Author: mhammons

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ThermoWorks Thermapen

Probably the most used and indispensable tools in my cooking is the highly accurate and fast Thermapen! To get the best results, accurate temperature control is critical. If you want that wonder and expensive ribeye to come out a wonderful medium-rare, it has to be by temp…don’t believe that old kitchen tale about feeling your palm or below your thumb based on springiness. It does not work. The Thermapen works! I pull my ribeyes at 120, the carry over heat will take it to that perfect 125-130 for an amazing steak experience!

The ThermoWorks Thermapen is a high-precision digital cooking thermometer designed for home and professional use. It is a compact and lightweight tool that allows you to quickly and accurately measure the internal temperature of your food. Whether you’re grilling, roasting, baking, or making candy, the Thermapen gives you an instant and accurate reading to help ensure your food is cooked to the perfect temperature.

The Thermapen features a large, easy-to-read LED display that shows the temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius, and its ultra-fast response time means you can take a temperature reading in just three seconds. The thermometer’s foldable design makes it convenient to store and carry, and its waterproof construction means you can use it in any kitchen or outdoor cooking situation without having to worry about damage from spills or splashes.

The Thermapen also features a range of advanced features, including an automatic backlight that illuminates the display in low-light conditions, a max/min temperature function that allows you to track temperature changes over time, and a rotating display that automatically adjusts the orientation of the display to suit the way you’re holding the thermometer.

Overall, the ThermoWorks Thermapen is a versatile and reliable tool for anyone who takes their cooking seriously. Whether you’re a professional chef, a home cook, or an outdoor griller, the Thermapen gives you the confidence to cook your food to perfection every time.

RECOMMENDED 👍

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About HSO

HSO is a multinational information technology and management consultancy company that provides a range of services to clients across various industries. Established in the early 1990s, HSO has since grown into a leading player in the IT services market, with a presence in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company’s offerings include cloud computing, digital transformation, business process management, and customer experience management, among others. HSO’s mission is to help organizations navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape and unlock new opportunities for growth and competitiveness.

HSO has a strong reputation for delivering high-quality services and has been recognized for its expertise by industry organizations and analyst firms. The company places a strong emphasis on innovation, continuously investing in new technologies and approaches to help its clients stay ahead of the curve. HSO also prides itself on its commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility, actively working to minimize its impact on the environment and supporting local communities in the regions where it operates. With a focus on delivering value to its clients and making a positive difference in the world, HSO is well-positioned for continued success in the years to come.

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HSO to Acquire AKA Enterprise Solutions

Acquisition further expands HSO’s North American operations and strengthens its global service delivery capabilities

Here we grow again! I am pleased to announce that HSO, a global Microsoft cloud business applications partner, will be acquiring AKA Enterprise Solutions (AKA).

The acquisition of AKA is HSO’s first major investment since receiving significant funding from global investment firm The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) in August 2019. The transaction is an important step in the execution of HSO’s plan to be a major global partner for business transformation using Microsoft’s cloud business applications. The current AKA co-CEO’s, Alan Kahn and Jack Ades will lead HSO’s combined operations in the United States.

This provides our organization with access to additional strong resources to help our clients achieve their business objectives.

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Microsoft Data Insights Summit is almost here!

Just a quick note to let my guests and regular readers know I will be at the Microsoft Data Insights Summit next week.?http://datainsightssummit.com/

I am really looking forward to the event and just dropped a blog post over at my?AKA home. Read more about why we are going and how you can still benefit even if you are not able to attend.

https://www.akaes.com/insights/aka-to-attend-2019-microsoft-data-insights-summit/

If you are in the Seattle area or plan to be at the Summit as well, let me know. I am always open to connecting with folks.

Thanks!

Mike

 

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Green Beacon merges with AKA Enterprise Solutions

Hello All,

Green Beacon and AKA Enterprise Solutions will be merging soon!

Two highly distinguished Microsoft Dynamics partners globally, have signed a definitive merger agreement.? Green Beacon will continue servicing current and future customers while conducting business as AKA Enterprise Solutions.

Both AKA Enterprise Solutions and Green Beacon are leading partners in the Microsoft Dynamics community. Green Beacon has earned a stellar reputation for its CRM solutions and performance in the healthcare, public sector and financial services industries and has been named to the Microsoft President?s Club. ?AKA is a leader in Microsoft Dynamics ERP, with vertical focus and intellectual property in public sector, financial services, media, life sciences, manufacturing, and distribution industries. The company has been recognized six times as Microsoft?s worldwide ERP Partner of the year winner or finalist.

With this move, AKA/Green Beacon clients will have access to a diverse set of Microsoft offerings including CRM, ERP, BI, Azure, Office 365, and mobility.

Terms of the agreement are undisclosed.

About Green Beacon

Since 2001, Green Beacon has been implementing and supporting business solutions built on leading customer relationship management platforms, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM. A Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner, Green Beacon specializes in large-scale CRM implementations that put clients’ strategies into operation.

By combining deep technical expertise with years of experience in a range of industries Green Beacon works closely with organizations to transform the way they do business. This highly collaborative approach has earned us an unmatched reputation for delivering ongoing return on investment.

The company is headquartered in Newton, MA, and has with offices throughout the United States. For additional information, visit:?www.greenbeacon.com.

About?AKA Enterprise Solutions

For more than 25 years, AKA Enterprise Solutions has focused on helping organizations innovate their way to greatness through the use of technology to simplify processes while reducing risk. Specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Business Intelligence, Cloud Services, Business Process Consulting, and Custom Application Development, we combine qualities like industry and technical experience, proven methodologies, and world-class consulting to help you get to where you want to be.

To have the freedom to innovate, you need more than just applications like CRM or ERP, and you need more than just a CRM or ERP services company. You need a partner that specializes in Cloud business consulting, strategic road-mapping, upgrades, and custom development, utilizing trans-formative technologies like Microsoft Azure and Dynamics 365 to deliver to you a solution that starts delivering a return on your investment right away. AKA has what it takes.

The company is headquartered in New York, NY, and has with offices throughout the United States. For additional information, visit:?www.akaes.com.

 

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I am joining Green Beacon Solutions as Director of Customer Experience

Hello All,

I have joined Green Beacon Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Dynamics CRM partner, as Director of Customer Experience.

In my new role I will focus on the intertwined worlds of Green Beacon LogoCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Experience Management (CEM). And yes, there will be a heavy dose of business intelligence and mobility as they are an important part of an overall customer focused program.

I will continue to post content here on my personal blog and will provide additional content on our Green Beacon Blog.

See my first post on the Green Beacon Blog here: https://www.greenbeacon.com/insights/what-is-the-role-of-a-director-of-customer-experience-and-what-does-it-mean-for-our-customers/

An interesting factoid on “what is a green beacon”. Beacons, in the maritime world, are directional markers. You can think of them as “traffic signals” that guide operators safely along the waterways. They also identify dangerous areas and give directions and information.

I find that so appropriate to what we do; provide direction and help companies and people safely navigate through their CRM journeys. Pretty cool.

About Green Beacon

Since 2001, Green Beacon has been implementing and supporting business solutions built on leading customer relationship management platforms, including Microsoft Dynamics CRM. A Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner, Green Beacon specializes in large-scale CRM implementations that put clients’ strategies into operation.

By combining deep technical expertise with years of experience in a range of industries Green Beacon works closely with organizations to transform the way they do business. This highly collaborative approach has earned us an unmatched reputation for delivering ongoing return on investment.

The company is headquartered in Newton, MA, and has with offices throughout the United States. For additional information, visit: www.greenbeacon.com.

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Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016

Microsoft in Leaders Quadrant…Again!

As I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago?http://www.michaelhammons.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-bi-and-analytics-2015/ the latest?Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016 has been officially released.

If you didn?t catch last year?s MQ, here is a link: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

And here is a link to the 2016 version: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI & Analytics 2016

A summary of the 2016 highlights of Gartner’s?assessment on Microsoft BI below.

Microsoft is seeing strong uptake due in large part to?substantial product improvements?as well as very aggressive pricing. The Pro version is a very affordable $9.99 per user per month. Compared to pretty much any other BI and Analytics options available, it is the most cost effective.

Here is one of my favorite quotes “Microsoft is positioned in the Leaders quadrant, with strong uptake of the latest release, major product improvements, an increase in sales and marketing awareness efforts, new leadership and a clearer, more visionary product roadmap.” Well said, Gartner.

Key Strengths Summary

  • Microsoft provides a cloud-based delivery model and one of the lowest per-user pricing / TCO ? Ease of use for business users and the availability of skilled resources rounds out this strength.?
  • Microsoft received?high scores for online tutorials, community support, conferences and documentation. I have to agree here whole-heartedly as they have done a really good job on tutorials, blog posts, and learning materials. Something I have seen in the Dynamics CRM world as well. All this helps business achieve?product success much more quickly and cost effectively.
  • Microsoft continues to expand the number and variety of data sources for?connectors and content that includes pre-built reports and dashboards. These too help users get up and running and connected very quickly. In today’s world, agility and rapid time to value are key requirements to success.

If you haven’t checked out Power BI yet, do it, and as quickly as you can. If you would like some help to get up to speed quickly, feel free to reach out to me via my social channels or the contact form on this page:?http://www.michaelhammons.com/about-mike-hammons/?

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Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

Microsoft in Leaders Quadrant

It’s almost that time again and we shall soon see the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016.

If you didn’t catch last year’s MQ, here is a link: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

I will paraphrase the highlights of their assessment below.

In Gartner’s view (and I share much of this), Microsoft’s leadership position BI and Analytics is driven by product vision and road map. In addition, and this one is spot on, Microsoft has a “clear understanding of the market’s desire for a platform that can support systems-of-record requirements and deliver easy-to-use data discovery capabilities”.

Power BI is gaining traction as it matures and cloud adoption grows. I concur and have seen a rapid increase in interest and adoption. I am confident we will see an uptick in the position as Microsoft has been rapidly adding new capabilities to the Power BI platform and it is near parity with the BI applications that have traditionally been selected over it. Add the fact that the “other” BI applications are currently much higher priced; in both acquisition and? deployment costs. This is also noted by? Gartner, “Overall cost of ownership and license cost remain the top reasons customers choose Microsoft.”

To give you an idea of the “power” of this great application, below is an example proof of concept that was provided to a customer recently. There was some shock in awe in that what typically takes them a couple of days to collate the date, do all the Excel lookups and filters and cleanup took several days to complete. This took less than a day to create and is now completely automated.

Power BI Example DashboardThat’s why I am so excited about Power BI.

To wrap up this post, a great Power BI learning event is upcoming called the Microsoft Data Insights Summit, March 22-23, 2016.? At this event Microsoft will be hosting hands on training, advice from some great experts in Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Excel. I plan on being there so please reach out if you would like to connect. Go here to see more detail and register: http://www.datainsightssummit.com

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Power BI Is Going to be Huge

I just have to say, that Microsoft Power BI is completely awesome and amazing.? I?ll explain more in upcoming posts, but it just keeps getting better; almost on a daily basis.

Quite simply:? Power BI, is going to be huge, just huge, and I’m mean enormously huge.Power BI Logo

For those of you who don’t know me, I am rarely quick to endorse or embrace a particular product or technology platform.? For me, I have to see it, experience it and believe it before I give my unequivocal support.? So let me just say that I am jazzed and excited about Microsoft Power BI; and more importantly what it can do for you and your business, and I want to share that with you.

No more waiting. No more wasted effort. Far, far less expense.

Until relatively recently, turning data into actionable insight has been overwhelmingly a chore that simply takes far more time, effort and expense than it should.

  • Time waiting on a Business Intelligence (BI) team to finish their last project before they get to yours; and that’s only if other priorities don’t keep knocking it further down the road.
  • Effort required to get access to the data; and in a usable format that can easily be used by non-techy types. More often; it still requires a collection of spreadsheets and exports and imports and vlookups and filters and, and, and… ? very repetitive, labor intensive, and chaotic.
  • Expense unless you are doing the aforementioned Excel dance; most applications and tools have been very expensive. I mean thousands of dollars $$ per user per year expensive. Plus all the time and expense required to learn the darn things.

Power BI can literally transform your data into rich visuals and dashboards to see, understand and act on on what matters to you. Stay in the know, spot trends as they happen, and push your business further.

I’ll be posting more content in the coming weeks and months that I believe will get you as excited as I am about this new(ish) platform.

For starters, here are the slides and a link to a webinar I did recently titled “Power Up with Power BI”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1sfN2BTsw

Welcome to your brave new world!

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CRMUG Dynamic Duo Series: Power Up Your CRM with Power BI

Join Me for this CRMUG Webinar

Thursday, November 19, 2015 (2:00 PM) to Thursday, November 19, 2015 (3:00 PM) (Eastern Time)
CRMUG Virtual Event

Sign up here:?http://bit.ly/1HP8Md9?

In this CRMUG OneSource Dynamic Duo series webinar, you will learn about the powerful out of the box integration functionality available with Power BI and Dynamics CRM Online. Expert Mike Hammons will show how you can analyze your CRM data with interactive Power BI dashboards and reports, providing you with quick self-service insights into the data you need to manage your business.

About the OneSource Dynamic Duo Series:

This CRMUG OneSource series dives into the robust functionality that comes from the Dynamic Duo of Microsoft Dynamics CRM + Microsoft Office/Office 365. Recent Dynamics CRM updates have deepened the integration of CRM and Office, making your experience simple, familiar, and immersive. Learn how to harness the great power and productivity delivered by this pair of heroes with the CRMUG OneSource Dynamic Duo Series!