- So today we're here at Datto in Reading
to catch up on some things.
Should be good.
For us, Datto have been so helpful recently.
They've been really supportive of
everything we've been doing.
We're working together on some exciting events
that are gonna come up next year.
so look out for more on that.
And they've just been just a breath of fresh air
in comparison to the likes of Microsoft who,
I don't know if you know or have heard this already,
they actually pulled all of the Microsoft incentives
from their Microsoft Partners.
I think it was a couple months ago or so.
As a Microsoft Partner,
we get a certain number of incentives to be a Partner,
which is things like Office 365 licenses,
lots and lots of software licenses we can
run our business on,
we can do training on,
we can do demos of the technology,
and what we also get as a Microsoft partner
is we get technical support cases.
So if any of our customers have a serious server down issue
that we are struggling to fix for whatever reason,
we can call Microsoft up,
and they will not hang up the phone
until the issue is fixed.
And they will literally work with us to fix that issue.
And amongst a few other things that they do,
there's some Microsoft Azure benefits in there
where we get credits to use every single year.
So Microsoft pulled these benefits,
so our Office 365 licenses we'll have to pay for,
the technical support cases we'll have to pay for,
and it doesn't really give us much
in terms of what we're paying to be a Microsoft Partner,
because we have to pay a fee every year
to become or retain a Microsoft partnership.
So yeah, they literally pulled all the benefits.
And they pulled the benefits about,
I think it was a couple of weeks, maybe a month
before their, is it Ignite?
I think they have a Microsoft Partner event,
which is over in the States,
and all the Microsoft Partners attend,
and they'll go through their plans for the next year
and all the latest technology that's coming through,
and I'm sure I overheard some of the comments of,
"I can't wait to go to Ignite.
There's gonna be a massive fight,"
because all the Partners are going to attend
knowing that they're gonna have to fork out a lot of money
to replace what's just been taken away from them.
I mean,
the likes of CRM companies,
if you're using Microsoft Dynamic CRM,
which is a fantastic CRM system,
but if you're using that internally,
and you've got, you know,
a large CRM company or what have you,
then it can be costing you, I don't know,
80 pounds a license
per person, per month.
And that is a massive cost
for businesses to suddenly start paying for
because Microsoft have just changed the rules
and changed the game.
They've changed their mind now,
so after the "Partner Feedback,"
they decided to change
and just remove all of those,
and just go back to the way it was before.
They changed that, I think it was
a few days or a week before the Microsoft event,
so quite conveniently,
decided to go back and listen to their Partners this time.
But it sets the standard, doesn't it?
So I guess in this week's video,
I'm just gonna sum it up as actions matter,
and that matters.
Trust.
Trust matters.
And Microsoft's actions,
they've pretty much alienated all of their Partners.
They all know now that
what's gonna happen in future?
They're probably gonna try and pull the benefits.
Somehow or other,
they're gonna try and pull all the benefits.
So we know now that we need to plan
to take that into account,
if we need to start paying for all of our licenses.
- So this week, I just wanted to talk about
a little bit about a social commentary
about the Gigabit Broadband Voucher scheme,
because it is something that's been bothering me
for a while,
and I actually posted it on LinkedIn twice,
because there was no engagement whatsoever
on the post that I was putting out.
For a reason.
And this is why.
So, for those of you who don't know what the scheme is,
the Broadband Voucher scheme is a
two-and-a-half thousand pound government grant
that allows you and helps you get that
fast broadband connection into your office.
What this should mean
is that for those of you who want a faster connection,
you can use the voucher to cover things like
excess construction charges, ECC's,
which you might need to, you know, say,
dig up the road,
or dig up the road.
Dig up the road,
or put in traffic management,
or just anything that might be needed
to get that line installed.
Or maybe you might need a router upgrade
to get a newer router that can support the speeds.
What's actually happening is that
the Internet Service Providers themselves
are maybe giving you a 500 pound router.
The installation is free anyway,
because it is offered for free
by the likes of BT on a three year term.
And then they're pocketing the rest of the money.
So generally, every line they're installing,
and I've seen many, many horror stories about this
that they are- well I say horror stories..
I see many, many quotes that they are
they'll put a new line in,
you'll get a 500 pound router,
you'll use the Broadband Voucher scheme,
and then you'll save yourself
two-and-a-half thousand pounds,
but you're not.
You're actually saving yourself 500 pounds,
and the IT internet company
are making about 2000 pounds off your line.
So, and it's really being abused, you know?
It's being used by the wrong people.
And in fact even in some cases, we've been shown,
in all the cases we've been shown so far,
we've been able to put a line in
with free installation,
with a cheaper monthly rental
than the companies that are using the
Gigabit Broadband Voucher scheme,
because they're just hiking the rents up,
they're taking the money,
and it's really just
not a good business practice whatsoever.
Today, we can go out and we can quote our customers
a leased line, a gigabit capable leased line,
and we can do that without the Broadband Voucher scheme.
And we're not taking money away
from the people that really need it,
who do use the Broadband Voucher
and actually need it for things like
their excess construction charges,
because they need to dig up a field
to get a line to them.
So that's just my rant.
My rant for this week.
- We've always tried to do our best here at Tekkers.
We never take the piss.
We always try and do the right thing.
We never overcharge.
We don't look for the products
where we can make the most money.
We look for the best products.
And that's why we're here today with Datto,
because I believe they are one of the best backup,
disaster recovery,
business continuity,
and platforms out there.
So if you want to know more, of course get in touch.
We're gonna be running some really, really cool events
with Datto in the early next year,
so watch out for that.
And yeah, that's it for this week.
Thank you.
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I'll see you in the next one.
Thank you, bye bye.
- That's been such good fun today with Datto.
They've left me with a load of goodies.
Even better.
Some free t-shirts.
So thanks for hospitality, appreciate it.