Some of the more important questions to answer to better understand your project management needs include:

• Is this one project or a series of individual or linked projects?
• How complex are they? (Number of events and duration being two measures)
• How many people will be participating in the project?
• How many people will be managing the project? What level of project management skill and experience do they have?
• Where are the participants and managers located? How will they need to interact with each other?
• How will needed company information be accessed and shared with the project members?
• How will the project status be shared with project members as well as project stakeholders and the broader organization to ensure success?

The last question is particularly important.  No project run in a vacuum can be successful.

Evaluating potential project management solutions

With answers to the above questions in hand, it is possible to wade into the vast range of potential project management solutions with the goal of selecting a particular tool that meets your immediate needs.  However, unless your company’s services are fundamentally based on project management (e.g. construction management) or unless you have a strong group dedicated to project management as a core competency, there is a major challenge inherent in this approach.

The challenge: Choosing a particular standalone project management tool that integrates seamlessly and effectively with your daily operations, is user friendly and can be scaled to meet your needs today and into the future can be a daunting task!  Why?  The harsh reality is:

• Any single tool can be too complex (overkill) for some projects and not powerful enough for others
• Your needs WILL change over time
• Casual users will struggle to learn and stay current with an “add on” solution
• Only a subset of your organization will use a standalone tool . . . typically only when they are forced to
• It is more difficult to access and share documents and project status using a standalone tool
• Keeping all interested parties informed of the project status is more complicated
• With the wrong tool, project management will be viewed as “too painful” and will fall by the wayside

A recommended solution based on Microsoft SharePoint

So, what should you do?  Give up?  Not at all!  Luckily, there is a more effective approach to solving this problem that doesn’t focus on adding “one more tool” to your existing toolkit.  Instead it takes a more fundamental approach to analyze and streamline your workflow, processes, information sharing and cross organization collaboration.  It establishes a foundation that seamlessly supports all aspects of your operations, including effective project management.  That foundation is Microsoft SharePoint.

Since a general introduction and overview of SharePoint is beyond the scope of this post, I will focus on some of the specific advantages that a foundation built on SharePoint offers and why it should be considered by any company or organization that is seeking to implement effective, scalable, project management.

SharePoint offers some incredibly simple yet powerful features for managing project activities.  A broad spectrum of companies and organizations successfully utilize SharePoint to manage simple to complex projects.  One of the advantages of SharePoint is the ability to “start small” and then grow project management, over time, to create more robust and integrated solutions.  As your project management needs grow, you take advantage of the broader ranges of tools that are available and . . . this is important . . . that integrate into your daily work processes and flow of information.  Since SharePoint is a fundamental part of how your company organizes, manages and shares information, it doesn’t suffer from the weaknesses of an “add on” solution.

Project Managers can leverage SharePoint to:

• Manage project deliverable
  • Approval workflows
  • Auditing
  • Version Control
• Provide status reports
• Manage requirements using customized lists
• Track development tasks
• Capture meetings & calendaring in workspaces
• Share announcements and alert project teams when new and important information becomes available
• Manage Testing tasks
• Provide knowledge base and support functions for future projects

Where to begin? Take the first step with “Jump-Start”

So how does a company or organization implement an effective SharePoint solution, particularly if they are starting from scratch?  In-house owned SharePoint and SharePoint programmers are expensive.  The approach I recommend is the SharePoint “Jump-Start“ solution offered by TechEdge LLC. It is a low/no code, low cost, low maintenance approach to get your company or organization up and running in 45 days.

The experts at TechEdge will work with you and your team to implement an effective project management solution built on the capabilities of SharePoint.  The resulting implementation will not only provide you with an effective project management solution, but will give you a much broader set of capabilities that can enhance the efficiency, productivity and bottom line results across all of your operations.

Click here to download a pdf document that provides additional information on Jump-Start.   I’m sure you will be impressed with the capability that it can bring to your company or organization.  Then, take the next step and contact TechEdge LLC to discuss your specific needs.

When Do National/Global Provider Solutions Make Sense?

Including products offered by national/global providers as part of your cloud computing solution can make sense for your business or organization if the following criteria are met:

• The individual products meet your needs
• The products can be successfully integrated into your overall technology strategy
• The level of product support, both internal and from third parties, is sufficient for your needs

Solutions from national/global providers fall into three broad categories:

Web-based solutions that replace traditional office PC applications

This category includes office applications such as email, calendar development/management, document development/sharing and team collaboration.  The focus is providing flexible web-based access, ease of use and low initial and ongoing operating costs.  Solutions initially focused on individual users, but have been expanded significantly over time to include small to medium businesses, organizations and large corporations.    Google is probably the most widely known and most aggressive player in this category.  Microsoft is also focusing on this market by extending the on-line capabilities of their traditionally office software applications.  While no one application may be the strongest or offer the widest range of capability, the overall solution set can be very compelling.

“Assemble it yourself” technology building blocks

Solutions in this category focus on providing specific technical capability that can complement or replace the internal technical infrastructure of a company or organization.  Leased services such as online storage, scalable server capacity and email hosting are examples of services in this category.  Amazon’s Web Services, which includes S3 (storage solution) and EC2 (cloud computing), is a good example of a non-traditional IT provider that has entered this market.  What distinguishes products in this category is the need for the user to understand, select, configure and manage the elements of the solution to meet their specific needs.

Standalone through integrated “total business solution” applications

Solutions in this category include products and services that fulfill a broad range of business needs.  They cover the range from individual applications that perform specific functions to comprehensive platform-based solutions intended to meet all the needs of a business or an organization with a single, familiar interface.  Examples of products in this category include customer relationship management (CRM), accounting, and information management solutions.  While they can still be purchased as standalone applications, companies such as SAP, Oracle and Salesforce.com have focused their efforts on evolving these products to operate and share data seamlessly on a common platform as part of a “one stop” total business solution.  Remote, secure, 24/7 web-based access is a commonly available with these solutions.

There are so many options?  How do you decide what makes sense?

Given the range and scale of the national/global provider solutions available, determining if and how these solutions can play a role in your company’s technology solution might appear to be overwhelming.  Let’s begin by setting aside the “gee whiz” factor associated with these solutions.  We can then focus on several fundamental questions that need to be answered as part of evaluating these or any other product solutions:

Do the products meet your needs?

1. How is work performed today in your business or organization?  What is working?  What isn’t?
2. What are the operational issues that need to be addressed?  How do the products deal with those issues?
3. Are there potential conflicts with existing operating procedures or practices and the proposed product solutions?  How will they be addressed?
4. Do these products have the capabilities that we need today?  Can they be expanded to meet our needs tomorrow?  Will the product sale up (or down) to meet the needs the unique needs of our organization?  Might the product be too complex for our needs?
5. How do the proposed solutions impact the entire organization, not just the primary users?  How are clients, partners and suppliers impacted?  How will potential issues be addressed?
6. How will the products be implemented?  How will the users, the overall organization and other stakeholders be trained?
7. Consistent with the questions posed in the recent post to help evaluate local/regional suppliers, how is your confidential data secured and backed up?  What is retained within your organization and by the product provider?  What is the process to recover from a loss of service?  What, if any data or information will be lost?

Can the proposed products be successfully integrated into your current technology strategy?

1. What are the technical requirements for the new products? How will the requirements be met?  How will potential conflicts be resolved?
2. How do they fit with our existing technology strategy?  Are there areas of conflict?  Can the new products be adapted or is there a need to adjust the technology strategy?
3. What do the new products require from an operational and support perspective?  What is the mix of internal and external capability that will be needed to implement and manage the new products?

Does the level of product support meet your needs?

1. How much customization, if any, may be required to adapt the product to meet the unique needs of your organization?   Can the product be customized?  Is this available from the provider and/or third parties?
2. What levels of support are available for pre-sale needs analysis, product configuration, launch, user training and post launch issue resolution?  How are ongoing product upgrades handled?  How is the provider compensated for these services?
3. What level of internal support will be required to configure, launch and support the product?  Does the organization have this ability or must it be acquired?
4. How does the provider respond to ongoing operational issues?  How are issues reported, logged and tracked through resolution?  How quickly are issues addressed?  What are associated costs?

In summary

Depending on the needs of your business or organization and the answers to the above questions, a national/global provider may well play a major role in moving your business or organization “to the cloud”.  However, as this series of posts has attempted to convey, there is no “one size fits all” solution.  A mixed solution that includes onsite, local/regional, and national/global providers may be the optimum choice for your business or organization.

Where do we go from here?

Given the range of options that have been discussed including a mix of in-house capability, local/regional suppliers, and national/global providers, how do you assess the options and select the right solution for your business or organization?  Start with the internal resources and key stakeholders within your organization.  Then augment those skills with the expertise of a skilled third-party advisor such as Vector Associates LLC.  By asking the right questions we can help you and your business or organization navigate the challenges of selecting and implementing the right business strategy and enabling technology solutions to meet your needs.

We hope you have found this three part series “Moving to the Cloud” to be informative and helpful.  Please direct any questions or requests for additional information to:

Scott Simpson
Vector Associates, LLC
scott.simpson@vector-associates.com

With all of this going for it, why NOT jump in to cloud computing?

Cloud computing does offer a compelling solution. In order to decide how it may fit into your total IT solution, let’s focus on the issues that must be considered.

Think before you leap – Determine the “mix” of cloud computing that makes sense based on your needs

As we indicated previously, cloud computing isn’t an “all or nothing” choice. As you investigate your IT solution options, there are three elements to consider as part of a complete solution:

a) Services that you continue to provide and manage locally within your facilities
b) Services hosted by IT providers in your local area or region
c) Services hosted by national, international or global providers

The question of finding the right solution mix is probably best illustrated with a simple example. An organization might decide to maintain a minimum local support staff to manage and maintain their in-house computers, network hardware and Internet connection. All locally installed server hardware and applications could be migrated to an external IT service provider. Email, CRM and other shared services could be obtained from this same provider, or from several national/global providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon to name just a few.

Each alternative has pluses and minuses that must be considered.  They also should be viewed from the perspective of a plan that makes sense and fits the needs of the business or organization over time.  “All at once” might not be the best approach.

As with any significant strategy decision, healthy debate of the options within the organization should be encouraged.  This should NOT be solely an IT driven decision.  What are we trying to accomplish?  What are the concerns?  What are the questions?   What are trade-offs?  What should we do and when should we do it?  These are all appropriate questions.

One effective tool that can be used to capture this information and to help facilitate the process is a business case.  In addition to capturing the “what” of the proposed change, it should capture, the “who”, “how”, “when” along with the “how much” in terms of both the projected savings, projected expenses and any initial investment that may very well be required.  Yes, it will require work to develop, but spending the time up front will almost always pay great dividends down the road.

Where exactly do you plan to move your software applications and data?

Moving your software applications and data out of your local office can pay dividends, but before doing so, you must consider where you are moving it to and how it will be maintained. This can only be accomplished by individually reviewing each application. Which applications will need little or no support? Which applications will you or your staff continue to support? How will they do that? Which applications can be better supported by a local, regional or national/international provider?

Corporate email is probably the best example of an application that is well suited for a cloud-based solution supported by a national or global supplier. Standard licensed software products (e.g. office productivity, accounting, database and CRM) are also good candidates to move to the cloud. Custom application solutions or older legacy software can prove to be more difficult to move to the cloud. As such these applications will require special attention. You may find that some are not server, let alone cloud compatible.

Evaluating local/regional hosted service providers

Eliminating the servers in your back office and moving your applications to a hosted solution supported by a local or regional IT service provider can be effective, but you must do your homework. A solution that eliminates the server in your back office in favor of a server located in someone else’s basement is NOT the solution you need!

Items to include on your checklist as you evaluate local/regional providers:

a) Technical capability – What is the educational background, skills, credentials, certifications and references of the providers you are considering. This will help you understand if they have the necessary expertise to support your IT needs both today and into the future. This is particularly important if you plan to reduce your level of internal support under the assumption that the local/regional provider will fill the gap.

b) Capacity/capability of the local hosting site – Is the IT provider hosting the services within his own facility or is he renting facility space from a third party? Where is the facility located? Is it a shared facility? How is it secured? Who has access? What are the Internet connection speed and bandwidth capabilities? What type of power backup system is in place? Is there a fire protection and alarm system? What is the quoted uptime based on history? What is the backup and recovery plan in case of a power or other site disruption?

c) IT Provider Data Security and Data Backup –  How does he ensure your data is controlled, protected and limited to only those who require access? Bear in mind, access to manage you application does not necessarily mean access to your raw data. What is the plan to retain, backup and protect your data?

d) IT Provider Business History, Stability, and Ongoing Performance – How long has your IT provider been in business? How many employees does he have? If he is supporting you with hosting services obtained from a third party, how long has he been using that third party provider? How are you protected against loss of capability or access to your applications and data if there is a billing or other dispute between your provider and the third party? How will you be assured of an acceptable level of service moving forward through a signed service agreement and other documentation?

After reading the previous list, you probably are a bit concerned. That’s not all bad.  My intent isn’t to alarm you, but help you understand that moving your systems and data offsite is a significant step. Utilizing a local IT professional to perform onsite installation and maintenance is very different from retaining his services to host business/organization critical IT functions. It is something that should only be entered into after a thorough analysis of your needs and a full “due diligence” review of potential service providers.

Given these concerns, is the simple answer to move everything to Google, Microsoft, Amazon or other national/global providers? We’ll consider that question in the next post in the series.

As I think about this, I can’t help but wonder what the average small to medium size business, organization or school would and should make of all of this.  Questions that I think they would ask include: What, exactly IS cloud computing?  Is it a good thing or a bad thing?  Is it something I should consider for my business or organization?  What is it going to do for me?   How do I sift through the alternatives and avoid the pitfalls?

To answer these and other related questions, I will be writing a series of posts over the next few weeks focused on cloud computing.  My goal is to put this topic in some perspective for small to medium size business, organizations and educational institutions that may be considering a “move to the cloud”.  This is the first post in the series.

What exactly is cloud computing?

Let’s start with a good definition provided by SEARCHCLOUDCOMPUTING.COM:

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.  These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that’s often used to represent the Internet in flowcharts and diagrams.

One element all cloud solutions have in common is some level of remote hosted services, i.e. services that are provided over the Internet.  These services will typically compliment services that are provided in house.  This is important to note.  Cloud computing isn’t an “all or nothing” proposition.  For most organizations and businesses, a combination of local and remote resources will likely make the most sense.  This mix can and should evolve over time as the needs of the organization change.

For this discussion, let’s focus on two elements of cloud computing: IaaS and the combination of PaaS and SaaS, which we will refer to under the broader umbrella of “Software Applications”.  For clarification, in this context software applications refer to standalone programs like Microsoft Word through much more complex applications such as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or a shared software development platform that is accessed by multiple users.

What are the benefits of cloud computing?

Benefits typically cited by the supporters of cloud-based solutions include:

Reduced internal infrastructure costs – Rather than purchasing, operating, maintaining and upgrading on-site server hardware, network and storage solutions, businesses and organizations lease hardware, software and support services from others. Done properly, this can reduce capital investment and lower operating costs.

Flexible capacity to meet changing needs – As the needs of businesses and organizations evolve over time, capacity can be added or removed in order to tailor actual capacity to real time demand.  This can increase operational performance and help to control capital expenditures. For businesses or organizations that need to respond to heavy seasonal demands, cloud computing solutions offer the ability to efficiently scale capacity up or down to meet short term needs.

Ability to link to multiple locations and a mobile workforce – While this need can be met without moving to cloud computing, the skills, resources and overhead costs to interconnect multiple sites and users through a single office location will grow exponentially as the number of remote offices and remote users increases.  Moving some portion of daily operations to the cloud makes sense in this instance.  Depending on the implementation, linking multiple sites and users through the cloud can also offer an effective means to manage software licensing and the associated expenses.

You are no longer “on your own” – The health and effectiveness of an internally supported information technology solution is only as good as the people who designed it and the people that maintain it.  Let’s face reality, it is increasingly difficult, and expensive, for small to medium businesses and organizations to staff and maintain an internal IT capability.   Keeping abreast of the increasing complexities and new developments in information technology only makes this more difficult.  Cloud computing can be an effective means to leverage external expertise through your IT “buy”.

To this list, I would add one  additional benefit that could far outweigh the others in terms of the impact on a business or an organization:

Opportunity to implement a robust solution for data backup, privacy management, security and administrative control – This is an item that many people don’t like to talk about, or more importantly confront.   Far too many businesses, organizations and schools do not have appropriate procedures in place to adequately secure and protect their data, to ensure proper privacy controls are in place, and to properly secure their systems. Cloud computing doesn’t magically solve this problem, but it does open the door to solutions that can enable a better solution IF the right set of local business and operating practices are also put in place.

These are some of the advantages.  No doubt there are others.  After reviewing this list, one might ask, “So why hasn’t everyone moved to a cloud based solution? ” We will turn our attention to that topic in the next post.

• The value of “finger touch” control that comes with a touch sensitive surface
• The need (or not) for a portable solution, i.e. one that can be easily relocated
• Budget constraints – How much do you have to spend per installation?

Since writing that post, I have been following another very compelling option that deserves consideration:  Polyvision’s eno line of interactive whiteboards.

Polyvision’s approach is unique.   (Warning . . . brace yourself for some “techy stuff!”) The Polyvision solution uses an active stylus that senses its position as it moves across the Polyvision ceramic on steel whiteboard.  How does it do this?  There is a passive “grid” buried in the whiteboard that the stylus senses.  The stylus then transmits the position information via a wireless Bluetooth connection to the host PC.   This is accomplished without any wiring or electrical connection from the whiteboard  to the PC or the projector (you still need the projector!).

How the Polyvision Eno Solution Stacks Up

Pluses

• A robust whiteboard that looks like any standard dry erase board with the added benefit of  being magnetic.  The look and feel of the board goes a long way to eliminate the “be careful you don’t break it!” reaction I have seen from SMARTBoard users.
• Lower purchase price and less expensive to install than the SMART Technologies boards since there are no electrical or other connections that have to be made to the board itself.
• Available in versions that can be hard mounted, mobile mounted or that “snap” over existing chalk boards or whiteboards that have a steel backing or surface.
• Supports two interactive users at a board at the same time (current model SMART Technologies boards have this capability).

Minuses

• No “finger touch” control. This is only possible with an active touch sensitive surface (e.g. SMARTBoard).
• A stylus that isn’t too bulky, but could be a bit of a challenge for younger users (about the same size as the Mimio or SMARTBoard styli).
• If you lose or break the stylus, you’re “offline”  until you obtain a replacement (the same as Mimio).
• More expensive and less portable than the Mimio solution.
• Polyvision includes a choice of bundled third party software applications.  They are not focused on providing the level of user community support that is available from SMART Technologies or Mimio.

So Which is Better?

As is almost always the case, “that depends”.  Mimio continues to offer the lowest cost solution and an easy upgrade path for classrooms with an existing dry erase board.  It is also the most portable solution, if that is important to you.  For new installations or a classroom remodeling project, I now believe that Polyvision offers the more compelling solution.  The only “however” is this:  How important is it for your users to be able to tap into an established, active user community to help them get started?   SMART Technologies, Mimio and several other established interactive whiteboard suppliers have the advantage in this area.

Those are my thoughts.  What do you think?

As part of the event, Scott Simpson, Managing Principal of Vector Associates LLC, shared a presentation with the group covering the following topics:

• Cost Reduction – Start with the Basics
• Managing Existing Technology
• Planning Technology Upgrades
• Preparing for Future Technology

Although this presentation was targeted at a specific audience, there are a number of “takeaways” that apply to any business or organization:

Start by Asking the Right Questions
The first step in any successful cost reduction effort or technology implementation process is to gain a clear understanding of where you stand and where you are trying to go.  If your goal is cost reduction, start with a “deep dive” into your current financial details.  Key questions to answer include:

1. “Where and how are we spending our dollars today?”
2. “Are we getting competitive value?”
3. “What could we do differently that can have a positive impact, both from an operations and a financial perspective?”

A key consideration is to not let “this is how we always have done it” or “we tried that once before and it didn’t work” stand in your way.

Effective Technology Management Today and Into the Future
Defining and implementing an effective technology strategy also begins with asking the right questions and through the application of several key concepts:

1. Start from the end and work backwards – “What are we trying to accomplish?”
2. View technology as a means not an end
3. Look for the technology “pull” from users within your business or organization
4. Tackle the process in manageable steps using a robust, flexible technology plan
5. If you don’t have all of the answers, hire an advisor to help guide you

Learn more about cost reduction, effective technology management and how to implement a successful technology upgrade by downloading the full presentation.  Click here to access the file in pdf format.

What are your thoughts on effective cost reduction or technology implementation?

Even though it may make our heads hurt, we can’t give up on this topic.  Why is it important?  The generations that follow represent our future customers and future employees.  If you are a teacher, “the next generation” are the students you engage with on a daily basis.  For those of us that are parents (and grandparents), they are members of our own families!

As I continue to seek to expand my thinking in this critical area, I came across the post “The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500” written by Gary Hamel and posted at opensource.com.  Gary’s name will be familiar to anyone who has studied management principles.  He is a well-respected expert in management, both in theory and in practice.  Gary’s post provides valuable insights into the generation that has/is growing up “online”.  Their view of the world is very different from those of us who did not grow up in a 24/7 connected world.

My recommendation: Take some time to read Gary’s post.  Then reflect on the implications for you, your business, your organization, your school and perhaps more importantly, your family!  I think you will find it well worth your time.

What are YOUR thoughts?  How does the “Facebook Generation” impact you?  If you are in the Facebook Generation, do you agree with Gary’s analysis?

Case in point: One of my favorite third grade teachers that I work with, I’ll call her Dana . . . because her name is Dana! (pronounced Donna) . . . has been looking for a better way to engage her students in the learning process.  She has been using a conventional overhead projector with copied and hand drawn transparencies to teach language skills.  It is tried and true technology that she has used for years.  However, Dana wasn’t satisfied.  She felt there had to be a better way.  As she looked around her classroom, she saw the building blocks for a better approach:

• Curricula and supporting teaching materials (paper based)  that she had used successfully for many years
• Dry erase whiteboard supported by a ceiling mounted LCD projector for presenting interactive media content
• A PC connected to the projector running Microsoft Office

The challenge: How could she take the content she had been using, repackage it, and present it in a way that would enable her to better engage with her students, both as a group and individually?  A key for Dana was spending more time working with her students and less time standing by the overhead projector with her attention focused on adding hand-drawn content to the transparencies.

She felt that the tools she needed were there, but she wasn’t sure how to bring things together.  Should she scan the documents to create electronic versions?  How would that work?  Should she take the content and translate into a Word document?  Was Word the best choice?  What about PowerPoint?  After she created the files, how could she present the material effectively without the need to continually walk back and forth to her PC to change what was being projected on the whiteboard? How could she build content that asked questions, discuss the questions with her students, and then share the answers?  How could she create content that she could reuse and easily modify and apply to other lessons?

The solution: After talking with her to determine what she was trying to accomplish (always the key first step!), we came up with a solution that should meet her needs:

• Translate the content from the transparencies she had been using to a series of PowerPoint presentations.  Since it is designed for this purpose, PowerPoint gives her a much more effective set of tools to create and present her lessons.  The ability to add sophisticated animation effects is particularly helpful.  This just can’t be done in Word.
• Utilize a wireless mouse point/presentation control device (e.g. the Satechi SP400) connected to her PC.  This will provide the flexibility Dana is looking for to control the presentation while she moves freely around the classroom and interacts with her students.
• Create/save the content into a series of files that she can add to over time.  This will make it easier for her to create future content and to also share the content she creates with other teachers.  As a key added benefit, this approach, which is supported by an effective server-based backup strategy, automatically ensures that she will never lose any of the material she creates.

Implementation/Next Steps: After we worked through creating some initial content, Dana, was as excited as I have ever seen her!  She was eagerly looking forward to creating new content to share with her students.  Before I left, one of Dana’s fellow teachers, Kara, stopped by.  Although she had only spent a few minutes learning to use the Satechi SP400, Dana was eager to give a full and complete demonstration using one of the presentation she had just created.   How COOL was that!

Future Opportunities: As she gains experience with the technology, Dana can explore opportunities to take the approach she is using even further.  One possibility is to use interactive whiteboard technologies (e.g. products from Mimio, Smart Technologies and Polyvision) to further enhance the ability of her students to interact with the material she is presenting.

We’ll save the discussion of this approach for another day!

What do YOU think?

Please post a reply and share your thoughts on the topic of how to get the most out of enabling technologies in the classroom.

64 Bit Hardware and Software Solutions Are Here NOW!

There are several reasons to give very serious consideration to moving to a 64 bit solution:

• With twice the address length, 64 bit operating systems running on a 64 bit CPU can access significantly more memory (more than the 4 GB limit of a 32 bit solution).  The ability to access more memory is useful if you are running applications that access larger files such as databases, CAD designs, accounting programs and very large spreadsheets.
• Hardware/software vendors are moving to 64 bit solutions.  Microsoft Server 2008 R2 is only available as a 64 bit solution.  Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2010 (to be released in June) are available in both 32 and 64 bit versions.
• The move to 64 bit solutions is accelerating.  64 bit will be the standard in just a few years.

But There Are Concerns To Keep In Mind!

• A 64 bit operating system only runs on a 64 bit hardware platform.  Vendors continue to ramp up production of 64 bit PC/server hardware solutions.
• The 64 bit version of Windows 7 was designed to support 32 bit applications. Most (but not all) legacy 32 bit programs can be installed and will run without difficulty.
• If you use older legacy 16 bit software programs . . . you need to do some homework before moving to a 64 bit environment!  The programs may run in a “virtual PC” mode, but they may not.  There is no guarantee.
• Your printers and other peripheral devices REQUIRE NEW 64 bit drivers to operate with a 64 bit operating system.  Existing 32 bit drivers will not work.  Vendors are moving quickly to introduce 64 bit drivers for new or recent products.  However, many vendors won’t make the investment to create drivers for older hardware.  By surveying your hardware before an upgrade, you can identify any issues you may face.

So, Is It Time to Move to A 64 Bit Solution?

As in many things, the answer is:  “It depends!”  For a business, organization or educational institution that is preparing to make a significant investment in all new hardware and software, moving to a 64 bit environment makes sense.  Buying 32 bit hardware “on sale” would be a mistake.  For a business or organization with a significant investment in existing hardware and software, it may still make sense to stay with a 32 bit environment for a bit longer!

What makes sense in your particular situation?  Call Vector Associates today at 248.862.7220 so that we can analyze your specific situation in order to develop the solution strategy and implementation approach that makes the most sense for you, your business or your organization.

Two of the popular interactive whiteboard alternatives available in the market today are offered by Mimio and SMART Technologies.  Both solutions have been the subject of evaluation and debate among our school clients.  What are the pluses and minuses of each?  What are the trade-offs?   Here are the highlights:

SMART Technologies SmartBoard

Pluses

• Touch sensitive surface that can be used without a stylus – This is more intuitive and is easier for younger students (smaller hands) to quickly learn to use
• Newer models support “double touch”, i.e. two users at the same time
• An extensive set of tool and pre-existing lessons to help the new teacher get started
• An extensive online support network of teachers and other users
• Works with a range of auxiliary devices including a separate input tablet

Minuses

• Higher initial investment
• A limited number of sizes/form factors that are available (4:3, 16:9)
• Although it can be used as a conventional dry erase board, users tend to shy away from that option; it is treated with “extra care” for fear of damaging it
• When it is installed over a conventional whiteboard, that space is lost to general use (see the previous bullet point)
• While it isn’t that complicated, the physical installation and the connection to a PC and any auxiliary devices requires more upfront planning

Mimeo

Pluses

• Very easy to install as an add-on device to an existing conventional whiteboard
• The flexible design handles a range of existing board sizes and configurations
• The hardware is robust; there is less fear of “breaking it”
• About 50% of the cost of a SMARTboard
• Easy to remove, relocate and reinstall in a new location
• Also comes with a range of auxiliary devices including a separate input tablet

Minuses

• Can only be used with the stylus or the special dry erase marker holders (there is no “finger touch” capability)
• The stylus and markers are a bit more clumsy to use and require more skill and dexterity; smaller children will face more of a challenge to use them
• While it continues to expand, Mimio’s user resources and support network are not as extensive as those offered by SMART Technologies

So Which is Better?

While I personally prefer the touch sensitive surface of the SmartBoard, the lower cost, ease of installation and easier integration of the Mimio solution tips the scales in favor of Mimio for existing classroom upgrades.  For a new or remodeled classroom, the SmartBoard makes more sense, as the classroom “space” can be designed to better take advantage of its unique capabilities.