The potential of a good logo…

I have always believed that when you start a new business, getting a proper professional designed logo is always worth the initial investment. It gives the company a professional edge from  the start of day 1. Of course with all logo’s, business names and design strategies, everyone has an opinion on what is good, bad and downright ugly. A logo, as a visual thing, is designed to provoke those emotions in us, and of course with us being part of the human race we don’t all agree.

With this in mind the BluSky Online logo has created these kind of reactions from many of our clients. We have has everything from “urgh, not sure” through to “it’s one of the better designs I have seen all year”

Now it is good to get some validation from the Designer Community out there. I had one of those pleasant happy days yesterday when a friend and fellow IT Business Development bloke showed me an email which arrived in his inbox from DesignCrowd.

The BluSky Online logo was selected as one of the 20 best Australian Start-up logo’s of 2010. You may agree or you may not agree. The great thing about the visual medium is that they instil a sense of thought process in us which leads us all to make an opinion wether we think we have made a opinion or not.

Of course I didn’t come up with the actual design, this was done in consultation with our Design partner Media on Mars in Fremantle, WA.

And just for the record here is our logo and also the article from DesignCrowd.

Keep Cloudy

Andy.

BluSky Online becomes a Tablet and Slate device reseller for WA

As BluSky Online continues the push into the cloud with our clients, one thing has become obvious to us.

Once a client migrates to cloud based services, it opens up a raft opportunities for the client to start changing their business model, and to begin to allow their staff to work remotely and also allow staff to be connected from anywhere with an internet connection and a mobile device.

With this in mind ,BluSky Online has become a reseller for Sydney based TegaTech.

As well as representing the big players in the tablet and slate market, Tegatech has also released their own dual boot (Windows 7/Android) device called the Tega V2.

This will be an exciting opportunity for us in the WA market, given the remote nature of the mining industry as they look to move towards more mobile solutions.

If you want to know more about our tablet and slate devices you can contact us at info@bluskyonline.com

BluSky Online is hiring. Are you part of the next wave of growth for BluSky Online?

Over the last 6 months we have been working with a number of clients around Perth, consulting in the Microsoft Platform space. The next 6 months will see us continue to grow the business and we are on the lookout for suitably qualified technical staff to help us continue to build the business and provide fantastic service and advice to our clients.

• Are you fantastic at what you do?
• Are you able to work with clients to provide technical solutions and understand the appropriate business requirements?
• Are you excited about what possibilities the Cloud has to offer?
• Are you looking for a diverse and challenging role?

If the answer to those questions is yes, yes, yes, yes and yes then we would love to talk to you.

We have a bunch of projects and ongoing work with our clients over the next 6 months and beyond.

Ideally your skill set would comprise of mixture of the following:

• SharePoint 2007/2010
• xRM/CRM Development and Administration/Configuration
• SQL Server BI Development
• BizTalk Integration
• Exchange and Unified Communications
• Business Productivity Online Suite
• and of course some .Net thrown in there for good measure as well.

We are able to offer flexible working arrangements from a few days per week contracting, all the way through to full time permanent work. At the moment all our work is based in Perth but we also have clients on the East Coast of Australia which we do remote work for.

If you are interested in knowing more, and want to put your skills to work in a dynamic, challenging and entrepreneurial business then we would like to hear from you.

To start with we would like an email introduction from yourself and a copy of your CV to andy.lamb@bluskyonline.com

Cheers

Andy

Microsoft continues to hook more large corporates to BPOS!

Many people I speak to have concerns about moving their Exchange and SharePoint infrastructure to the cloud. Whilst some of the concerns may be valid most are not and frank and open conversation usual is able to alleviate these issues.

Australia is a long way from the rest of the world, and Perth is a long way from the east coast of Australia but it is always wise and prudent to keep an eye on what is happening in the rest of the world.

Here is an article on another 3 large customers who have migrated to the Cloud with BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) Hyatt, Dow Chemical and Univerity of Georgia.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/39778/20100730/microsoft-google-cloud-computing-solution-dow-chemicals-hyatt-hotels.htm

Also interesting to note from the article is the following comment.

“The three form the part of a customer list that includes 13 of the top 20 telecom firms, 15 of the top 20 global banks and 16 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. Window Azure currently has a list of around 10,000 companies.”

There is continued growth towards the Microsoft Online Services offerings and one we should all be taking time to understand. The time may not be right for your orangisation right now, but sometime in the future it may be.

If you are interested in talking more about Cloud Services, not just BPOS, then you can contact me on andy.lamb@bluskyonline.com

Next Generation of features in BPOS

Currently underway in the states is the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) for Microsoft partners. As you can imagine with the large push towards cloud computing from Microsoft, a great number of the announcements coming out of WPC are to do with Cloud Services.

For those of you that are already on BPOS or are mulling over the benefits of BPOS, the following link explains what is coming next and system requirements in detail. http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/07/12/next-generation-bpos.aspx

However, at a high level here are the new features which will be rolled out into BPOS later this year.

New Capabilities

Office Web Apps Updates

• Word Web App
• Excel Web App
• PowerPoint Web App
• OneNote Web App

Exchange Online Updates

• Voice mail with Unified Messaging
• Integrated archiving
• Retention policies and legal hold
• Transport rules
• Multi-mailbox search
• Conversation View
• MailTips
• Enhanced Web-based administration
• Role-Based Access Control
• Remote PowerShell
• Free/busy between cloud and on-premises
• Cross-premises management
• Native migration tools

SharePoint Online Updates

• Portal site templates
• Extranet access
• Anonymous Access
• Multi-Lingual UI
• Office 2010 integration
• Tagging, Rating, Tag Cloud
• Activity Feed, Social Networking, Note Board
• Improved Wikis & Blogs
• Content publishing
• Navigation controls
• Cross site-collection search
• Phonetic search
• People search
• Visio Services
• Excel Services
• Sandboxed Solutions
• Improved workflows
• Improved SharePoint Designer 2010
• Access Services
• Better controls of FQDNs

Office Communications Online Updates *

• P2P A/V across firewall
• File transfer across firewall
• Presence with pictures
• Federation
• IM with Windows Live

* Additional features will be available based on Communications Server “14” as part of ongoing service updates.

Platform Updates

• Free/Busy co-existence
• Single Sign On
• Identity federation
• Redesigned admin interface
• More administration and access control

 

What has cricket got to do with entrepreneurship?

I am not a fan of cricket, well more to the point, I am not a fan of having something go for 5 days with no real result ie a draw. I know that some of the die hard cricket fans will actually propose that the draw is the result. Anyway back to entrepreneurship and cricket. I was reading Tony Featherstone’s blog on the age and came across this interesting article.

http://blogs.theage.com.au/small-business/theventure/2010/05/17/hitsixesrathe.html

One of my passion’s is how emerging technology can be used to provide new business models and I like the synergies with Tony’s article.

My company BluSky Online focuses on providing consulting and services on “Cloud” computing. I know there is a lot of chatter out there at the moment around this and there are some non believers, but what Online IT Services gives us is the new platform to “Speed Up” the process of doing business and starting businesses. There is no longer a requirement to start a business and buy lots of IT hardware and Software and internal systems. The tools you require to start can be purchased or used for free online and you are up and running in no time at all, and can then focus on the business rather than the systems required to get it operational. Anyone who has bootstrapped a start-up will know you want to keep this time as small as possible so you can focus on making sales.

I guess “online services” in a cricket sense are the 30 overs that have been cut out. They allow you to focus on the first 10 overs (business setup) and last 50 overs (Customers) in a shorter space of time.

You never know, I might actually enjoy a game of Twenty20 cricket now.

Microsoft Cloud Event in Perth – 25th May 2010

Next week I will be attending the Microsoft Cloud event in Perth. If you are interested contact Microsoft as outlined. I might even see you there.

Move to the Cloud with Microsoft Tuesday 25th May 2010 8am Registration, 8.30am Start Microsoft Perth Level 3, Seminar Room, 100 St Georges Terrace Today, Microsoft is the industry leader in Cloud based Enterprise Software Plus Services, offering a flexible set of cloud-based IT solutions including communications, collaboration, data storage and infrastructure services, either on-premises, all in the cloud or a mix based on your business needs. We are inviting all Business and Technical Decision Makers, IT Managers and IT Pro’s to an exclusive event to be held in Perth on the 25th, where we will articulate Microsoft’s Cloud Strategy and demonstrate existing cloud services and discuss the roadmap for key cloud solutions. Many of the products you already know and trust are now available as a version in the cloud. And only Microsoft delivers such a comprehensive set of cloud services and enterprise applications with the reliability, security, and global reach you should expect for your business. With decades of experience serving businesses large and small – now 20 million in the cloud – Microsoft Cloud Services understands the value of technology that is scalable and familiar from day one for you and your employees. Our focus will be on demonstrating our current cloud capabilities and discussing the future of these solutions. Please join us for a breakfast event, the agenda is. 8.00 am                Registration, Breakfast and Coffee 8.30 am                Microsoft Cloud Strategy 9.30 am                Microsoft Cloud in action – Exchange in the Cloud Demonstration and Discussion 10.00 am              Morning Tea Cloud In Action 10.15am               Microsoft Cloud Development Platform – Azure Demo and discussion 10:45 am              A local Customer Case Study 11:15 am              Microsoft Communication and Collaboration in the Cloud –                              SharePoint, Office Communication Server Demo and discussion 11:45 am              Infrastructure as a Service 12:15 am              Light Lunch and open discussion with the local and Specialist Team 13:00 pm              Close We have limited seating, so please register early, by emailing Auri Ballantyne on v-auriba@microsoft.com, indicating the number of attendees from your organisation. Target Audience :  Business Decision Makers (CxO’s), Technical Decision Makers, IT Managers, Infrastructure Managers, IT Pro’s Warm Regards, Microsoft Australia.

Microsoft Online Services Blog

Just a quick post to point you in the direction of the Microsoft Online Services Blog. Its a great site to keep up to date with all that is happening around online services for Microsoft and also they announce large international high profile clients moving to the cloud.

The latest to move is Kraft foods.

http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/2010/05/12/welcome-kraft-novartis-codelco-to-the-cloud.aspx

Full blog is here.

http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/default.aspx

If anyone is concerned that in Perth and the rest of Australia we don’t have a requirement to move to products like BPOS, maybe we can all take a moment to think about what these multinational companies are doing overseas.

What to know more about Microsoft Online Services and BPOS?

Interested? This isn’t just for small to medium sized businesses, although it is perfectly suited to those and also start-ups. Some of the world largest Tier 1, Fortune 500, ASX 200 companies are also moving parts of their business to the “cloud”.

If you want to know more, have a business problem you think could be solved with BPOS, or are just a little curious, then contact me to discuss how we can help move your business to the “Online World”

Oh and that’s not me in the video either.

andy.lamb@bluskyonline.com

PR? Is it a waste of time for start-ups and is there a better way?

After having just updated my blog to a new look and feel I have felt the bug to get back into promoting my new business BluSky Online through electronic and social media.

There are any number of articles, books, blogs on the subject but I like to learn first hand by getting stuck in and learning by my mistakes. Which is then of course supplemented by some structured learning if required.

If you want to know how to further enhance your business through the use of systems tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc then look no further than @scottkilmartin from #haul in Melbourne. For crying out load his lovable pooch is even on Twitter @gustheboxer. Scott is a prime example of what can be done. I think the fact that he is also a nice bloke helps in this regard, but then I am biased as I am a mate of his.

Anyway I digress. I recently have spoken to a number of others in the start-up space and they are looking at sinking considerable amounts of money into PR to “help” get their business up and running. To me, this is about as useful during a start-up phase as well, nothing really.

I was searching the web to find others who thought the same and came across this on Australian Anthill. http://anthillonline.com/why-pr-is-a-pointless-waste-of-time/

My personal view is that you are better spent targeting your clients through business networks and social media yourself rather than engaging a super cool PR dude or dudette to help get your start-up to the point where it could “invest” money in PR. When I say “invest”, I “invest” in lotto each week as well. I think the odds are about the same.

Part of the fun of start-ups is bootstrapping the company, and part of that is using novel ways to create excitement around your business without a limitless supply of funds. After all, entrepreneurship is about changing the landscape and doing things in a different way to those that have gone before you. Using PR included.