There are so many reasons small- to medium-sized business are moving to the cloud. There is the attractive CapEx vs. OpEx model, scalability which comes with elastic payment strategies, and flexibility. While those business benefits are some of the chief reasons businesses migrate to the cloud, many aren’t taking advantage of the full range of productivity capabilities that are available.

Named for the First Time to CRN's Top 500 Managed Services Providers List

Systems Engineering (SE) announced today that, for the first time, it has been named to CRN®’s 2018 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list. Each year, CRN®, the nation’s leading news source for the IT channel, recognizes the top 500 managed service providers in North America for their cutting-edge approaches to delivering managed services. The MSP 500 list will be featured in the February 2018 issue of CRN and online.

It's no secret that technology is rapidly changing. As such, businesses have to keep up in order to retain good talent and to remain competitive amongst peers and similar organizations. In today's recruiting world, a Millennial (or Generation Y) would think twice about working for a company who expected limited use of the Internet and used old versions of applications with no collaboration capabilities. As a generation that upgrades their smartphones every couple of years, they would expect the same of an organization's network and applications. 

The New Year is a great time to revisit your technology strategy. IT Strategy is getting more and more important every year - whether you are a software company who makes a living with technology or someone running a law firm or other small business - technology should be making you better.  Far too often, however, we lose sight of our strategy dealing with the day-to-day bustle of running our business while keeping older systems running.  The New Year is a great time to step back and revisit the key components of your IT strategy.  Here are five strategic IT investments every company should be making in 2018:

Systems Engineering (SE) announced today that it has achieved Microsoft Gold Competency for Cloud Solutions, specifically for small and midmarket-sized businesses. The certification demonstrates the company’s expertise in deploying innovative, cloud-based solutions using the Microsoft Azure platform and Microsoft Office 365. Systems Engineering has been a Microsoft Partner since 2003. Attaining Gold Competency is the highest certification level a Microsoft Partner can receive in a specific technology area.

On Friday, October 27, Systems Engineering's (SE) President, Matt McGrath, and Director of Engineering, John Sterling, presented University of Southern Maine (USM) student, Brennan Harvey,  with the Systems Engineering Scholarship. Brennan is currently a Junior at USM majoring in Computer Science. 

This blog post will review the systematic approach to trace back to the beginning of an issue or problem when quality breaks down within your IT environment. This process is known as a Root Cause Analysis, or RCA, and is an approach used to figure out how, where, and why an issued occurred. The best RCA will also answer the question of how to prevent the issue in the future.