CMI News

We are proud to announce that as of July 2018, BTA has re-certified as a Microsoft Authorised Education Partner (AEP).

The AEP program is designed to train participating resellers on Microsoft’s Academic licensing, authorise them to purchase and resell Microsoft Academic licenses, and demonstrate to potential customers that they are approved and knowledgeable academic partners.

At BTA, we take pride in having in-depth knowledge of the various sectors we service. This re-certification means that we have demonstrated our ability to meet Microsoft academic customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment. To earn a Microsoft AEP authorisation, partners must complete a test to prove their level of academic licensing and market expertise, and we are thrilled to have proven this for our clients.

We are proud to announce that as of January 2018, CMI has formally achieved Cyber Essentials Plus Certification.

This means a great deal to us at CMI. The certification is not only a great step to improving our own security standards; it means we can help your business safeguard against common online threats through Cyber Essentials Certification, speaking from a place of experience.

The level of certification achieved by CMI is Cyber Essentials Plus, which covers all Internet facing infrastructure for CMI, including firewalls, switches, routers, end user devices and hosted systems based in our London office.

Interested in joinging a dynamic team and fun working environment?  BTA, one of the leading Managed Service Providers in London, has several openings in its London office.  Find out more by reading the job descriptions below, and email enquiries@bta.com to apply.

BTA is pleased to announce we have been awarded another gold competency by Microsoft. In addition to achieving the “Gold Midmarket Solutions” and “Silver Datacenter” competencies, BTA has now earned the “Gold Small and Midmarket Cloud Solutions” competency.

Long gone are the days of coming into work at 9am and leaving at 5:30pm.  In fact, most of us have never even experienced such a predictable schedule. To stay competitive in today’s marketplace, businesses need to be switched on all the time.  They need employees to work whatever number of hours are required to get the job done, and be available far beyond the once-normal 8-hour day.  In return, more and more companies are offering flexible working in which employees can work from home, or during non-business hours as their regular schedule.

We have seen first-hand the pain ransomware can cause companies.  It isn’t just about the financial pain either.  When thinking about the true cost of a ransomware attack, companies must consider the time it steals from their executives, their IT department and employees. 

Following some reports of bad patches from Microsoft this months, we have denied KB3159398 and KB3161561 for the moment. There is not enough info on the potential impact, so we will wait to see what others find in the next week.

Phishing scams are on the rise, and a recent report shows that 23% of people open phishing emails. The latest mainstream phishing scam isn’t initiated by email however, but by text. The new scam targets iPhone owners with a request for their personal information and starts with a personalised text from an account called “iSupport”.

BTA has been recognised by Microsoft for offering best-in-class solutions to customers, recently announcing its achievement of Microsoft Certified Partner Gold status as a Midmarket Solution Provider. Only a handful of companies in the UK have been awarded Microsoft® Gold competency and only a very small percentage of worldwide partners achieve Gold Partner status, making this a notable achievement for BTA.

As of March 1st, BTA—the business IT experts, will move from Connectwise to Autotask for its help desk ticketing system. This will be followed by a further move to Autotask for the managed service provider’s entire CRM function.  Autotask has developed the world’s leading hosted IT business management software, and is considered the gold standard for MSP end-to-end client management. The move is part of BTA’s continual evolution, and will improve and enhance the London-based IT consultancy’s support capabilities.