Most companies without IT departments and many companies with IT departments manage their IT assets following the “Firefighters method”, but what is the Firefighters method?

The Firefighters method is action by crisis, and is one of the least productive possibilities both for the IT department and the company as a whole. It refers to the practice of leaving things alone until they fail, and with the level at which technology is integrated in today’s business world causes major issues.

Percento, through our Proactive Support Agreements, utilizes our Outsourcing Division to develop routine system maintenance to help keep your IT systems running smoothly. Just as you shouldn’t wait until your check engine light is on to change your oil, your IT system maintenance shouldn’t wait until after problems have presented themselves.

The Percento proactive approach is easy to rationalize for clients who utilize our Outsourcing Division as their IT department; however, this is not the only way we can assist firms in utilizing a Proactive methodology.

Our Professional Services division teams are well versed in the methods and IT processes which lead to adopting a Firefighters method, which in turn allows our teams to know what to do before the Firefighters method becomes your only option. Our audits can help your IT department determine what is needed to stop managing by crisis, and even help identify if additional resources, even part-time resources, are necessary to process Proactive preventative system maintenance.

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Since its initial release, a war has raged between Microsoft Windows Vista (Vista) and its predecessor Microsoft Windows XP (XP).  This war has been brought about by the only two universal constants, change and the market’s resistance to that change. Looking back several years, the resistance to Vista is taking many of the same forms as the last battle between two Microsoft products.

Back when XP was first released, I remember countless calls from users wanting me to assist them in switching things back to the “familiar” classic interface. I also remember complaints that nothing worked with XP, and that the platform was quite unstable. Fast forward to today and we find the same song, second verse.

Recently Microsoft announced that it intends to remain firm on the decision to stop production and licensing of new XP programs, a decision which was originally pushed back by consumer demand. Many still hold out hope that Microsoft will once again push back the discontinuation of XP, but should they? The internet is littered with “expert” articles comparing XP and Vista.

Groups and reviewers who have run countless benchmarking programs are trying to prove “once and for all” that XP is better than Vista, and declare that Vista has no place in the market.  However, in almost every case of these reviews, the deck has been stacked against Vista as they once were against XP when it was first released to the market.

In the end, the revolutionary features for which Vista allows and the options it makes available for use will be realized as more and more software is developed with Vista’s capabilities in mind; and as history proves, people will become familiar with the change and get used to Vista…  That is until it is time for it to be replaced, and once again the cycle of change and resistance to that change repeats itself.