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: customernewsletter@ableinc.com
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888.918.2637
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In this issue:
Executive Corner
Able News
IT In Schools Awards
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- Tricia Brooks
- Expansion and Awards!
- Able Awards $100,000 in
prizes!
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Industry News
Did You Know
Featured Solution |
- Industry relevant news
- AbleCare
- Is a 99.999 Percent SLA not
enough?
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Executive Corner |
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Able is leaner and greener!
Like many other companies in today’s economy, we too, encourage our employees to explore ways to save the company money by coming up with ideas, make suggestions, revisit old ways of doing things to improve them, etc. One way we came up with to save money and save trees at the same time, was moving in the direction of being completely paperless.
What does “completely paperless” mean for Able? It means that, as a first stage, we are scanning most documents into our system and attaching them to AbleCORE, our Accounting and Project Management program, as electronic documents. These documents include items such as vendor credit applications, customer credit applications (CBP’s), subcontractor contracts, Able contracts with customers, customer purchase orders, packing slips, tax exempt certificates, customer invoices, vendor vouchers, and the list goes on.
The next step we are taking towards being completely paperless is eliminating the use of paper documents whenever possible. For example, Amy Lyn in Accounts Payable has created a new vendor packet that explains to vendors that our new policy is to accept e-mailed invoices, as opposed to mailed, hard copy, invoices. Beginning this month, terms with vendors will automatically be Net-60 days if they choose to mail a paper invoice, as opposed to e-mailing the electronic version.
Furthermore, beginning January 2010, we will charge a monthly administrative fee of $50 if a vendor mails to us a hard copy an invoice. The amount of time we save by not opening every piece of mail, stamping them with “Received Date”, walking them to Amy’s in box, having her go through all invoices and separate them by vendor, scan each one individually, etc. is more than one would think. We are strongly encouraged by our partners’ willingness to team up with us, and help in this effort.
How are we saving money? Reducing and eventually eliminating the need to deal with paper documents saves tremendous amount of time and labor, and saves on file cabinet storage space.
Going paperless also improves service level and efficiency. Having all documents available electronically, practically ensured that no document is ever misplaced; and it means that any document can be easily retrieved within seconds.
Saving money and improving efficiency ultimately means better service and better prices for you, our customers. Rest assured that your IT Solution Provider is always looking for ways to do things better, save you money, and look out for the environment.
Best Regards,
Tricia Brooks
Director of Finance |
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Able News |
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Don Speck Joins Able as Director of Sales
Earlier this year, we were delighted to have Don Speck join our Management Team. Don is uniquely positioned to provide direction in areas critical to both our business success and the personal growth of our sales team.
Don has over 20 years experience in sales and sales management positions with Fortune 500 organizations and pre-IPO companies such as The Dow Chemical Company, Dow Brands, The Dial Corporation, MicroAge Integration Services and Axient Communications. Don is certified as a Miller Heiman trainer on Strategic Selling and LAMP (Large Account Management Process). He has also been a guest speaker at numerous national sales meetings, conventions and events, delivering programs and speeches to large audiences.
Able Won an Award for Its Economic Contribution
In June, Able was honored for the second consecutive year as a “Distinguished Anchor Business in Chandler, AZ”. In a ceremony honoring “The Chandler 100”, the Chandler, AZ Chamber of Commerce recognized Able, Inc. as a “top business and economic contributor” during 2008. Specifically, Able was recognized for its growth of revenue and number of employees. Despite the challenging economic environment, Able experienced considerable growth last year, and it opened a branch office in Texas.
Able Awarded Two New Mexico State Contracts
In February Able was awarded two New Mexico State Contracts by the State’s Department of Information Technology Infrastructure. One contract is to provide the State with wide and local network products and services, and the other is for telephony systems equipment and services.
The State of New Mexico hand-picked only select and reputable information technology vendors to provide cost effective procurement mechanism to meet current and future challenges. Vendors selected must be able to demonstrate both compatibility with current systems and the ability to satisfy technology plans for the future.
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The IT In Schools Achievement Awards |
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Able Gives Out More Than $100,000 in Prizes to Schools in Arizona
Through an annual program called “The IT In Schools Achievement Awards” (www.Awards4it.com), schools that are able to demonstrate how IT helped them achieve excellence receive completely installed computer labs and other technology equipment.
The purpose of the annual “IT In Schools Achievement Awards” (www.Awards4it.com), program is to celebrate and publicize achievements and accomplishments in Arizona schools, and to reward schools for excellence stemming from IT implementations. Partnering with Able in this initiative are The Arizona Technology in Education Alliance (AzTEA www.aztea.org); The Arizona Technology Council (www.aztechcouncil.org); and The Greater Arizona eLearning Association (GAZeL http://gazel.org). The program is also possible thanks to the generous help from industry leaders and partners such as Enterasys, Cisco, Extron, Fat Pipe, HP ProCurve, The American Graduate School of Education, and several others.
After reviewing entries from schools from all over the State, a committee of volunteers from the AZ Tech Council, AzTEA, and GAZeL selected the schools listed below:
- First prize went to L.W. Cross Middle School of Tucson and included a fully-equipped and portable 30-notebook computer lab, and scholarships for classes in the American Graduate School of Education’s (AGSE) masters program.
L.W. Cross Middle School created a true 21st century learning environment where students are engaged in meaningful, timely, and relevant work in this team-taught English and social studies 8th grade classroom.
- Second place winner, Emily Gray Jr. High School of Tucson, received a fully-equipped and portable 15-notebook computer lab, and scholarships for classes in the American Graduate School of Education’s (AGSE) masters program.
Emily Gray Jr. High School implemented Virtual Literature Circles, using Web 2.0 technology to extend classroom reading. Literature circles break the traditional approach of whole-class studies of selected literature by providing students with choice in what they read and allowing them to discuss and collaborate in an inquiry-based educational environment.
- Maricopa Wells Middle School of Maricopa received a fully-equipped computer lab with 8 computers, and scholarships for classes in the American Graduate School of Education’s (AGSE) masters program for winning third place.
Using grant money, Maricopa Wells Middle School launched a program entitled Mini-Cities, that was designed to teach vertex-edge graphing and scale to 8th grade math students in the spring of 2008. For the project, the students used a SmartBoard to plan a city that they designed.
- Five additional schools won Honorable Mentions, and each received a fully-installed audio-visual set-up with a projector and speakers, plus a scholarship for a class in the American Graduate School of Education’s (AGSE) masters program. The schools that qualified for the Honorable Mentions were: Cienega High School of Vail, Pope John XXIII Catholic School of Scottsdale, River Valley High School of Mohave Valley, St. Louis the King Catholic School of Glendale, and Topock Elementary School of Topock.
If you know of a school in Arizona who might be interested in participating, please let them know that information about this year’s winners, as well as instructions on how to submit entries for next year’s contest can be found on the Awards program website at www.awards4it.com.
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Industry News |
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HP has just released the HP ProCurve MSM317 Access Device. This is a single in-wall device that centralizes wired and wireless connectivity. The MSM317 enables wired or wireless connections to be easily deployed in locations with structural challenges, such as hotel rooms, classrooms, residence halls, conference rooms and many other similar difficult environments.
- Smart Wi-Fi from Ruckus
Companies of all shapes and sizes want better Wi-Fi that reaches farther, is more reliable and doesn’t require a PhD to configure and deploy. Ruckus Wireless has delivered just that - with a new centrally-managed, dual-band 802.11n “Smart” wireless LAN system. The smarts come in the form of a state-of-the-art intelligent antenna array and fancy QoS technology that combine to extend coverage by 4X while automatically routing signals around interference in real-time. Translation? Fewer access points deliver better quality Wi-Fi at half the cost of leading alternatives – with all the bells and whistles but with none of the pain and anguish. Go figure. Click here for more details.
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Special Ruckus Wi-Fi Offer for Education:
Matching 802.11n Donations and Fixed- Priced Bundles
How about one free 802.11n AP for every one you buy? Or fixed 802.11n bundles that effectively give you 802.11n Wi-Fi today at 802.11g prices but with four times the performance and range? Now those are real deals. For a limited time, through Able Information Technologies, Ruckus Wireless is offering schools two great 802.11n promotional programs to help them easily and affordably migrate from 802.11g to 802.11n: 1) a matching donation program and 2) fixed-price 802.11n bundles.
See your Able representative for details.
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ShoreTel Wins Recognitions and Awards
According to latest data released by the Synergy Research Group, ShoreTel has achieved the No.1 market-share position worldwide for small and midsize businesses using its Unified Communication (UC) desktop application. ShoreTel also is ranked sixth in market share for UC desktop units in large enterprises worldwide, according to the Synergy report, 'Q4 2008 Collaborative Applications Market Shares'.
In addition, VoiceCon Orlando 2009 (www.voicecon.com/orlando), produced by TechWeb , announced that attendees at the event voted ShoreTel with the 2009 Best in VoiceCon Award for the third year in a row. Best in VoiceCon recognizes new and exceptional enterprise communications solutions and is presented annually at VoiceCon Orlando. ShoreTel received award for its ShoreTel Release 9 Unified Communications System.
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Did You Know? |
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Did you know that many studies have shown that the average small-to-medium sized organization loses thousands of dollars a year to network downtime?
Able designed a proactive Managed Services program, called AbleCare, that keeps your network up and running at optimal effectiveness and efficiency, with superior network performance, security, and reliability – all at a very affordable price.
This program lets you focus on your business while we take care of your IT! [AbleCare Logo]
For more information go to www.ableinc.com/ablecare |
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Featured Solutions |
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Is a 99.999 Percent SLA not enough?
Stability of Wide Area Network (WAN) infrastructures is an ongoing concern for IT managers as WAN/Internet connectivity is vital for many companies as a tool to run critical business applications. Although ISPs offer SLAs up to 99.999% reliability, based on their network topology, this is not enough because it does not protect the company if the outage happens in the last mile of connectivity. Any downtime results in immediate losses and is unacceptable to most network managers.
IT trends, including the growing popularity of Service Centralization, Data Center Consolidation, VoIP, Supply Chain Management, and CRM tools, are forcing the need for 100% WAN uptime. As an example, today’s data centers host much more than spreadsheets and emails. Now they store email, VoIP phone calls, electronic faxes, and instant messages in addition to traditional data. Supply chain management is also more than the supporting tools that helped facilitate the faxing in of orders. Today’s modern supply chain management is dynamic and requires constant WAN uptime to keep production and productivity high. In addition, the world of customer service is changing. With all of the remote based CRM tools, the new CRM associate is either a telecommuter or at a branch office and are the backbone of many organizations.
Having only one WAN/Internet connection leaves your company at risk for significant downtime, lost productivity, and profit. IT managers have to ask the hard questions: Is it worth the risk to have all WAN connectivity in one basket? Can we afford lost connectivity for one hour, a half a day, a full day, or a week? If you answered no to either of these questions, you need redundancy for your WAN.
The best way to insure that your company has reliable WAN connectivity is to aggregate connections from dissimilar providers or the same provider connecting from different POPs from opposite building entry points. Utilizing technology like FatPipe Networks’ router clustering devices, any IT manager can easily aggregate similar and dissimilar connections from the same or different providers without the need for the provider’s support to achieve the fault tolerance they need. FatPipe products provide the 99.999988% WAN reliability your company needs.
Case in point: While Salt Lake City was preparing for the Winter Olympics, several streets were repaved. During this process a backhoe accidentally dug up fiber connections from two providers outside of a local business. Since that business had a FatPipe WAN Redundancy product installed and a connection coming in from the other side of the building per FatPipe’s recommendations, their employees did not know that an outage had occurred other than slightly slower speeds at peak hours of usage due to limited bandwidth.
Installation and maintenance are also easy with the use of FatPipe’s Graphical User Interface or GUI. FatPipe also includes remote monitoring and notification tools that allow IT managers to easily monitor FatPipe devices across a company’s network from one central location.
No matter what you implement or how you implement it, in business today 100% uptime is not a wish. It’s a requirement!
For more information, call Able at 888-918-2637 to learn more about the ‘99.999% SLA' and the solutions offered by Fatpipe through Able. |
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Who is Able?
Able Information Technologies is an award winning industry leader in providing complete IT solutions -- both products and services -- including: Computer Networks, Voice Over IP, Cabling, Security, Wireless Connectivity, and Priority Response. Since 1993, Able has been delivering these solutions with exceptional customer service, commitment to integrity, and complete client satisfaction. Able’s Corporate Headquarters and its Arizona office are located in Chandler, in the outskirts of Phoenix. Able also operates a branch office just south of Albuquerque, New Mexico in Belen; and another one in Corsicana, Texas south of Dallas.
Able’s highly regarded engineers design cutting-edge and advanced IT solutions that meet its customers’ goals, and fit their budgets. Able works tightly with the world’s best manufacturers including Microsoft, Cisco, Enterasys, HP, Bosch, Dell, and others, to bring the best solutions to its customers. Installation is performed by Able’s licensed and certified technicians who have won recognition throughout the Southwest for their quality work.
Technology solutions provided by Able allow its customers to grow their business and expand their organizations’ visions in partnership with the South and Southwest’s leading IT and networking solutions provider. Within the past few years, Able has received several awards and recognitions including “Best Places to Work”, “Arizona Fast 15”, “Chandler 100”, “AZ Companies To Watch”, and “Inc Magazine 5000” for its quality solutions, outstanding customer service, distinctive employment practices, and phenomenal growth.
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: : Copyright Able Information Technologies, Inc. 2006 : : |
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