Mike Stoveken
Day to day, co-managed IT means your internal person keeps the users, the vendors, and the office context, while an outside team takes monitoring, patching, security tooling, and overflow tickets, under a split that was written down first. Most writing about co-managed IT stops at the concept. Two teams, one environment, everybody wins. Fine as … Read more
In-house IT means hiring and carrying a full-time salary, while outsourced managed IT means paying a flat monthly fee for a team’s coverage, and current federal data puts one systems administrator near $141,800 fully loaded. Every wage and projection below traces to a Bureau of Labor Statistics release. An owner asks me to settle this … Read more
Most accounting firms already own more Microsoft 365 security than they have switched on. Business Premium covers what a CPA practice needs. The expensive add-ons usually do not apply to you. I get asked some version of this question every fall. A firm is coming up on renewal, somebody has quoted them an upgrade, and … Read more
VJNetworks ranks first for real estate and property management IT in NY and NJ because it covers both halves of this industry, the closing wire and the tenant file. ICS, Ascendant Technologies, and Monmouth Cyber follow, ranked on evidence each provider publishes about real estate work. Quick Picks Best overall, and the only one on … Read more
The five things Rockland businesses call their IT provider about most are passwords, printers, a file or email that has gone missing, Outlook, and QuickBooks, in that order. None of those are dramatic. None of them are specific to Rockland either, and that second part matters a lot more than it sounds like it should. … Read more
QuickBooks Desktop 2023 stopped getting support on May 31, 2026. Desktop 2024 is the last Pro and Premier release. The real decision is not which QuickBooks you buy. It is where the file lives. Two programs generate more support calls than anything else we manage. Outlook is one. QuickBooks is the other. So when Intuit … Read more
The controls a New York insurance agency owes under 23 NYCRR Part 500 are only half of a DFS examination, because the regulation also requires documentation proving each one, kept for five years. Every transitional period in the amended regulation has now closed. The last one expired November 1, 2025. There is no phase-in left … Read more
Windows Server 2016 stops receiving security updates on January 12, 2027. After that date your options are an in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2025, replacement hardware, a move to Azure, or paid Extended Security Updates. January 12, 2027 falls on a Tuesday. The second Tuesday of the month, which makes it Patch Tuesday, and that … Read more
A job site is a branch office that has to be switched on before the first crew arrives, then taken apart at closeout. Here is how the connection back to headquarters should actually be built.
Before filing season, ask your IT provider what your tax software will not run on, who owns your IRIS registration, how long a real restore takes, and what happens if the server dies on April 10. There is a version of this conversation that goes nowhere. The owner asks whether everything is ready for tax … Read more
