May 2012
In this issue

Keeping your technology up-to-date is good for your productivity and security€as well as your bottom line. 

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Office 2003 will be reaching end of support in April 2014. We want to help you avoid the risk of running an unsupported version of Windows & Office, and to assist with your IT planning for 2012. The objective of this letter is to highlight the potential risks involved with the upcoming end of support of these products and to outline the options available to mitigate these risks.   

What is the situation and potential risk? 

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 will no longer be supported from April 8, 2014 onwards. After this date, Microsoft will not provide any public support for these products, including security patches, non-security hotfixes or incident support. 

Running Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 in your environment after their end of support date may expose your company to potential risks, such as:

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Virtualization is more than a buzzword. It can save you thousands, or even tens of thousands, of dollars.

Innovative businesses of all sizes are applying server virtualization to:

• Reduce operating expenses for electricity, facility space, and IT labor
• Cut capital expenses (CapEx) for server hardware
• Become more efficient and agile

What is server virtualization? It consolidates onto one physical server virtual versions of business applications and their operating systems (OS) - such as file servers, Microsoft Exchange, or SQL databases - that must otherwise be housed individually in dedicated servers.

Businesses that invest in server virtualization realize ROI in up to five ways, report Cisco€ Certified Partners that provide virtualization services to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

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Every time a customer contacts your company, he or she doesn€t care what your title is, what your job responsibilities are or what department you€re in. Frankly, all your customer really wants to know is, €Are you willing to help?€

The words most dreaded by customers are, €That€s not my job. You€ll have to talk to someone in...(name the department here).€ But even if you aren€t the person who will ultimately resolve that customer€s issue, you are making a lasting impression just by the way you handle that interaction. No matter what your job, you are the company and everyone who works there is all one team. That€s the way your customer sees it.

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To make data entry easier in Excel, or to limit entries to certain items that you define, you can create a drop-down list of valid entries that is compiled from cells elsewhere in the workbook. When you create a drop-down list for a cell, it displays an arrow in that cell. To enter information in that cell, click the arrow, and then click the entry that you want.

There's a video version of this tip!

To create a drop-down list from a range of cells, use the Data Validation command in the Data Tools group on the Data tab.

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