With an adoption rate that trumps every other Microsoft operating system ever released, Windows 7 is swiftly on its way to replacing Windows XP as the most-widely adopted operating system in the world.

And, says Traci Maynard, general manager of Tarsus Technologies’ software division, it doesn’t look like Windows 7’s momentum is showing any evidence of slowing down.

While she’s the first to admit that this has been helped by the fact that Windows XP hasn’t been available as a pre-install option on PCs and notebooks since October 2010, she says that the vast majority of customers that she speaks to enjoy the refreshed interface and numerous improvements Windows 7 has brought into the mix.

“More specifically,” Maynard says, “Windows 7 is unparalleled when it comes to managing system resources effectively, which in turn creates a great balance between overall system performance and stability.”

“Microsoft’s strong focus on security with this release has also meant that the business sector is moving far more quickly with its migration from Windows XP to Windows 7,” she says.

“Round this out with the fact that Windows 7 offers unprecedented compatibility with legacy applications and operating systems, and you have a winner.”

Continuing she adds, “We also cannot discount how strong a contrast Windows 7 is to its predecessor, Windows Vista, which Microsoft itself has admitted wasn’t its best effort.”

“Over the past year-and-a-half there’s been a tangible difference in the way channel partners and their end customers feel about the Microsoft technology stack, not to mention the huge resurgence in the interest that computers and high-technology products have seen at a retail level.”

“XP is done,” she says, “and the sooner channel partners begin convincing their customers of Windows 7’s superiority, the sooner they’ll be in a position to capitalise on upgrading their customers’ client computing hardware and software.”

“It’s not often we’re faced with a clear opportunity such as this. And partners need to move quickly lest they get left out of the game,” she concludes.

No matter the size or scope of a business, its people are at the heart of what makes it able to function, deliver on customer needs and ultimately, thrive.

“It goes without saying then, that organisations can improve their performance by developing their people,” says Emma Blewitt, marketing manager of Tarsus Technologies, South Africa’s largest technology distributor.

“Companies are taught to put their customers first,” says Blewitt, “however, often they forget about investing in their people. Then a downturn strikes and they wonder why they have insufficient skills to keep the business moving, realising only then that they should have been investing in staff capability from the start.

“Tarsus believes that investing in staff skills and abilities is a vital contributor to each company’s continuous process of improvement and some time ago we decided to do something about it by providing a mechanism for improving both our own staff and reseller partners’ skills and abilities,” she says.

Channel Business College – Tarsus and sister-company A.C.T.’s in-house business training facility – was established because many business founders and their senior staff members got into the IT market because of their sound technical skills.

“Many of them didn’t have the business acumen to back that move up, however, and had to learn from their experiences,” Blewitt says.

Channel Business College is designed to help staff from all levels within the organisation gain access to training that will assist them in improving their performance, especially as business roles and responsibilities become more complex and urgent.

“This is not technical training,” Blewitt emphasises, “since there is no shortage of that kind of content in the market today.

“The unaddressed niche lies in teaching IT resellers better financial discipline, more effective sales techniques, ways to improve customer service and how the right kind of marketing can help them ensure success.”

Besides the notable impact Channel Business College has had on the performance of companies that have sent staff through the various courses on offer, Blewitt says that those companies’ attitudes have changed towards the market conditions and the industry as a whole.

“We’ve all been through it,” she says. “Training helps to shape attitude and behaviour – you often come back from a course being reminded of things you’d forgotten or feeling inspired by new ideas and a positive attitude. It also helps to keep people flexible enough to cope with the pace of change.

“These are largely intangible things, but they affect your company’s outward face to the market.

“So, with the economy the way it is, Tarsus feels that training staff is one of the most effective ways of improving positivity and staff morale – especially if one considers that while staff might be struggling to make ends meet, they’ll get the sense that the company is going somewhere and has the presence of mind to invest in its future.

“With Channel Business College, we’ve worked hard to ensure that the training is of a high quality, that the courses add value and are affordable, and that attending a course takes no more than a half-day out of the office. We’ve also made it more accessible by allowing partners to pay with points earned through PartneRewards, Tarsus and A.C.T.s’ loyalty programme.

“With the success it has already achieved over the past five years, this initiative will surely continue to go from strength to strength – and with the positive impact we’re making on the channel we believe it will be well-supported for some time to come,” Blewitt concludes.

With the completion of the Seacom undersea cable and the accompanying increase in bandwidth available to the South African market, the local networking, communications and collaboration space is poised to boom.

That’s because, says Marius Vermeulen, Cisco product manager at Tarsus Technologies, many of the most innovative and cost-saving networking technologies available in other parts of the world can quite simply not be accommodated on current South African broadband connections.

“Telepresence – a Cisco technology that creates an extremely lifelike video-conferencing solution – is just one example of functionality that companies could use to save themselves a fortune annually.

“Unfortunately, however, today there’s still insufficient bandwidth available in South Africa to support this solution,” Vermeulen explains.

“Larger organisations in the US and Europe take for granted their ability to replicate data at an offsite facility in real-time, using existing fibre-optic infrastructure laid many years ago by forward thinking telcos in their region.

“It is anticipated that with Seacom arrival South African telcos will be spurred on to install similar infrastructure, which will be used to both connect new users to the Internet and provide organisations with the ability to cost-effectively connect their branch office network together, or to stage a business continuity facility offsite in case disaster strikes,” he says.

Importantly, Vermeulen notes, the way access to Seacom is being handled is important.

“Unlike other cable systems which allow access to a limited number of players, in essence perpetuating the monopolistic behavior we’ve seen in South Africa up until now, Seacom will be a great deal more open,” he adds.

“From the looks of things, the cable is set to become somewhat of an equalising force in the market,” Vermeulen opines, “and one that will set the tone for future cable projects due to hit the country in the next two to three years.”

Vermeulen says that popular belief is that the country will see more than a hundred-fold increase in international bandwidth in the next four years.

“And obviously this bodes well for the average Internet experience in South Africa and for the uptake of connectivity.

“And as the Internet grows locally, so will the local networking market – it’s going to be a good place to focus one’s business in the coming months,” he concludes.

With the dramatic cuts to IT spend that the market has seen over the past six-to-twelve months, the pressure is firmly on enterprise technology vendors to drive performance levels even higher, while bringing the cost of those additional capabilities down by a similar margin.

However, says Jacques Klopper, IBM business unit manager at Tarsus Technologies, too many of today’s leading technology vendors are taking a short-term view of providing value to customers and this will backfire on them in time.

“It’s almost as if they’re trying to do the bare minimum,” he says, “and are failing to see that intrinsic changes to today’s platforms, no matter how small, really pay off in the long-term.”

Klopper cites some vendors reticence to adopt UEFI – a next-generation software interface that resides between a computer’s operating system and the firmware embedded on their hardware – as an example of this in practice.

“When one looks at the benefits brought to the table by the new standard, the decision to utilise it shouldn’t be too hard to make.” Klopper says.

“However, many vendors see this as a cost-contributor, since it will require some re-engineering of their computing platforms and create a need for additional technical support resource.

“IBM has seen this as an opportunity to give its customers access to a technology that’s simpler to use and more functionally-rich than the technologies that preceded it and which will reduce costs in the long-term,” Klopper explains.

“Notably, UEFI has done away with the ‘beep codes’ that frustrated so many IT managers and administrators in the past, and it supports the revolutionary ‘Lightpath diagnostics’ technology which IBM has employed to speed up hardware troubleshooting,” he says.

“It also does away with cryptic event logs by giving administrators a more detailed, legible report of any configuration errors or hardware issues that have occurred, and because it supports both in- and out-of-band firmware updating, it can be configured remotely via the execution of a script.

“It’s a revolutionary jump in the right direction and one that IBM feels will benefit its customers in the long-run,” he adds.

“I truly believe that this is the right way to approach the possibility of extra cost in the learner IT environment that we find out in the market today.

“Success in today’s IT climate is more about long-term efficiency gains than short-term cost-savings, however, it is still a perpetual balancing act.

“And for the moment it looks like IBM is getting it right,” he concludes.

South Africa’s largest black empowered IT distribution group, MB Technologies, has announced the appointment of Pierre Spies and Anton Herbst as executive directors to the main board.

Glenn Fullerton, CEO of MBT says “both Pierre and Anton, CEO’s of Tarsus Technologies and ACT respectively, are veterans of the South African IT Industry. They have made significant contributions to the growth of the group over many years. Their insight into various sectors of the IT industry in which they have operated will further strengthen the MB Technologies main board. Their wealth of knowledge and experience will be well utilised to ensure optimisation of Group and operational strategies and will assist the Group in its future growth plans.”

He adds: “Their appointments will not alter their day to day executive responsibilities for the running of their respective operations. They will continue to hold and fulfil their current positions as chief executive officers.”

“The combination of their operational insights into dynamic market conditions in the IT distribution market coupled with their abilities to distil their more than three decades worth of collective experience into a broader, strategic view of the market will be vital contributors to the success of the Group,” says MB Technologies Chairman, Leo Baxter.

Fullerton concludes “We are delighted to appoint such outstanding and loyal members of the MB Technologies team to the main board”.