There is a chance that you view your vendors as a necessary evil. While you have to work with them to get the software or tools that your organization needs to function, it’s difficult to not think of everything else that could be accomplished in the time you spend dealing with them. Alas, there are even more costs to dealing with vendors that you may not have considered.
Tech support has one job: to help you with tech-related problems. Unless it's fraudulent tech support, that is. Many criminals will pretend to be a support tech to gain a target’s trust, with the intention to cause them serious problems. To keep your business safe, make sure that you are able to spot the warning signs of tech support fraud.
Every business operates on a budget and every employee has a responsibility to make sure that their actions keep their company within said budget. Budgets don't like surprises, and employees don't like a busted budget being traced back to them. This reality can make things messy and expensive when it comes to doing IT the break-fix way.
When your business is in need of IT assistance, you want to make sure that you are getting the best of the best. However, the best course of action isn't to just look at someone's qualifications. You also want to look at their personality and other characteristics which can tell you a lot about who you are hiring.
Internet-users rejoice all over the world, for just last week, Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10, will no longer be supported by Microsoft. That’s right; no more patches or security updates for good old IE. This makes continuing to use older versions of Windows a cause for concern. Perhaps this is for the best, but in light of this news, users of IE will want to either update to IE 11, or switch to a new browser.
