Archive for month: February, 2016
It’s Time for a (Virtual) Reality Check
When we hear the word “mobile,” we normally think of smartphones, tablets and wearables. However, there’s a new wave of technology taking the mobile space by storm: virtual reality.
What once seemed like a technology dream is becoming mainstream. Major players have announced or are in the process of launching an array of virtual reality solutions. Here’s some of the most recent:
- HTC announced its Vive Pre virtual reality headset at CES last month
- Nokia developed a VR camera that captures 360 degree audio and video
- Facebook is continuing to work on Oculus Rift, set to ship March 28
- Google is also launching its own virtual reality headset
Virtual reality is one of the key trends you can expect to see at Mobile World Congress. Learn more about what to expect from this year’s show here.
In the meantime, how big of an impact do you think virtual reality will have on the mobile industry?
BitTitan Unveils New Managed Services Revenue Opportunities with MSPComplete Expansion
Two new products, Concierge and MissionControl for Office 365,
help MSPs deepen relationships and maximize customer lifetime value
KIRKLAND, Wash. – February 16, 2016 – BitTitan, the leader in cloud services enablement, today announces the launch of two new products that expand its MSPComplete Service pillar, Concierge and MissionControl for Office 365. Both products enable new managed services, giving IT providers a competitive edge by differentiating their Office 365 offering and adding new recurring revenue streams.
“The Office 365 services market has become highly commoditized and thousands of partners that used to make money from migrating email to the cloud are now looking for new ways to grow their business,” said Jennifer Martin, vice president of global sales at BitTitan. “Attaching managed services to Office 365 sales is the best way for most service providers to remain competitive.”
BitTitan Concierge: Customer Service-as-a-Service
BitTitan introduces an entirely new “as-a-Service” category, Customer Service-as-a-Service. IT service providers want to offer better support to their customers but most can’t afford the staff and infrastructure required to build an in-house help desk. For the first time, with BitTitan Concierge, 24/7 help desk is a reality for IT service providers of any size or revenue.
- 100 percent white-labeled, 24/7 help desk specifically for IT service provider customers
- Low per user, per month pricing with absolutely no set up costs or minimum commitments
- Tier 1-3 support available to end users (not just IT admins) – anytime, anywhere
- Support for any IT or cloud service, including Office 365, user desktops and hardware
BitTitan MissionControl for Office 365: Advanced Office 365 Management
MissionControl for Office 365 is advanced management, compliance, auditing, alerting and reporting for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and all other Office 365 workloads. Service providers can now easily administer Office 365 on behalf of their customers, taking away the pain most small and medium-sized organizations have managing their environment.
- Easy-to-use, centralized console performs hundreds of tasks without the need for PowerShell
- Increased security and compliance with more than 200 pre-built alerts and reports
- Low monthly cost allows service providers to bundle managed services with Office 365 easily
- Visual dashboards show customer usage and highlight upsell opportunities
“I’ve been looking for ways to move past migrations and attach managed services to my Office 365 deals,” said Chuck Strain, principal architect at DynTek Services, Inc. “Concierge and MissionControl for Office 365 are allowing me to add value for my customers after the migration and to build recurring revenue.”
These products are available exclusively through the BitTitan MSPComplete platform. IT service providers can register for MSPComplete free at https://account.bittitan.com/.
Click the product links to view short videos for Concierge and MissionControl for Office 365.
About BitTitan:
BitTitan is the cloud services enablement leader, delivering solutions that help IT service providers sell, onboard, and service cloud technology. BitTitan’s solutions are cloud-based and save time, money and resources without sacrificing security. Partners have used BitTitan’s globally recognized products, including MigrationWiz®, to help more than 75,000 global customers transition millions of employees seamlessly to the cloud. For more information, visit www.BitTitan.com.
Microsoft, Office 365, SharePoint and Exchange are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries
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PR’s Domain is the New SEO
Over the last couple years, Google has been changing its algorithm to improve its ability to deliver search results that satisfy site visitors. As a result, earned media, the domain of PR, is now central to a company’s SEO standing.
Do you want to see the history of the algorithm changes? Hubspot has a good infographic.
The major shift started with something called the Panda update in 2011. In a nutshell, Panda meant Google began to increase the value of quality over quantity. If your site provided high-quality information then the SEO rewards were yours for the taking.
Then in 2012, they upped the game with the Penguin update. With this update, SEO firms began to lose hold of their ability to manipulate SEO with spammy links from link farms.
Then in the summer of 2013, Google’s Hummingbird update started to fly. This update improved Google’s semantic search capability with a better understanding of intent and context. It rewarded sites with content matching the way people actually search and most likely to deliver what users are seeking.
In May 2015, more than one SEO professional probably left work crying. The Phantom update, which become known as the Quality update, took the value of quality to new levels. Some sites reported losing as much of 50 percent of website traffic. Although the specifics are mysterious, Google has provided some guidelines on quality. They suggest useful, unique, informative, engaging and valuable content. Extra points if you make it specific. In short, deliver a good user experience.
If you have not drastically overhauled your SEO practices in the last few years, you are probably paying the price. So what does this mean for marketers? How does it change your action plan in 2016? Let us review the changes and what it means to you.
Be relevant and add high-quality value
Provide high-quality information relevant to your target customer’s needs. Provide insights on today’s topics using natural language. Rid your site of spelling and style errors. Use unique research and citations, and cut excessive ads. Thought leadership campaigns can provide valued expertise and original thought from the innovators in your company.
Build real relationships to associate with authoritative sites
Use PR to focus on building backlinks from sites with authority. Build long-term relationships with credible media sites, industry analysts and popular bloggers.
Speak to your customer’s intention
Don’t sell, in order to sell. Write content that delivers on the visitor’s central user intention. Know what your customers are looking for in an unaided fashion with their search. Directly address the customer need. Don’t write like a robot. Use conversational language with long-tail keywords.
Amplify, engage, interact
Attract the right visitors by amplifying your content via social media that tells them exactly what they will find. This improves your user experience once a user gets to your site. Deliver regular content updates to keep it fresh. Encourage a real conversation with your company by using comment boxes, social media widgets and call-to-action buttons.
Be transparent and personal
To build credibility and trust, be clear about your specific accomplishments. Provide testimonials from real customers. Invite reviews from credible reviewers and industry analysts to validate your claims. Participate in industry award programs to gain credit where credit is due. Use author biographies.
Bring your content to life
When delivered the right way, infographics, video, podcasts and images will improve your site’s user experience. Add a personal touch with images of your team and product.
When reviewing the core competencies needed to deliver on the new SEO reality, it is easy to see that traditional marketing firms are no longer the best solution. PR is central to SEO success. Traditional PR, digital PR, content optimization and social media are the building blocks of the new SEO. With established influencer relationships, the PR professional’s skillset is suited to build credible backlinks and encourage engagement and interactivity. Tools and processes that amplify content are already mastered by PR professionals. And perhaps most importantly, from the beginning of time, PR required a deep understanding of customer needs. In 2016, you will certainly see this shift in responsibility.
Download this infographic.
Net Insight Appointed as a Career Company 2016 in Sweden
Net Insight, the leading provider of live, interactive and on-demand media transport, has been appointed one of Sweden’s 100 most exciting employers in 2016 by Jobtip, a Swedish company developing next generation recruitment solutions.
It has been bestowed the honor of “Career Company 2016″ based on the following justification: “With the vision to enable live and interactive media experiences for everyone, attracting talented professionals from around the world. Employees thrive in an inspiring, innovative and international atmosphere with opportunities for career development and specialization. Net Insight has initiated an ambitious plan to become an even more attractive employer. The company is now looking for more “passionate pioneers” to create the future of media services and was, therefore, appointed as one of Sweden’s 100 Career Companies 2016.”
“It’s a testament to our overall success and our plans for the future that Net Insight has been selected as one of Sweden’s most exciting companies to work for,” said Fredrik Tumegård, CEO at Net Insight. “Our journey over the last few years has given us a great platform to go on and achieve even greater success. Last year we acquired US software company ScheduALL, launched a new brand platform and entered a new market with a unique and innovative solution for live TV over the Internet, all of which has helped transform Net Insight into a more customer and market-oriented company.”
Net Insight is a growth company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company serves more than 500 customers and operations throughout the world, and is currently looking for several new employees to help its team lead the future of media services.
Jobtip reviews and evaluates thousands of companies annually and the top 100 are chosen based on career and development opportunities, employee engagement, international reach and internal and external employer brand.
BitTitan Partner Agrei Consulting Migrates 30,000+ users from Google Apps to Microsoft Office 365 in Only Four Weekends
BitTitan, the leader in cloud services enablement, today releases a case study documenting how their partner, Agrei Consulting, onboarded 40,000 mailboxes from Google Apps to Office 365 in a mere four weekends. The project, for a large global conglomerate, also included migration of 40,000 OneDrive accounts from Google Docs and almost 70,000 personal archives from Google Vault. The total amount of data moved to Microsoft’s cloud platform topped 750 terabytes.
“To be honest with you, we doubted we could do it,” said Israel Heskiel, founder and CEO of Agrei Consulting. “How in the world were we going to be able to do this?”
After extensive planning and testing, Heskiel and his team kicked off the project. “We literally migrated 40,000 mailboxes over four weekends to Office 365—and then we migrated Google Docs to OneDrive,” said Heskiel. “Executives were thrilled. BitTitan has become the first company we think of when we are doing a migration.”
After helping hundreds of partners like Agrei migrate more than 600,000 users from Google Apps to Office 365, BitTitan launches the Google Compete Starter Kit to enable even more partners to have the same success. This latest Starter Kit in the MSPComplete platform is a suite of tools created to help partners sell the value of Office 365 versus Google, onboard customers seamlessly with no downtime and build recurring revenue through managed services.
The Google Compete Starter Kit includes:
- Free customer leads and targeted sales scripts to help partners jumpstart Google compete sales campaigns
- Four migration workload tools to convert all Google Apps content including mailbox-to-mailbox, Docs-to-OneDrive, Sites-to-SharePoint Online and Vault-to-Exchange Archiving
- Coexistence between Google Apps and Office 365 which synchronizes calendars and free/busy data across systems during the migration
- Managed service offerings for Office 365, including white-labeled 24/7 help desk and advanced management, reporting, auditing, alerting, and compliance features
“We love to see partners like Agrei make the impossible possible!” said Rocco Seyboth, vice president product & marketing at BitTitan. “We want to help all of our partners win huge deals like that. We think of our Starter Kits as ‘revenue streams-in-a-box’ for the Microsoft partner ecosystem. It’s everything they need to start making money right away.”
Visit BitTitan’s website to learn more about MSPComplete and the Google Compete Starter Kit. To watch the Agrei Consulting video case study, visit http://bit.ly/1RinSpS.