In the coming year, how will your organization be less vulnerable to security threats, remain in compliance, and continue to receive the latest product support?

Quick answer: Upgrade.

Review the chart below and ensure that your Microsoft products are not about to expire. The chart quickly points out some significant end-of-life/support dates that are on the horizon for some of the more popular Microsoft products, including Windows 7, Exchange 2010, and Office 2010. 

It seems these dates are far out, but in reality, upgrade discussions should begin now in order to prepare appropriately. By applying upgrades before products fall out of support, your business will be less vulnerable to security threats, remain in compliance, and continue to receive the latest product support.

It's a new year which makes it a great time to prioritize your technology initiatives. As technology changes dramatically, the headlines continue to focus on the same themes: Security, Cloud, and Digital Transformation. In this blog article, I will review important "to do's" within each category and offer ways you and your organization can achieve these important IT goals. 

When it comes to good security practices, compliance and documented policies require a top-to-bottom effort from management, operations, human resources, and the IT team. After all, the right security practices and solutions can be created and when a business can prove that solid policies and practices are in place, it provides peace of mind to its clients, partners, and auditors.

So, let's start from the beginning.

This year, at the Microsoft Ignite Conference, the most highly attended workshops and sessions were overwhelmingly related to Modern Desktop and Microsoft Intune. To put this in perspective, I should mention that this event has approximately 30,000 attendees from all around the world. Every Modern Desktop or Intune-related session was at or near capacity, and the sessions were held in very large venues, as you can see in the photo below.

Over the past four decades, organizations of all sizes have seen a significant change in how they do business due to evolving technologies. And now, as we approach the end of the 2010's decade, the term “Digital Transformation" is abound and you might be asking, "Haven't we already done enough transforming?"

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.