Over the last few years we have seen demand for hosted software applications rapidly increase. Due to the success of Microsoft’s online services (Business Productivity Online Suite) they have decided to reduce the price in order to continue to deliver a competitive and compelling offer that will help to drive continued customer adoption. In addition mailbox storage has now been increased from 5B to 25GB.
From 3 November 2009 the new price structure for Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite is as follows:

Offer Original List Price New UK Price BPO Standard Suite £10.04 £6.71 Exchange Online Standard £6.69 £3.35 SharePoint Online Standard £4.85 £3.52 Office Communications Online Standard £1.67 £1.34 Live Meeting Standard £3.01 £3.02

You can visit the BPOS Official Website here

Opportunity for Your Business

1. The market is rapidly changing – IDC research forecasts +30% YOY growth, 2007-2011 for hosted applications. We believe that 50% of email seats in the small to medium size business segment and 20% in the enterprise market will be delivered via hosted email within five years. 2. We continue to offer rich cross and up sell opportunities with associated service opportunities. Our Software-plus-Services strategy means you can mix and match our products to deliver the perfect solution to your customers. 3. Selling Online solutions delivers increased sales margins for partners and provides annuity revenues. Microsoft Online Services deliver a 18% fee in the first year and 6% every recurring year. 4. You can earn revenues from implementing, integrating and managing a solution for your customers. A survey of 300 partners found that on average, for every £1 spent on licences, partners made more than £6 in service attach revenue and also benefited from shorter sales and delivery cycles. 5. You can deliver a secure and reliable service to your customers, providing a streamlined communications and collaboration experience, while leveraging economies of scale for infrastructure and utilities costs.

]]> http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/new-prices-announced-for-microsoft-bpos/feed/ 0 http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/symantec-security-events/ http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/symantec-security-events/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:01:10 +0000 Frank Coward http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/symantec-security-events/ With security threats to any computer based enterprise seemingly endless and ever more sophisticated, Gardner has established closer ties with the Symantec Corporation. From Q1 2010 onwards, it is our intention to offer clients regular briefings direct from Symantec but offered at Merseyside locations. Many will be familiar with the Symantec product groups of:-

Top Product Families

· Backup Exec

· Endpoint Security

· NetBackup

· Brightmail

For those users less familiar, these are comprised of the following popular product sets:-

Most Popular Products

· Backup Exec for Windows

· Endpoint Protection

· Ghost Solution Suite

· NetBackup

· Enterprise Vault

· Client Management Suite

All of these will be covered at events throughout 2009 with the additional ability to see new releases of security products designed to counter emerging security threats. For more information, go to the Symantec site at http://norton-symantec.co.uk or contact our sales staff on 0151 220 5552 or email us at info@gardsys.co.uk.

Dell Certified Enterprise Architecture Partners help enterprise customers decrease total cost of ownership (TCO) and increase return on investment (ROI) through improvements to their customers’ server and storage architecture.

It’s no surprise that servers and storage are the backbone of today’s enterprise. As such, solutions providers with enterprise product expertise continue to be highly valued strategic partners to businesses everywhere. We believe we can help enterprise customers reach total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) goals — faster, better, smarter.

With 25 years IT experience, Gardner can help Dell customers to specify, purchase and install their entire infrastructure.

In today’s recessionary climate, organisations must gain control of their IT environment for three key reasons:

Cost Avoidance

Reducing total expenditure is a priority for IT departments. Being either over or under-licensed means you are wasting thousands of pounds annually. So you must ensure you are:

• Not procuring any unnecessary licences
• Utilising all your software to its maximum effect
• Not paying for unnecessary support and maintenance.

Compliance

Alongside the regulatory driver, software vendors see compliance as their route to new licence sales, offsetting smaller IT customer budgets by taking a zero tolerance approach to illegal software usage. Organisations who adopt SAM best practice can achieve upto 25 percent savings immediately by reducing maintenance and internal business costs.

Change and Complexity

Technology change is creating more complex licensing schemes and vendor agreements, making it difficult for companies to keep abreast of licensing regulations and contracts. Plus managing software with the advent of technologies such as cloud computing, virtualisation and SaaS is no easy task. M&A activity also introduces complexity into the management of software.

It’s All about Trust!

Organisations need a ‘trusted’ partner to advise how best to cope with these business challenges. Trustmarque Solutions can help ascertain the best strategy to rationalise your IT environment, saving time and money by:

• Helping to better qualify business risk
• Providing guidance on cost effective software procurement and maintenance
• Always working with your best interests in mind.

Trustmarque are software management experts with a range of Software Licensing Services to help meet the challenge of cost avoidance, compliance and change/complexity. These include: Renewals Management, Procurement Management, Entitlement Management, Software Asset Management, Licensing Consultancy, Portfolio and Catalogue Management

Established in 1987, Trustmarque Solutions has an outstanding track record of successfully delivering solutions to our customers, largely due to the quality, experience and dedication of our people.

Trustmarque Solutions is a software licensing and services company specialising in all facets of software management. We are one of the largest software licensing companies in the UK and offer solutions to our customers to help them avoid unnecessary IT costs, deploy best practice IT as well as mitigate the risk of IT non-compliance.

Not only is Trustmarque a Microsoft Large Account Reseller (LAR) with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status but they partner with many other major vendors in the IT market such as: Adobe, Business Objects, CA, Citrix, McAfee, Nuance, Sophos, Symantec, Trend, VMware and Websense to name but a few.

In short, Gardner Systems and Trustmarque have a vast experience of IT compliance and we can ensure you:-

• Achieve and maintain a legally compliant position
• Are in control of your software estate
• Ensure better pricing with vendors
• Reduce training costs through knowledge transfer
• Centralise purchasing and management of software licenses
• Reduce the total cost of ownership of your software
• Create a robust and effective SAM infrastructure
• Through our consultative ‘hands-on’ approach we can manage all your vendor software licences, across the whole of your organisation, saving you significant time and money.

How can we help?

We are experts in software licensing and software management and for many years, we have been helping our clients to:-

• Develop detailed and comprehensive network audits
• Establish their legal licence position
• Assess SAM policies and procedures in accordance with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) guideline
• Undertake quarterly reviews to help with:
• Compliance
• Licence renewals
• Maintenance agreement renewals
• Advice on future licence purchases and requirements
• Knowledge of actual software use

Service detail

The IBM ServicePac is a simple, cost-effective way to purchase a range of support services and is particularly suited to those small and medium sized organisations who want the full backing of a world-class IT services provider yet at a competitive price.

IBM ServicePac offers a fixed term and predefined scope and is available through Gardner’s. The IBM ServicePac range is wide and includes hardware maintenance services, software support services, implementation services and education.

This ServicePac is available for a selected number of HP® servers including P class blades, Proliant DL and ML servers.

Highlights

• Provides pre-packaged hardware maintenance services for a one time payment
• The hours of cover are 7 days a week , 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Gets your systems up and running fast, with over 30% of support calls currently fixed remotely
• 4 hour on site response time following problem determination
• Helps to minimise downtime and expense
• 1or 2 year contract term
• Network of UK stores with over 42,000 parts stocked

IBM delivers these services using the same systems, methods, resources and contact centre that are used for IBM products. This means that the service is delivered to the same high standard as other IBM services. This is not a subcontracted service.

ServicePac options are designed to be easy to use and order. Plan your support by making a single payment and be confident that IBM is delivering the service you need. Contracting has never been so simple. Each ServicePac is a self-contained contract and simply needs to be registered with IBM to activate service.

For full description including ServicePac Selection Guide and HP ServicePac Guide please visit:-

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/index.wss/offering/its/n1629769

]]> http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/ibm-servicepac-for-maintenance-of-hp-server-products/feed/ 0 http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/ibm-servicepacs-for-software-support-services/ http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/ibm-servicepacs-for-software-support-services/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:17:22 +0000 Frank Coward http://blog.gardnersystems.co.uk/ibm-servicepacs-for-software-support-services/ These services provide you with unlimited hardware and software phone support for IBM equipment and popular operating systems.

Service detail

IBM ServicePacs are a simple cost-effective way to purchase a range of support services and is particularly suited to the customer who wants the full backing of the manufacturer at a competitive price. IBM ServicePacs, which have a fixed term and predefined scope, are available through Gardner Systems. The range of IBM ServicePacs available is large and includes hardware maintenance services, software support services, implementation services, education etc. IBM ServicePac is available for IBM System x, IBM System p, IBM System i, IBM BladeCenter, IBM System Storage, Retail systems and other IBM products and to provide software support services for Microsoft Windows, LINUX and other system software.
When it comes to installing and maintaining your systems, devices and software environment, you need precise information and fast answers to complicated questions. IBM technical specialists provide expert support, and can help reduce the complexity of implementing your solutions.

Highlights

• Unlimited calls and unlimited callers
• Precise answers to technical questions.
• Fast problem resolution
• Hardware, software and services support from a single source
• Competitively-priced, predictable support calls

Industry leading response times helps to minimise downtime and expense

IBM technical support experts have high-end skills and knowledge to assist you with how-to usage, installation, configuration and software defects. With unlimited calls and unlimited callers, anyone at your company can call as often as needed and receive quick and efficient responses

ServicePac options are designed to be easy to use and order. ServicePac can be ordered together with an IBM hardware order or later, dependent on which option you may need. ServicePac options can be easily ordered through Gardner Systems. Convenience is a key factor. Each ServicePac has a part number and can be easily purchased just like IBM hardware. Contracting has never been so simple. Each ServicePac is a self-contained contract and simply needs to be registered with IBM to activate service.

For full description including ServicePac Guide please visit:-

http://www-935.ibm.com/services/uk/index.wss/offering/its/y1000229