Good morning everyone from sunny Las Vegas!

I’ve been attending INTEROP 2008 here at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center - the show is an immense collection of business and technology vendors showing off their latest technologies to willing participants and conference attendees -

Of very interesting note was the use of technology marketplaces by a few notable technology companies including both Microsoft and VMware - rather than showcasing their latest technologies they put select vendor-partners out front to show how their unique technologies interface and work collaboratively.

Curiously only two national hosting services providers (HSP) was evident and showcasing their solutions which included Shared Microsoft Exchange 2007. Comparatively speaking only one of these HSPs does not choose to include Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v 3.0 gratis with their Exchange offering…most curious.

Yotta Yotta was a last minute vendor addition, not making it into the program yet proud to show off their near zero RTO & RPO disaster recovery hardware appliance - they were glad be there and had the forklift puncture marks in their equipment as a sign of having the will to demo their wares!

Other notable companies present included Foundry Networks, Juniper, F5, DELL, CISCO, essentially all the big players that are enabling today’s technological landscape were at INTEROP 2008 in force!

More later -

Ciao!

Bill

On Monday this week we passed a major milestone – we received approval from the Duluth City Council for the JOBZ program.

So, what is JOBZ anyway? JOBZ (pronounced job-zee) is a state sponsored program that tries to bring jobs and business to areas that are economically distressed. Most of the JOBZ zones fall in more rural areas where there are not many jobs. The program is currently set to go through 2015.

The benefits of JOBZ can be great for a business. The state waives sales taxes on purchases for the location and charges real estate taxes on land only. There are also income tax benefits and employment tax benefits. The benefits will allow companies to be competitive and pass these savings unto their customers. Without these types of benefits, companies would charge higher rates to recoup the costs of building in these economic development areas or forego expansion entirely.

Why is the JOBZ program in the paper so much? The state auditors found areas of concern with the program. There have been large companies building in areas with the benefits and the not hiring the people they said they would. Some businesses would have expanded even if they didn’t receive the benefits. The auditors are concerned about the potential lack of accountability and oversight.

But, there have also been many success stories which have helped rural communities greatly. On the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) website there is a list of completed deals. The total jobs created so far is 5,140 and the capital invested is approximately $723 million.

The VISI datacenter will provide needed technology infrastructure and jobs for Duluth. Apex, the economic development group for the area, met with business leaders and asked what the area needed most. The consensus was that they needed a data center. Many businesses house their computers in their own facilities and lack the redundancy that is needed to meet the IT needs of businesses today. Apex believes that the project will serve as a catalyst for future industrial technology development in Duluth and will attract other tech companies and jobs to the area.

So, we passed the first hurdle – the Duluth City Council voted unanimously in favor of our JOBZ request. Now we will have to get through the state and county approvals. If all goes well, we will purchase the land and start building our new data center in the coming months.

Thanks to all who attended the final installment of our March webinars, “Microsoft SharePoint: Spreading Corporate Knowledge.”  Once again, we had a great Q&A session at the end of Bill’s presentation.

For those of you who missed the beginning of the webinar, or simply want to enjoy the information again, you can download the PowerPoint presentation from this blog.

Mike Sowada is honored to be a panelist on a new forum making the Minnesota rounds. IssuesLive is the first comprehensive dialogue with the microbusiness community and its stakeholders about microbusiness issues and solutions. The events focus on small and microbusiness owners (businesses with ten or fewer people) who discuss issues and challenges related to operating and growing businesses.

Mike will be an expert panelist at the Duluth forum on March 26, 2008. This IssuesLive event kicks off the 4th Annual Duluth Business-to-Business Expo.

“Entrepreneur is a part of who I am and what drives me,” said Mike. “Entrepreneurship is where a lot of these microbusinesses and start-up companies are coming from. I’m excited to offer any advice I can.”

Registration is still open for the Duluth event and other IssuesLive forums on their website. Jason Baker will be an expert panelist from VISI at the May 2 panel at the University of St. Thomas’ Minneapolis campus.

We had such a great turnout on Thursday at the webinar about Hosted Exchange 2007 - thanks to all who attended.

If you were not there, Bill Hagestad, who conducted the webinar, wrote up a great blog post detailing the cost effectiveness of using VISI’s Hosted Exchange 2007, rather than doing it in-house. Also, you can download the entire PowerPoint presentation right from this blog.

Download the Presentation.

Find out more at the Hosted Exchange 2007 page on our site.