THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

Ofer Shimrat, whom I am excited and honored to be giving a presentation with at www.smbnation.com in October always has such wisdom... here's his view of the change in support that Microsoft just announced:

Aware of Microsoft’s SBS support announcement “changes” I read with interest Karl's post, Susan's incisive thoughts and Vlad's lavishly worded follow up.

I must say with all due respect that once again I disagree with Karl and whole-heartedly agree with Vlad and Susan - but for differing reasons.

My take - the proliferation of TOO MANY Action Packs, too many MPAN and other “resources” have hit CRITICAL MASS.

There is no more FREE LUNCH.

The amateur’s house of cards is tumbling and along with $ 5.00 per gallon gas (here in Southern California) its panic time.

To the amateur, ANY and ALL situations that require technical prowess to rectify are a potential SERVER DOWN – it’s like crying WOLF.

So Microsoft said NO more. They too have to run a business – and now WITHOUT Bill Gates.

The perception that this profession is SO easy that anyone can do it sprinkled with over-dose marketing that anyone can MANAGE it (as in services) thereby being profitable at it WITHOUT having the technical prowess and expertise is – like $ 5.00 gas - NOT SUSTAINABLE.

To put it a different way - too many SALESMAN and too few EXPERTS.

Allow me to reiterate an observation I made back in May 2007 titled The Symphony of SBS –

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/05/19/the-symphony-of-sbs.aspx

“Too often in the field I encounter previous deployments of SBS from people who had NO business even attempting to install it let alone deploy it – bad hardware, enterprise MCSE’s mindset, NO wizards, poor business judgment, just in it for the money, geeky friend-of-a-friend, apprentice-in-training, or SMB charlatans that simply do not take the time to learn and MASTER their trade and do not rise up to their own lack of knowledge.

It’s the $ 399 servers – it’s the lets-not-install-all-the-features syndrome because they won’t use it yet so I-can-make-more-money-later – it’s the hardware/software/networking corners they cut at every juncture to maximize the almighty profit – it’s the ATTITUDE that they are in business JUST to make money and the client be damned – it’s the lack of imagination when confronting a tech support problem that almost ALWAYS has been confronted by someone before and SOLVED, and if not at minimum, addressed already in abundant detail in blogs all over the Internet.”

I view this Microsoft announcement as a good thing – a good thing for the SALESMAN that is part of a technically proficient organization that is attuned to their client best interests – a good thing for the EXPERT to redouble his/her efforts in following Best Practices and building robust scalable solutions for their clientele – all involving SBS that will continue to serve the SMB space well – as long as it PROPERLY implemented by COMPETENT consultants.

In short - GOOD NEWS for the professional and technically proficient consultancy.