Saturday 25 April 2015

Sipcentric Telephony Integration

A Hatchgate customer recently switched from their regular BT phone system over to an IP- (internet) based telephone system hosted by Sipcentric, and as a result they are making some considerable cost savings plus they now have access to a range of additional telephony features they never had before.

If you think your current phone system is costing too much, it may be worth taking a look at Birchills Telecoms (www.birchills.net) who can supply a Sipcentric SOHO (small office / home office) phone system to your business for hopefully a lot less than you are currently paying.

In addition, Mercury Systems can now integrate to Sipcentric’s internet phone service, meaning that if you were to set up a Sipcentric account coupled to either virtual desktop phones or standard IP phone handsets, you can then click a ‘Call’ button within Mercury Systems to automatically phone your customer or supplier etc. (saving time and generally making life easier).

(Please note I am not in any way endorsing Sipcentric / Birchills Telecoms – I am however passing along favourable comments from an existing Hatchgate customer who has made the switch, and is very happy with the cost savings and extra features)

Vacation…

I am away from Thursday 7th May until Monday 25th May (12 business days).

During this time I should be able to respond to emails and occasionally hold a conversation using Skype, as I am taking a laptop with me.  It may also be possible for me to connect to your pc’s / server’s in the event of an emergency (only).

As most of you know, it is my policy to not issue program updates for a couple of weeks before going away, so updates are going to cease in the next few days.

Therefore, if you have any issues that cannot wait, please phone or email me soon.

Wednesday 8 April 2015

New minimum supported SQL database engine version…

At the end of this year (2015), Hatchgate Software will discontinue support for SQL databases that are still using the old Microsoft SQL 2005 database engine (SQL Server version 9.x).  From 2016, the minimum supported SQL engine will be SQL 2008 (SQL Server version 10.x) and above.

Only a few customers are affected – most customers are already using SQL 2008 and higher.  This notice will only affect you if you are using very old server hardware that is likely to be running Windows Server 2003 (inc. SBS version), or if you have a pc (acting as a server) and it is running Windows XP or Windows Vista.  Any servers running Windows Server 2008 or higher, and pc’s (acting as servers) running Windows 7, Windows 8 will already be using Microsoft SQL 2008 or higher.

The reason for the change is that as Microsoft release newer database engines (e.g. SQL 2012 is now available), it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue support for old versions.  You can check what version of SQL you are using by opening the SQL Server Management Studio icon (usually within the ‘Hatchgate’ folder on the desktop) on your server machine (or pc acting as a server).  On the splash screen and on the login screen, it will say ‘SQL 2005’ or ‘SQL 2008’ etc.

Please contact me if you are still unsure what version of SQL you are using, or if you want to discuss the implications of this change.