Meet Henry Craven - SBS MVP

Fourth in our series of Australian Small Business Server MVPs is Henry Craven of Melbourne.

A passionate & prolific contributor to a whole host of SBS partner forums, Henry also manages the Melbourne SBS Users Group & provides much needed feedback to Microsoft on how we can continually improve.

Other Aussie SBS MVP profiles that we've covered so far: Stuart Applegate, Mick Malloy & Dean Calvert.

So - Henry in his own words below.

Robbie

Name:

Henry Craven

Company:

CI Information Technology Pty. Ltd.

Location:

Clifton Hill, Victoria

Years in business:     

CI Information Technology was registered in February 2000

Describe your business in 25 words or less:       

CI  Information Technology  design, implement and maintain IT Infrastructures that provide a secure, stable and expandable platform to help businesses grow without pain..

What are you passionate about in business?:       

My Passion, as Consultant, Software Developer, Integrator and Infrastructure Designer and Support Provider in SMB, is productivity. The aim is -always- to provide appropriate, stable and scalable solutions that are user friendly for the workers and return a high ROI for the owners.  This can be a journey of enlightenment, and education for users, clients, vendors -and- IT Providers. 

How long have you been an SBS MVP?

Since  January 2004.

How long have you been in IT?:

In one form and another since about 1987.

What are you most looking forward to with the launch of SBS 2008?

The Paradigm shift. The re-evaluation and re-orientation of who we as IT partners are in relation to the SMB products, the Clients and the Vendors, and the way we work with these.

What’s the one thing Microsoft can do to really help partners get up to speed with the new version?

Provide the -incentive- for the partners to install and run ( Dogfood ) the product in their own environments while they access the plethora of resources available on Microsoft and in the community. The Partners have access to the Software (Action Pack, MSDN etc) they have access to the Resources, MSDN, Newsgroups, Forums, Blogs. They have access to the peer community, Lists, User Groups. They need incentive / motivation to become “hands on” experts.

Who’s your favourite Muppets character?  
The Great Gonzo .