharePoint Online,” that means SharePoint as it is presented … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President, Marketing Communications I’m hooked on the idea of boosting PR, marketing and advertising agency productivity through unified communications, collaboration platforms and cloud computing. As a former PR executive specializing in tech PR for a large, global agency and later a DC-based boutique firm, I can see clearly how … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network, VP Marketing Communications By 2012, 20% of businesses will own no IT assets. —projection from Gartner, Inc., “Gartner’s Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2010 and Beyond” What is the value add of managed hosting in today’s market? Quite simply, today’s managed hosting companies are putting the IT service … Read more
By Laurie Head AIS Network Vice President, Marketing Communications The hosting industry”s premiere conference, which was held last week (August 8-10) in San Diego, was the most successful in the conference”s history. According to HostingCon 2011 organizers, total show attendance surpassed by 13 percent the record mark set in 2010. More than 1,800 professionals in … Read more