ATECH MSP Blog

With less than half of 2020 behind us, many of us would already like a re-do of this year. With a global emergency impacting the personal and professional lives of so many, businesses are struggling right now. For these organizations to survive, they will need to get the most out of every business investment. When it comes to their essential technology, we recommend investing in managed IT services.

Over time, technology has developed to make processes more efficient and more productive for businesses of any size, offering greater benefits to those that put them to use. Let’s go over three critical needs that businesses have, and three technologies that can serve each.

The world has been turned on its head recently and it has forced the hands of many business owners to make a complete digital transformation of their business. Many businesses have made this transformation previously, but haven’t completely worked out the logistics of it when the stay-at-home orders came down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today we will look at four elements of a digital transformation that are extremely useful for your business.

Despite how it might feel for many, the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak is not the first time that humanity has dealt with such a serious health crisis. With the information technology we have at our disposal, we’ve been able to stifle the infection somewhat, with more innovation happening all the time. The same has happened at different times throughout history, so to keep our spirits up, we figured it would make sense to discuss how the darkest times also brought great progress.

It is pretty apparent that there are a lot (a lot) of acronyms used when discussing IT. In fact, that itself is an acronym for information technology. They can all get pretty confusing if you don’t necessarily think about these things every day. Considering this, we’ve put together a list of terms for you to know that we think may be handy to have.

There are many reasons that you might want to make your office a little more “green.” As it happens, there are just as many ways that you can put forth the effort to do so. If you’re trying to run a more environmentally-conscious business, we have a selection of a few relatively simple ways to start.

It is never a good situation when a widespread illness strikes. Not only does it impact many individuals on a personal level, the impacts reach to the businesses that employ them as well. As we deal with the current outbreak, it helps to keep in mind that there are various means out there to allow for a business’ productivity to continue… even if its employees shouldn’t be near one another.

The dreaded printer is often ignored by business professionals, until they have to use it, and it’s out of ink/toner, has a paper jam deep inside the machine, or they mysteriously disappear from the network for no reason. They are forgettable machines that hardly function properly and need constant maintenance; and, this can get really expensive.

Held from Sunday, January 5 to Friday, January 10, 2020, this year’s Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event is an annual opportunity for startups and major companies alike to showcase their newest consumer-focused products. However, this year’s show has many security experts expressing sincere and legitimate concerns.

Most companies lean pretty heavily on their technology. They typically invest in tried-and-true technology solutions to cover their operational problems, while trying to find innovative tools that return higher yields on their investments. For 2020, there are a few trends most SMBs are going to want to take head on. They include:

There has been a lot made about business network security over the past couple of years. One variable you often hear about is the danger that businesses face from the prevalence of employee-downloaded software on their network. This is what we call Shadow IT, and it can be a real problem. Conversely, under the right circumstances it can be a clear benefit too. Today, we’ll take a look at Shadow IT.

Virtual assistants are everywhere. Either a device can be controlled with them, or it has the assistant built into it natively, and they are now common in the home and the office alike. In fact, their daily use in the workplace has been predicted by Gartner to reach 25 percent by 2021.

As the holiday season we just survived shows us, new technology can be a really popular topic, especially for consumers. Businesses, on the other hand, have a lot of their excitement tempered by how much of a risk new tech presents - something could just as easily be a game-changer for their operations as it could prove to be a major source of problems that ultimately creates huge issues.

The Internet has made it possible to purchase goods and services so easily that we need new people to blame when we don’t have those purchases in hand in less than 72 hours. The speed in which shipping is capable nowadays is the result of superior logistics. If your business is beginning to utilize ecommerce, or if it has trouble with the costs associated with the distribution of your goods, a fleet management system could be the solution to your problems. 

Many business owners like to crunch the numbers in order to fully understand where their hard-earned money is going. Essential business communication tools are just one of the things that are under your expense's category. However, phone service is dwindling across the globe, much in part due to the benefits associated with VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. 

It wasn’t too long ago that in order for business technology to be fixed, or to undergo general maintenance, it either needed to be brought to a specialist’s location or for the specialist to come to yours. Nowadays, this isn’t so much the case. As we continue our blog series on the benefits offered by a managed service provider, let’s consider the support options available.

I’m sure you’re familiar with those neat images that can look like multiple things at once - there’s the one with two faces that is somehow also a vase, the rabbit that is also a duck, and many other examples. Sometimes, our technology can seem to be the same way - take IT security and IT compliance. While these two considerations are definitely related, as they both contribute to risk mitigation, they are not the same thing.

In today's technology dependent world, smartphones play a critical role. How much do you really know about these devices? Sure, the devices haven’t changed a whole lot in the past decade, but what has changed? Today, we take a look at how smartphone batteries have evolved, and what we will see in the future. 

Not all that long ago, green technologies were known as such for two reasons: yes, they were beneficial to the environment, but they also came at great expense to the businesses leveraging them. This has recently changed. Now, businesses are seeing plenty of reasons to go green, from increased customer appreciation for conservation efforts and, yes, even cost savings.

When searching for value within blockchain, you do not have to look hard nor far. Blockchain’s incorruptibility encourages other potential uses in the tech community. Today we will take a look into what blockchain technology is as well as other ways we can utilize this technology.