Outsourcing used to mean that you would ship your IT departments off to India or Pakistan.  Now, according to a story just released by the New York Times, outsourcing now involves assigning specific, basic operational tasks like data security, data backups, IT help desk services and remote desktop support.  As a result, outsourcing has become more attractive to smaller businesses that in the past might not have had the resources to hire a full tech-support team to do the work.

The vendors supplying this new generation of outsourcing services are called MSPs.  MSPs are Managed Service Providers and come in all shapes and sizes.  They have emerged all over the nation and locally here in Plano, Texas with Managed Service Provider Digital Reach, Inc.

Using an MSP can offer big payoffs for businesses with IT Departments that are stretched too thin freeing up internal resources for more important activities.

Businesses can expect to get more flexibility in outsourcing capacity by paying for what they use rather than for the extra capacity they may need later.

Discover how outsourcing your IT department to Digital Reach can help your business achieve greater efficiencies and reduce costs.  Digital Reach offers IT Outsourcing in Fort Worth, Dallas, Plano and the DFW Metroplex.  Find a Texas IT Support Specialist.

Email Spammers launch DOS attacks against antispam sites

Antispam sites that help battle phishing scams and spam are now being targeted with DOS attacks ( Denial of Service ) by malware botnets operated by spammers according to antispam site SpamNation.

SpamNation believes that the denial of service attacks are being launched by the Zhelatin gang, a group that is thought to be behind the Storm Worm Botnet.  According to the SpamNation report, the botnet operators are selling denial of service attacks.

The power of the Storm botnet is thought to have surpassed that of all major supercomputers.  The rate at which the botnet is evolving is extremely unsettling, and one can only wonder what kind of sites will be targeted with DOS attacks as it continues to grow in size.

Data Security and Protection is just one of the solutions offered by Digital Reach, Inc. To learn more about Digital Reach’s IT Outsourcing Solutions, click here.

Richardson IT Support services. Richardson IT Outsourcing solutions.

This past month, spammers developed a new variation of the “pump-and-dump” stock spam campaign in which text, Excel, and PDF files containing a spam message were zipped and sent as attachments to email messages.  Spammers attempted to bypass text and image scanning engines in email security products by using compressed files that required the use of ZIP file utilities to decompress the attachment. 

Barracuda Central quickly detected various forms of the ZIP file spam campaign, many of which resembled the image spam attacks introduced in 2006.  Utilizing the Barracuda Spam Firewall’s sophisticated spam scoring engine, reputation technology and fingerprint analysis to detect known spam techniques within the message and its attachments, the message is given a score and acted on accordingly.  Using these techniques, along with enhancements to Barracuda Networks Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, the Barracuda Spam Firewall effectively blocked ZIP files containing spam content.  To view samples from this ZIP file spam campaign, visit: http://www.barracuda.com/trends/zipspam.

Just as Barracuda Networks was the first major appliance vendor to introduce OCR technology in 2006 and PDF spam filtering techniques earlier this summer, the Barracuda Spam Firewall was the first to utilize a comprehensive scanning approach to successfully block this latest “pump-and-dump” stock spam campaign.

To find out more about how our clients are protected, click here.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 brings together a host of innovations designed to help users work more efficiently and effectively so they and their organizations can deliver better results faster.

These innovations include:

 * Improved productivity through easy-to-create and easy-to-share documents.
 * Tools to effectively manage an ever-increasing workload such as e-mail.
 * Better management of network bandwidth and storage by reducing file size.
 * Simplified, instant, and secure collaboration through instant messaging.

The Windows Vista operating system is the largest innovation of Windows® software ever.

Choosing to implement a business solution such as this can be daunting.  Get it right the first time!  Review our whitepaper: “Six Things to Look for in an IT Partner.”

Windows Vista is the largest development project and largest investment that Microsoft has ever made-bringing significant benefits and improvements.

It is fundamentally different from any earlier version of Windows, and this difference is already sparking innovation and opportunity across the entire computer industry.
An elegant, new user interface enhances functionality.

It helps streamline tasks and provides search-based navigation.

In the hands of your employees, Office Professional Plus 2007 and Windows Vista can be powerful tools-improving the way people work as well as supporting and enhancing your IT infrastructure and management.

There are more reasons to outsource IT than to cut costs. 

When you outsource your IT services you are essentially turning fixed costs into variable costs allowing you to release funds better spent in other areas of your business. You no longer have the need to hire, train, or re-train employees to tackle key initiatives that are vital to your business competing in an increasingly competitive and technology-focused economy. Companies that do everything themselves have higher R&D, marketing, distribution, and HR costs.  Hiring and training IT staff for short-term projects can be very expensive.  Outsourcing IT lets you focus your human resources where you need them most.

A good IT services or IT outsourcing firm has the technical and physical resources to start a project right away. The same project, handled in-house by an IT department, can require the addition of staff, more training, and increased level of support.

Every business has limited resources, limited time, and limited attention. Outsourcing your IT support services can allow you to shift focus from in-house support oriented activities toward work that serves the client or customer.  In addition, it can help managers set their priorities more clearly.

Outsourcing IT support functions can help small businesses compete on a more level playing field with larger companies.  Most small firms can’t afford to match the in-house support services that larger companies can maintain. Outsourcing IT services can help smaller companies achieve the same access to economies of scale, efficiency and expertise.

To find out how your small business can benefit from IT outsourcing, contact Digital Reach.