Field Service Technician

The Field Technician II is responsible for troubleshooting and resolving user support requests and incidents for customers of NSPI*s managed services. The technician may field incidents via phone, email, or ticket escalations from a central service desk - and will act as the primary dispatch support mechanism for assigned customer/s. The Field Technician may be assigned to work primarily out of one or more customer office locations Monday through Friday during standard business hours, and may be required to be *on-call* for after hour*s dispatches. Regardless of technology or nature of request, the Field Technician will act as a first level escalation point, sometimes acting as primary point of contact, tracking requests for resolution or escalation and keeping customers continuously informed of status. Requests will primarily consist of user, local application, and desktop problems of varying platforms and providers. Experience will be heavily focused on desktop systems, commercial applications, network devices, and related current technologies.

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REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL SKILLS
To perform this job successfully an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.
* Advanced: 4+ years experience providing desktop support on Apple platforms (MacOS, iOS)
* Advanced: 4+ years experience providing desktop support on Windows based workstations
* Intermediate: Experience troubleshooting network connectivity on LANs, WANs, and WLANs
* Intermediate: Knowledge of system components and how they are used
* Intermediate: Experience using Desktop Remote Control/Management software tools
* Intermediate: Experience troubleshooting network printers
* Basic: Experience with using Active Directory for password resets, group membership, domain membership, etc
* Excellent oral and written communication skills and customer focused demeanor
* Proven ability to work well with a team, manage stressful situations and show initiative.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL SKILLS
The following skills are preferred and helpful, but not required
* Experience working in a Service Provider environment or a large enterprise
* Experience configuring and supporting mobile devices
* Experience with Networking Protocols and Troubleshooting Network-related issues
* Experience with one or more of the following enterprise applications: Exchange Server, Citrix, CRM or ERP applications.
* Familiarity with ITIL v3 concepts and methods

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE
* 4+ years of related experience in a technical support role
* Preferred Computer Science or Information Technology Degree, 2 or 4 year Degree
* Preferred technical certifications, one or more: Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, or CompTIA certs
CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS: Specific technical and/or OEM oriented training and associated certification(s) may be required to obtain while in this role.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Technical Deployment and Maintenance:
* Onsite contact for all technical problems, service requests, and inquires.
* Primary internal escalation resource for central service desk.
* Supplement central service desk with remote call handling as volume and staffing requires.
* Utilize available resources to resolve onsite customer issues as quickly as possible.
* First-level contact for all incoming technical incidents, service requests, and inquires.
* Identifies and resolves recurring internal and customer desktop issues
* Ability to assess technical and business impact of an IT incident
Communication:
* Responsible for making regular status updates to customers on a variety of service requests and incidents
* Verbal and written communication skills must be professional level and business oriented
* Regular communications with customers is required (both verbal and email)
* Keep customer updated on ticket status, problem resolution, or inquiries.
Administration:
* Documentation of hours and work details in order to track efficiency and billing is required
* Maintain customer technical information within defined documentation standards.
* Use of ticketing / work management system to track issue and project task status
* Prioritizes ticket workload and dispatch assignments based on customer and technical impact.
* Participates in scheduled and ad hoc internal and customer specific meetings.
Personal:
* Dependable and eager to learn cutting-edge technologies
* Ability to work on multiple concurrent assignments is essential
* Strong self-motivation and the ability to work with minimal supervision
PHYSICAL DEMANDS and WORK ENVIRONMENT: The job involves light physical work demands requiring lifting and/or carrying items up to 20 lbs. maximum; heavier items will lifted/carried with assistance from another person or by using appropriate handling equipment. The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

After 30 years, IBM says PC going way of vacuum tube and typewriter

Post-PC era? Microsoft says no

While that sounds pretty vague, Dean notes that IBM has boosted its profit margins since selling off its PC division with a strategy of exiting commodity businesses and "expanding in higher-value markets." One example: IBM's Watson, newly crowned Jeopardy champion.

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"We conduct fundamental scientific research, design some of the world's most advanced chips and computers, provide software that companies and governments run on, and offer business consulting, IT services and solutions that enable our clients to transform themselves continuously, just like we do," Dean writes.

For all the debate over whether this is a "post-PC" era, it's clear more people today own Windows computers and Macs than smartphones and tablets, and our new mobile devices are complementing desktops and laptops rather than replacing them.

It's hard to beat the convenience of an easy-to-use, Internet-connected device in one's pocket, but many tasks are cumbersome without a full, physical keyboard. Even social media, which seems as "post-PC" as it gets upon first glance, requires a lot of typing.

Some people envision a future where a smartphone is the hub of all your computing needs, and simply hooks into a dock for those rare times you want a bigger screen, mouse and keyboard. Others talk about a future where any surface, whether a wall or table, is transformed into a touch-screen computer with a snap of one's fingers.

For now, though, most people making these proclamations are typing their blog posts on PCs.

Microsoft's Smartphone Share Declines Again: Report

Microsoft has experienced another smartphone market share decline, according to new data from research firm comScore.
Microsoft saw its smartphone market share decline in the three-month period ending in June, according to research firm comScore.

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Specifically, the company saw its share decline from 7.5 percent to 5.8 percent, over a period when both archrivals Google and Apple experienced gains. Research In Motion also dipped, from 27.1 percent to 23.4 percent.

ComScore also listed the top mobile OEMs, in descending order, as Samsung, LG Electronics, Motorola, Apple and RIM. Of those, Motorola and RIM experienced incremental declines, while the rest enjoyed equally slight gains.

Microsoft’s market share included both its antiquated Windows Mobile platform and the newer Windows Phone, which was supposed to reinvigorate the company’s fortunes in the smartphone space.

Instead, Windows Phone is showing signs of anemic adoption by consumers and businesses. According to data from Nielsen, Microsoft occupied some 9 percent of the U.S. smartphone market in June—trailing Google Android with 39 percent, Apple’s iPhone with 28 percent and RIM with 20 percent.

During a July 11 keynote speech at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference, CEO Steve Ballmer described Windows Phone’s market share as “very small,” but insisted that other metrics (such as consumer satisfaction) boded well for the platform overall.

“Nine out of 10 people who bought Windows Phone would absolutely recommend it to a friend,” he said, reiterating a talking point voiced by many a Microsoft executive over the past few months. “People in the phone business seem to believe in us.”

Microsoft is hoping that its upcoming “Mango” update, which supposedly includes some 500 new tweaks and features, will help spur Windows Phone adoption. Mango reached its Release to Manufacturing milestone July 26. The next day, one of the company’s hardware partners revealed its first smartphone running the software: Fujitsu Toshiba Mobile Communications’ IS12T, which will offer a 3.7-inch screen paired to a 13.2-megapixel camera. It will arrive on Japanese store shelves by September or later, according to an IDG video uploaded to YouTube and posted on multiple news Websites, including PC World.

Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics and Nokia have all committed to building new Windows Phone devices preloaded with Mango, along with Acer and ZTE.

In the meantime, Microsoft has stayed reluctant to share any Windows Phone revenue numbers. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently dug into Microsoft’s annual U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission report and hypothesized that, after tinkering with the revenue numbers from the company’s Entertainment and Devices Division, Windows Phone earned less than $613 million since its release.

Considering that Microsoft rolled out Windows Phone in late 2010, that $613 million (if accurate) wouldn’t be reflective of a full year of sales. Nonetheless, that sort of revenue would be anemic, compared with those of Apple’s iPhone over a similar period or even the combined family of Google Android devices.

Microsoft announces embedded dev winners in global student competition

Microsoft announces embedded dev winners in global student competition
Microsoft announced three winning teams in the Embedded Development part of its Imagine Cup 2011 student contest, which just concluded in New York. Their victorious Windows Embedded Compact 7 devices include: one that indicates safe fire escape routes in real time; another that turns the tedious task of blowing into a lung training device into a musical game; and a third that can find its way home robotically.

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Last month, we covered Microsoft's announcement of three winners in its embeddedSPARK 2011 challenge, which asked academics, hobbyists, or developers to come up with interesting Windows Embedded Compact 7 devices. (The $15,000 first-prize winner was a flying camera designed to locate disaster victims; the $5,000 second prize went to a touchscreen meal planner with a Windows Phone 7-style user interface; and the $1,000 third prize was awarded to a electronic bulletin board whose contents can be manipulated over the Internet.)

But as many readers will already be aware, Microsoft also has a massive competition for students in the form of the Imagine Cup, billed as "the world's premier student technology competition" and now in its ninth year." The 2011 Imagine Cup -- whose finals concluded July 13 in New York -- asked student teams to "imagine a world where technology helps solve the toughest problems."

As in past years, the 2011 Imagine Cup had multiple categories, any of which could be entered by teams consisting of three or four students and a faculty member. The categories included Software Design, Game Design, Digital Media, Windows Phone 7, Interoperability Challenge, Windows 7 Touch Challenge, IT Challenge, and the Orchard Challenge (the latter involving Orchard, an open-source CMS that's under development by Microsoft).

The category we're naturally been following, however, is the Embedded Development challenge. In the first round of this competition, which ended on Jan. 9, teams were asked to submit a "Project Vision Report" (five pages or fewer) that explains what problem they are trying to solve, what the proposed solution is, and why this would be best implemented as an embedded device. The report should briefly discuss proposed hardware and software architecture, Microsoft added.

Out of 350 initial teams, 150 were selected for the second round, and received DM&P's eBox-3310A-MSJK (pictured), a compact PC that includes a 1GHz MSTI PDX-600 (a version of DMP's Vortex86DX), 256MB or 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and a Type II/II CompactFlash slot. While being free to add additional hardware and software, teams had to use the eBox and a Windows Embedded Compact 7 operating system image that they themselves configured, built, debugged, and deployed.

The second round concluded on May 5, by which time teams had to submit information on the embedded device they built in the form of written documentation and a video not to exceed five minutes in length. Not long after, the 20 finalist teams -- listed on Microsoft's website -- were chosen to receive the free trip to the New York finals.

And the winners are

Starting on July 8, the teams each presented their devices in front of two separate judging panels, who whittled their numbers down to 12 and then just six, according to Microsoft. In the final round of judging, the first-, second-, and third-place teams were selected.

After six days of grueling competition, the $25,000 first prize went to Taiwan's Team NTHUCS, for "Right!! This way." This project uses a wireless sensor network to compute the safest fire escape routes in real time, according to Microsoft.

The second prize, worth $10,000, went to team Harmonicare from China. Their project -- visible in the CNN video embedded below -- aids those suffering from respiratory failure, turning the tedious task of blowing into a lung training device into a musical game.


Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer appeared on CNN to promote the Imagine Cup
(click to play)

The third prize of $5,000 went to team Endeavour_Design from Romania.They created an intelligent robotic system designed to automaticallyavoid obstacles and find its way back to its control signal when itloses contact with a human operator, Microsoft says.

According to Microsoft, more than 400 students from 70 countries traveled to New York to compete at the Imagine Cup finals. The festivities included remarks from: philanthropist, activist and actor Eva Longoria; CEO of the Startup America Partnership Scott Case; and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the company adds.

S. Somasegar, senior vice president of Microsoft's developer division, stated, "The innovators, entrepreneurs and humanitarians who compete in the Imagine Cup have developed an inspiring spectrum of projects, raising the bar higher and higher each year. We are in awe of the students' solutions for addressing social and real-world challenges, and want to help them take their projects to the next level with the financial, technical and business support they need to change the world."

Further information

The tenth annual Imagine Cup will be held in Sydney, Australia, in July 2012. More information on the just-concluded event may be found on Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2011 website. Specifics about the Embedded Development competition may be found here, and details of all the finalists who went to New York may be found here.

SAP to link analytics tools to Google Maps, Earth

IDG News Service - SAP is planning to connect its analytics software with Google's Maps and Earth software, allowing users to mine insights from plotting business data against locations around the world, the companies announced Wednesday.

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For example, a bank could figure out which regions have the most troubled housing markets by layering foreclosure data and the location of loan-holders on a map, SAP said.

SAP partners such as Centigon Solutions had already offered an integration with Google Maps, and Google has been offering a commercial version of its Maps APIs (application programming interfaces) for some time.

The advantage of the new tie-in is that SAP has inked a pact with Google for the use of 12 new APIs that give customers deep access to the mapping functions, including Street View, and allow them to build out customizations, said Jason Rose, senior director, business intelligence solution marketing. SAP's deal is good for three-and-a-half years, according to Rose.

Customers can expect the APIs to first surface with the "ramp-up" release of Business Objects 4.1, which is slated for late this year, Rose said. Ramp-up is SAP's term for the period when products are in controlled availability with a group of early adopters.

While Wednesday's announcement focused on analytics, customers can expect other SAP's products, such as its CRM (customer relationship management) software, to also tap the Google Maps APIs over time, according to Rose.

It's not clear whether the Google APIs will be made available to existing customers as part of their regular SAP maintenance payments, or sold separately. "Right now we're looking at the overall monetization strategy. We're still dotting the Is and crossing the Ts on that," Rose said.

Older versions of SAP's software, such as Business Objects XI 3.1, will be compatible with the APIs.

There's an obvious advantage to SAP customers going with SAP for Google Maps integration, versus a third party, said Forrester Research analyst Boris Evelson: "One versus two products to buy, install and maintain, plus one versus two vendors to blame when something doesn't work."

The Earth Builder APIs will also give SAP customers a potential alternative to traditional GIS (geographic information systems) from the likes of Pitney Bowes and ESRI, both of which already partner with SAP.

GIS platforms go beyond marking points on a map, adding concepts such as polygons, which denote a fixed geographic area, possibly with highly irregular boundaries. Therefore, a tour bus company could figure out how many diesel fueling stations are within 50 miles of a state park, for example. "[This] is what you really need for sophisticated logistics analysis," Evelson said.

Career Watch: The IT job outlook, from CompTIA

Q&A: Todd Thibodeaux

The president and CEO of CompTIA discusses the IT job outlook.
Are things looking up for IT job seekers? Yes, but in a small way. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates jobs were added in the category of "computer systems design and related services" in June, July and August. The change was very small, but it's trending in the right direction. Our own CompTIA IT Industry Business Confidence Index for September found that 37% of surveyed firms expect to add staff in the next six months, the same percentage as in the June 2010 index. Medium-size IT firms -- meaning companies with annual revenue of $20 million to $100 million -- have the most aggressive hiring plans, with 48% of those companies indicating they plan to expand staffing over the next six months. For large companies -- those with $100 million or more in annual revenue -- a slightly smaller number, 44%, said they plan staff expansions.

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What would you tell unemployed IT professionals who are finding that their skills are a poor match for the market? Any IT skill maintains its relevance, because workers are frequently dealing with legacy and embedded systems. But the key for anyone who desires a long-term career in IT is to keep your skills fresh and up to date. When the economy is good, companies have the resources to pay for continuing education and training for their workers. Unfortunately, that's often one of the areas cut first when budgets tighten. It's incumbent on the individual IT worker to take control of a lifelong learning plan so that their job skills stay current with what employers are looking for.

Careers
Employers want IT workers who can use technology for critical thinking. Demonstrate your ability to analyze a problem, solve it using available technology, and communicate your solution to others. While organizations may have slowed their spending on new IT projects, they're still pushing to squeeze more out of the systems they have in place. That requires the expertise of IT professionals who can identify ways to use technology to make the business operate more efficiently or less expensively.

Which sectors of the economy seem most promising for IT pros? Finance, education, government, entertainment, transportation, healthcare -- technology is deeply embedded in virtually every business and industry, and in businesses of all sizes, especially among the small businesses that account for the bulk of the nation's economy. A big opportunity for IT workers will occur in the health industry. Healthcare employers need workers with IT security skills, project management experience and networking qualifications. Employment opportunities exist with managed technology service providers that support medical facilities around the country. They're being called upon in large numbers to assist in the nationwide transition to electronic health records systems. This transition will also create a new category of hybrid jobs requiring a mix of healthcare knowledge and high-tech expertise. But it's important to look for opportunities that combine your technological savvy with something you're passionate about or at least somewhat interested in.
Tech Generations

We've been told that young people entering the workforce will expect to use the same technology they're accustomed to using in their personal lives: social media, text messaging, video chat. The funny thing about that conventional wisdom is that the youngest workers are the least likely to use any of those things. That's one of the findings of a study conducted for Citrix Online by Forrester Consulting.

On the job, members of Generation Y are less likely to use collaborative technology.
Gen Y Boomers age 55+
Share information via text message 26% 47%
Use social networking 40% 50%
Source: Forrester Consulting LLC online survey of 797 people who use computers in their jobs in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Australia; September 2010

And it turns out texting and other forms of multitasking are overwhelmingly frowned upon during meetings. According to the survey, 83% of the respondents believe that side conversations are unacceptable during a meeting, and 77% disapprove of doing other work on a computer or smartphone.

CompTIA: IT business confidence up

IDG News Service - Members of the U.S. IT sector are more confident now in their business prospects than they have been in the last year and a half, according to a new survey released by the Computing Technology Industry Association.

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The CompTIA IT Industry Business Confidence Index -- measuring IT managers' and workers' confidence in their own industry, their own companies and the U.S. economy -- stood at 60 in December, the trade group said. The index, based on a survey of more than 1,100 IT workers and managers, asks respondents to rate their confidence in those three areas on a 100-point scale.

CompTIA launched the index in June 2009, and December's confidence numbers in the U.S. were the highest in the history of the index.

Global IT spending should grow by 4% in 2011, CompTIA predicted.

The U.S. index was up seven points between September and December, while the global index was up eight points, to 64. The confidence index was highest in Brazil and India, at 75, while it was lowest in the U.S. and South Africa among eight countries indexed.

CompTIA predicted that the confidence index will rise again in the next quarter.

"After several quarters of lackluster performance, an improving CompTIA confidence index should be welcome news to companies eager for economic stability," Tim Herbert, vice president of research for CompTIA, said in a statement.

U.S. IT workers and managers -- 41% of respondents were senior to executive management -- expressed most confidence in the IT industry and in their own companies. Confidence in the U.S. economy remained below 50 on the 100-point scale.

Forty-five percent of U.S. IT firms are planning to increase spending on new products and business lines over the next half year, and 43% plan technology-related investments, an increase of 10 percentage points from September, CompTIA said. Thirty-two percent of U.S. IT companies said they planned to increase hiring over the next six months, compared to 37% in September, the survey said.

Employment trends are "still cause for concern," Herbert said.

Worldwide, 52% of IT firms plan to increase spending on new product lines, and 51% plan to increase spending on technology. "With renewed market stability and optimism, businesses will likely start spending a bit more freely," the study said.

A number of factors could "potentially derail or minimize growth," the study said. IT executives remain concerned about weak consumer spending, government regulation and unexpected economic shocks such as increased oil prices, the study said.

Pent-up demand for IT products and services, along with strong sales in emerging markets and industries such as health care, will help the IT industry grow this year, CompTIA predicted. However, consumers could seek low-cost options for their IT products, resulting in high growth in unit sales, but modest revenue growth, the trade group said.