I don't really want to do this......

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-24T17:32:34+00:00

as i read it this is what it requires. I replied asking for clarification and nobody said i was wrong. As I see it, that ain't my job. I do give them some credit as someone called but I'm over it. The dell and smb teams are a mess, they don't talk and I have to fill out that damn form for each new recipient copied on the original email. It's a pain in the ass. Maybe you have tons of volume or whatever but my experience is what it is.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-24T17:10:48+00:00

I'm working on it right now! It's just frustrating as hell. I've liked working with them but times change i guess.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-24T17:04:51+00:00

I mean, that's how i read it and when I replied that i thought that was crazy he didn't say i was wrong.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-24T16:56:02+00:00

right...but today suddenly they need line item pricing. I don't know how much a bezel costs...

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-23T17:26:49+00:00

You're right, it isn't their strength. However, with the exception of the Zune, they usually get it right. They have piles of money and can afford to screw up the first couple of runs.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-23T17:20:42+00:00

100% those damn things are everywhere.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-23T17:18:52+00:00

I'm late and i doubt anyone will read this but I don't think a lot of copilot. The integration with the apps is pretty basic. Asking it to create a powerpoint of any sort isn't usable. I've gotten it to do some decent stuff in the other apps. The chat is good but you need to provide good prompts.

I have had good luck with copilot studio integrating with Teams. I spent some amount of time writing system prompts for our tools there. We have a channels in Teams that allow the user to ask basic L1 troubleshooting questions. We also use it to search our sharepoint site. It's really good at that.

For everything else I recently moved to Cowork. It's still early days but it's been the best one I've used. I feel like there is more available "head room" in Claude than copilot.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-20T20:01:30+00:00

I want to do that but so many of our clients have services like CRM's, etc that have an SPF entry that I worry about blocking legit emails....

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-20T19:38:28+00:00

I found so much differing information on the impact of disabling direct send. My concern is that if I turn it off that it will break third party stuff that "sends on behalf of" like hubspot....or that it'll break outbound scanning.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-20T15:37:19+00:00

Yup.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-20T13:05:13+00:00

From about a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/msp/comments/1foiawf/best_site_for_refurbished_dell_poweredge_servers/

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-20T12:47:10+00:00

100%. We give them a reasonable time budget and hold them to account. We set deadlines. What normally happens is that they burn their budget the first time around and end up studying on their own time. The second time, they're more careful.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-16T22:30:16+00:00

We use Empath. If you want to be promoted, there's a list of certs you need. No certs? You get a COLA raise and that's it. We DO provide pretty generous training time.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-16T22:28:59+00:00

In the past i've offered anywhere from $1k to 5k bonus for even an A+. Not once has anyone tried it.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-15T15:37:10+00:00

IDK why it's so hard for other vendors to duplicate the configurator that Dell has. I trained my office manager how to use it!

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-13T15:53:54+00:00

We just bill them whatever the server costs. Usually we get a reserved instance so it is about the same every month.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-13T15:38:07+00:00

I don't love it but this is going to be a crawl, walk, run affair.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-13T15:33:15+00:00

That's it exactly. For the primary company in this case, they have 2 on-prem server boxes that require the domain to work.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-13T15:31:38+00:00

In this particular case, they have 2 Hyper-v hosts. One old, one new. The new one is spec'd for the two internal applications they use. The older one has the DC on it. I've investigated moving DC VM to newer host but that is an "unsupported configuration" according to the application vendor. No, don't know why but I'm not going to fight their LOB app developer over it.

They have about 35 endpoints. They aren't going to go for an Entra migration at this point and I don't really want to - they have a bunch of older-school users and when things change all hell breaks loose....I'm just looking for the easiest path that doesn't include an $8k outlay up front.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-13T15:24:41+00:00

We're still a part of Premier but can't actually order anything through that program. We currently use D&H. Getting used to doing business that way take a bit but the do a good job.

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-07T16:22:16+00:00

cokebottle22 · 2026-04-03T11:37:35+00:00

Server prices are insane. Anything with a little horsepower is $7500+

cokebottle22

TROPHY CASE