By Derek R. Iannelli-Smith, ACRBO Member, IT Strategist for Progressive Integrations, Inc.,
Recently I had a client that had a SBS2003 environment and desired to upgrade to SBS 2008. As we all know there is not an upgrade path, so welcome to migration. Upon doing extensive research, I became aware of MVP Jeff Middleton, and was even told about him from Microsoft personnel through the Partner Network. Everyone gave MVP Jeff Middleton kudos and talked about him being the one who could do a migration the best – even better than Microsoft!
So on 16 Dec 2010, I called him figuring that a project deadline of 31 Jan 11 would be enough time and I needed a fast answer. I spoke with him for about 30 minutes; I asked very specific questions;
1. What is the success rate?
2. Can this be done without going on site?
3. Can the temporary server be built on a vmware box?
4. Can I ‘grab’ the data that I will need for the swing later and remotely without having to go on site?
5. I have never done this before, is that going to be a problem?
These questions were all answered in the affirmative and with an emphatic yes – minus #5 – He stated that anyone could do this. I immediately bought the “Technician’s Kit�, and started pouring through the 400+ pages of material. I opened a support ticket (required for support) and started down the road of asking questions.
Without going into detail (I have a complete copy of the 268 entries of the support forum exchanges), here is the short list of why you should NOT do business with SBSMigration.com.

1. Jeff’s people skills are condescending, and impatient (it took an average of 2- 12 hours to receive a response at times). I asked him multiple times to answer my questions directly, not make assumptions, to stay professional and on task. I attempted multiple venues of ‘being clear’ – bullets, numbers, drawing attention to “?� marks, re-typing the question again, drawing attention to the entry, etc. There is a reason why his forum template for entries does not have time-stamps on them perhaps?
2. I was not able to complete this project with Jeff or his staff. They were unavailable despite the many times of drawing attention to the project dates etc. I even paid for weekend 2-hour minimum support with a bunch of promises on how it was going to be coordinated and no call, a bunch of legalese (when I asked for a refund), poor ethics, and no integrity, he stole $360 from us.
3. I ended up going on the client site multiple times. These included a weekend all-nighter as remote tools that I regularly and reliably use to work on the client site were not “supported tools� and VMware was not a supported environment. I ended up reloading OS’s 5 times because of lack of response, lack of clear directions in the material, and screen shots not showing/what I was seeing – I was told I was overthinking things.
4. The swing migration is NOT for folks who have never done this before. The instructions and material are not clear, leaving out crucial steps, information, or insulting me because I cannot read between the lines is not helpful. In my documentation, I have evidence that that he goes down a road of insulting me about something in the material, and later states it is in the next revision and not the one I have, and then never apologize!
5. There is much cleanup, stabilizing, and work to do AFTER the migration because it does not all get taken care of. Because I could never get straight answers to my questions, or much needed phone support, I ended up having to call Microsoft and through 3 engineers (who were familiar with the swing material), we finally got the client stabilized and I met my project deadline. I had the Microsoft Engineers review the material (SBSMigration.com Technicians Kit) and each of them, summarized, or stated the following: “Why would you do it that way?� I would repeat the 1st paragraph above and then we could move on. Long story short, it took almost 20-hours to fix the errors from the ‘successful’ swing with the assistance of Microsoft.

Recommendation and Lesson Learned:

1. Don’t believe the hype. Just because the vendor is an MVP does not mean they are ‘valuable’ the ‘v’ may mean ‘vexing’. Also, just because someone has the title ‘Professional’ does not mean they are, it may mean ‘peckerhead’. I searched the net to find criticism of this vendor and what I did find were some of the same complaints I have listed above.
2. Stick with the vendor who created, built, and released the software if at all possible. I have subscribed to this best practice for many years and because of the ‘talk’ regarding the migration (1st para above), I was in bondage to the vendor. Last year I wrote an article about poor customer service and vendors that hold you in bondage and how to get rid of them and more importantly, don’t repeat the same mistakes.
3. Be a Microsoft Partner. I hear/read many complaints about Microsoft, but the bottom line is, we all use their products or know someone who does, you can’t avoid them. We have been Partners for 2-years, and we have not had one complaint, customer service issue, or bad experience since we became partners. I have used their support on multiple clients and their engineers are committed to resolving problems to completion regardless if they are in India or in the USA. One of the engineers that assisted me with this project literally went 5-hours over his shift to complete the resolution! Just an FYI regarding SBS2003 to SBS2008 Migration, you may want to check out these links;
a. Windows Small Business Server 2008 Migration Checklist*
b. Windows Small Business Server 2008 Migration Help*
c. Migrating to SBS 2008 from SBS 2003 (version 5)*
d. Consider a Virtual Migration* (professional dig that Microsoft endorses virtual migration but SBSMigration would not assist with)
* Total documentation from Microsoft – less than 150 pages – compare to SBSMigration.com kit – 400+ pages!
4. Freelance Folder wrote a great article this week on “How to Partner with Others…� that I highly recommend and helped me to ‘feel’ better about this bad situation in that you can do all the right things, and sometimes because of RISK (mentioned in the article), things may go badly.
5. Do not take it personally. I am not one to draw attention to my background for many reasons but to name a few; sometimes titles get in the way and do not do anything to improve the relationship. Other times I have seen titles hinder a relationship in that people assume that because you have this or that title that they must act a certain way. This is the first vendor in 20-years of the industry, which I found myself thinking, “Do you know who you’re talking to?� and listing my 5-lines of credentials. That would not have changed a thing. The only roles or titles that should matter in a business relationship are Vendor/Customer. I recommend all business owners read Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. Also, remember that e-mail and text is hard to interpret and many times because of circumstances in OUR lives we interpret an email or text a certain way when in reality, we are way off base. I have eaten crow many times over the years because of emails I hit ‘send’ with that would have been much different had I waited. I had my boss and others review many of the exchanges between Jeff and me before I responded to see if they were reading it the same way. Overwhelmingly, everyone who has read the exchanges agrees with my assessment. I also don’t think that a bad customer service experience happens overnight, it takes time for bad habits to be developed. In looking at Jeff’s credentials on the web and in numerous postings, I see that in the beginning of his business he was very involved and took a special interest in his clients, as the time went on (I literally saw this chronological transformation!) I noticed that he became more ‘militant’, ‘aggressive’ and ‘condescending’ with his responses over the years. Something happened, and long before my ‘lack of ability to talk to technical professionals’ or ‘my inability to use the correct active directory language’ Jeff started going down a road that was filled with bitterness and poor customer service. The only thing I can think of is that it no longer became ‘fun’ like it was in the beginning and maybe he got criticized a few times and took it personally and in I walked right into years of festering mess.
As I mentioned, after having my boss and others reviewed the support exchanges, I was encouraged to WARN OTHERS. I have attempted to do that, but I must confess, it has been hard and even now as I read this again, I see that I did take it personally (having someone steal from you, treat you badly, not apologize, having to get it fixed by another vendor, plus have a client project deadline) can be a distracting thing. However, in putting together this document, I also realize that the ‘warning’ is not just against SBSMigration.com but to all of us 1000+ ACRBO members that we too should take heed or lest we fall. By reading about someone else, we can also learn how NOT to do it to our clients. We cannot be afraid of losing business, afraid of being embarrassed, or in fear of feeling inferior. Why? Because integrity is an important part of whom we are as business people. When we lose that, we lose customers and the end-user/customer/consumer is the one who pays the price inevitably. I am trying to feel bad in that I know this ‘warning’ may affect Jeff’s business and may even jeopardize his MVP status, however, integrity is something that you only get one chance of building and when you lose it, it is gone forever in our industry. I am thankful for ACRBO and our Code of Conduct. I would also say be cautious about retaliating when it comes to a bad scenario. There was many times in this project I bit my tongue because I of the necessity to complete the project for my client (If you did not know this already – as a business owner, one of the top goals of a project is to protect the client). I am not a biting my tongue kind of guy, and actually have a foot-shaped mouth. I was thankful for the counsel of many who kept me in check after receiving the bad services. I would also conclude that we should all be careful to whom we are talking to, whether client, customer, vendor etc., because they just might have connections and influence we are not aware of and it may come back to haunt you if you do the wrong thing. This article was reviewed by the owners of Progressive Integrations, Inc., ACRBO president, sent to the Microsoft Partner Network, and to SBSMigrations.com.