Looking for an IT service contractor

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lyndondrake

236 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#133449 22-Oct-2013 19:49

Hi,

I work for a central Auckland church, and we are looking for a contractor to handle occasional IT service issues. We've got a small network, about 12 staff, almost entirely on Macs and using Google Apps. There would be some network support, pretty minimal user tech support, occasional supply and installation of new equipment (network and computer), and occasional larger jobs (e.g. now that MS allows religious charities access to their charities programme, we'll probably migrate to Office 365 at some point).

Any recommendations or thoughts?

Kind regards,
Lyndon

BTR

1527 posts

Uber Geek

#920095 23-Oct-2013 08:05

A shame your not in Chch otherwise I would have been able to help out being a Mac network admin using Google app's.

Good luck with your search.

timbosan

2159 posts

Uber Geek

#920159 23-Oct-2013 09:56

Hi, are you looking for a tech-support company, or a tech-savvy individual?

lyndondrake

236 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

#920179 23-Oct-2013 10:06

We'd consider either. For most things we have relationships with individuals or single-person companies, which is a disadvantage when we need something dealt with urgently. If it was a company, I think we'd be looking for them to be able to supply Apple and networking equipment so we don't have to do that ourselves.

nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#939561 23-Nov-2013 17:24

suggestion - dont migrate to office 365 - it's a nightmare. It has had two major failures in the last 18 months and even when it is running well is a dog.

We specialise in support of remote businesses and have a lot of clients (missions) working in odd places such Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and places I cant mention etc.

if your church organisation is doing anything with overseas workers or anything that is of a confidential nature consider not putting your details on cloud services of any kind.

I am Mac friendly (Mac Server / Mac Desktop etc) have an 0800 number and am working with Linux, Windows and apple products all the time. As an ex church / missions worker I understand some of the constraints etc. I have strong links with social / voluntary organisations and we can manage all services from internet connections and phones through to high end programming needs. I have reciprocal agreements with people in auckland if we need hands on work but 90% of what we do can be done remotely. Skype, Logmein, RDP and phones have made a huge difference that way. Remote is not so bad as even a local company can be tied up in traffic for 60 plus minutes getting anywhere where as we can be almost instant.

Call me / email me if you want to discuss this.
Shane

theEd

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#939588 23-Nov-2013 18:48

I'll throw a recommendation toward Andy at Banx Sytems or Matt at Xanadu IT.

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Snowflake

#939706 23-Nov-2013 23:59

nunz: suggestion - dont migrate to office 365 - it's a nightmare. It has had two major failures in the last 18 months and even when it is running well is a dog.

google apps/mail have had more than two major outages in the last 18 months and in some cases users waited weeks to get access to their mail back.

Office 365 performs well if you use a decent ISP that doesnt route their traffic halfway across the world over the cheapest pipes to get to singapore, and if you use the outlook app in cached mode then internet speed is barely even a factor.

office 365 comes with 50GB mailboxes, 24/7 support desk, and is free for charities via techsoup https://www.techsoup.net.nz/microsoft-office-365-overview

for a few dollars per user per month a charity can upgrade to the plan that gives access to the desktop version of all the office products too.

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

theEd

341 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#939710 24-Nov-2013 00:12

Yeah, in my experience Office365 have had a higher number of outages, but they've been very minor/short. Google Apps has less outages but when something does go wrong it's often a long time before it's fixed and there's nobody to call for any kind of ETA.

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nunz

1421 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#940625 25-Nov-2013 20:21

Regs:
nunz: suggestion - dont migrate to office 365 - it's a nightmare. It has had two major failures in the last 18 months and even when it is running well is a dog.

google apps/mail have had more than two major outages in the last 18 months and in some cases users waited weeks to get access to their mail back.

Office 365 performs well if you use a decent ISP that doesnt route their traffic halfway across the world over the cheapest pipes to get to singapore, and if you use the outlook app in cached mode then internet speed is barely even a factor.

office 365 comes with 50GB mailboxes, 24/7 support desk, and is free for charities via techsoup https://www.techsoup.net.nz/microsoft-office-365-overview

for a few dollars per user per month a charity can upgrade to the plan that gives access to the desktop version of all the office products too.

Their 24/7 help desk sent us to the community support forums as the way to get help - for a business outlook.office365.com support call. It was a simple case of tokens not flowing through the system as passwords,even after changing , wouldn't let you log in. their support is not any form of support at all.

We have used google business emails for one of the businesses for 18 months with zero outages. however am tottally sick of google plus crud all over the place.

Decent ISP - it affecged Telstra clear and Telecom business customers - and from memory the outage was at a level deeper than just an ISP level. It was the singapore / NZ connection that had problems. The autralasn issue a few days ago was microsofts fault probably, possibly DNs from what we hear but all Iknow is it sucked badly for our clients.

Local email hosting:
Kiwi support
People you can phone
People you can talk to
Supporting kiwi companies
Helping the kiwi economy.

Microsoft, google, Apple all try to take over your machine, force you to have accounts you dont want, dont give a monkeys about your company and will do all they can to keep you in their part of the internet. No thanks - i want people who are looking out for me as a client, not just sticking their hands in my pockets.