Archived News Articles.

The bluLink Team Expands Sales
August 15, 2011 BELLEVUE, WA

Dedicated to the philosophy that business productivity and efficiency are direct benefits to the bottom line, John is eager to begin educating prospective clients exactly how SharePoint can help increase their business productivity and efficiency with the help of the bluLink Solutions team. As a visionary, John’s forward-thinking ideas and inspiration for success will inevitably help lead the way to increased company growth. bluLink Solutions is thrilled to have John onboard to drive extraordinary results as he takes the helm, Vice President Sales.

John’s background includes progressive levels of responsibility in the areas of Supply Chain Management, Sales Leadership, Marketing, and Product Management. Having moved through multiple leadership roles within complex products in biotech, chemicals, and services he understands the benefits of effective collaboration and brings an enabling approach to the success of bluLinks’s clients.

Being instrumental in the rapid growth of multiple organizations, John brings a history of continuously cultivating new markets and providing targeted solutions to clients. He doubled the revenue of a product line at Makhteshim-Agan year over year while maintaining profitability. At Natural Forces, a prior employer, John added a seven fold increase to the client base. Today he strives to seek out companies that would benefit from bluLink’s expertise to secure a viable pipeline of business for the company.

John holds a B.A. in Finance from the Foster School of Business Administration at The University of Washington.

Office 365 Launches, bluLink Solutions Deploys
July 5, 2011 BELLEVUE, WA

The next generation of office productivity software is here…Office 365 has launched! If you attended the local Puget Sound Microsoft company store launch-party last week you may have bumped elbows with a member or two of the bluLink Solutions team while reaching for those tasty hors d’oeuvres the Microsoft Online business provided.

bluLink Solutions is excited about this amazing cloud service and what it means for our clients. At the core it means greater productivity and money saved. As a registered reseller of the cloud service we have been busy for the past two years helping customers with the preceding release, Microsoft Online Services, BPOS .

With the advent of Office 365 our customers can enjoy many new capabilities including real-time coauthoring via integrated Office Web Apps , virtual meetings, presences, and VOIP communications via Lync Online (replacing OCS and Live Meeting), simple anywhere/anytime access to email and calendaring solutions with Exchange Online , a fully integrated cloud-based SharePoint Online platform managed and hosted by Microsoft, and Office for the client with Office Professional Plus for those desktop workers requiring full functionality of the Office suite.

Going beyond supporting deployments and building custom solutions on top of the service, bluLink Solutions not only consults across the cloud software but also uses the service.

With enterprise class capabilities, Office 365 is a must have for small businesses. I could not imagine trying to run a business without these tools readily available to me 24/7 with no maintenance required. I’ve witnessed a few brief downtimes while using BPOS but nothing that fell outside of the 99.9% availability acceptance window. You got to try it.
– Clint Skullerud; co-founder

Visit the Office 365 demo showcase for a quick look at how your business can begin to utilize the strengths of this cloud service. Learn more about tailoring the service to your needs; explore the power of MySites and rich Enterprise 2.0 capabilities. See what it means to connect not only your PCs but also your mobile devices to your business’s communication and collaboration infrastructure. Additionally, see how easy Intune makes it to manage the PCs of an organization within a hosted environment as well.

► Watch the Office 365 trailer .

bluLink Solutions to Experience Growth in 2011
February 14, 2011 BELLEVUE, WA

Despite the challenging economy and its slow path to recovery, bluLink Solutions continues to see growth year over year. bluLink Solutions sees enormous opportunity in the year ahead and has projected accordingly.

“We started the year off by increasing the size of our delivery team to better meet the demands of our customers. Our pool of rich talent continues to grow, and we are very proud of that.” Says Clint Skullerud, cofounder.

Business partner John Ano, reiterates bluLink Solutions’ passion for its people. “Clint and I believe that in a business like this the people will always be the most important asset. We don’t take shortcuts when it comes to human capital and it shows in our work.”

It’s not a surprise that SharePoint continues to grow across all sizes and facets of business providing new opportunities for bluLink Solutions with each successive year its doors are open. Whether a small ma-and-pa businesses using SharePoint in the cloud for content management, or a large enterprise deploying sophisticated platform solutions, businesses clearly understand the value in connecting people and information, the core at what SharePoint does best.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint 2010, your people can set up Web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.
--Taken from http://sharepoint.microsoft.com

So how will bluLink Solutions fare in 2011? Let’s take a look at what Wall Street has to say from a macro point of view about the year ahead...

The U.S. economy is poised to expand this year at its fastest pace since 2003, helped by strong spending by business and consumers, according to a survey of economists reported Monday in The Wall Street Journal. Many of those surveyed had lifted their economic-growth forecasts because of recent reports suggesting a greater willingness to spend, the report said.

This excerpt titled Consumer, business spending to drive U.S. in 2011 by Chris Oliver of Market Watch, posted on February 14, 2011 paints an optimistic picture for the US economy’s year ahead as do many of the analyst reports coming from Wall Street in early 2011.

Of course Clint and John would like to see businesses begin to loosen the reins on cash reserves in 2011, though they are not betting on Wall Street predictions as the catalyst to their growth this year. Instead, founders Clint and John will continue to grow their customer base by delivering the best of class solutions which in turn drives referral business, leverage creative marketing tactics to expand brand awareness, and strategically partner where it makes sense.

This year bluLink Solutions expects to double its revenues once again. It also expects to continue hiring SharePoint developers throughout the year.

For questions regarding SharePoint opportunities please send mail to info@bluLinkSolutions.com

bluLink Solutions Joins the Seattle Chamber of Commerce
July 30, 2010 BELLEVUE, WA

Joining your local chamber of commerce can be a great channel to new opportunities and sales leads. Networking, as we all know is key to a successful business startup. bluLink Solutions began capitalizing on this valuable networking resource last month when they became corporate members.

“I’m looking forward to meeting new people and becoming acquainted with the many businesses right here in our own backyard. From experience, it’s the networking, it’s the people interaction that lead to new possibilities.” Says Clint Skullerud, co-founder of bluLink Solutions.

The Seattle Chamber has a sizeable footprint in and around the King County region and if tapped can provide an extensible reach to the local business community. Quoted from its website:

Today the Greater Seattle Chamber is the largest and most diverse network of influential business leaders in the Puget Sound region. Our nearly 2,400 member companies represent businesses of all types and sizes and are located throughout the metro area, from Marysville to Tacoma.

As local experts in their field, bluLink Solutions was invited to present at an upcoming Tech Thursday Chamber event. Managing Partners John Ano and Clint Skullerud, will be delivering a presentation on SharePoint 2010 capabilities on October 21st. Check the Chamber events calendar for more details in the coming months.

bluLink Solutions stays connected to their local community through various other channels including the Northwest Entrepreneur Network, local AIIM chapter, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group, Seattle 2.0, and It’s Time for Business, while also attending Puget Sound Business Journal and TechFlash events.

Minority Owned Business in Washington
December 30, 2009 BELLEVUE, WA

In December 2009, bluLink Solutions LLC received its official certification as a minority-owned business by the Washington State Office of Minority and Women's Business Enterprises . This certification is one way of supporting our customers' commitment to diversity in the workforce. Majority owner John Ano has Native Hawaiian ancestry, a key requirement for certification.

bluLink Solutions is expanding its target market to include contract work for the federal and state governments . Certification as a minority-owned business helps bluLink Solutions market its technology services to state and federal government agencies that seek to satisfy goals for bid and procurement participation by minority owned businesses.

“bluLink Solutions is committed to workforce diversity,” says co-founder Clint Skullerud. “As an employer, diversity in the workplace is a great catalyst for new ideas and new ways of thinking that benefits our business and our customers.”

 bluLink Solutions Attending Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009
October 1 2009, Bellevue, WA

Representatives of bluLink Solutions LLC will be attending Microsoft’s SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference takes place on October 19-22, 2009, and is expected to be the first full public unveiling of the feature set for Microsoft’s SharePoint Server 2010.

Clint Skullerud, a co-founder and Managing Partner of bluLink Solutions, is enthusiastic about what the future holds for SharePoint customers. “SharePoint 2010 is going to be great. There’s no doubt. But I’m also excited to hear what the ISV’s are doing to gear up their products for that next wave. I plan to meet with third party solution providers to find compelling offerings we can bring to our own customers.”

bluLink Solutions is a technology services provider specializing in custom SharePoint development for midsize businesses and the enterprise.  To learn more about bluLink Solutions, visit http://www.blulinksolutions.com.

bluLink Solutions is a Registered Microsoft Partner February 2009, Bellevue, WA

bluLink Solutions LLC has joined the Microsoft Partner program as a Registered Microsoft Partner. bluLink Solutions is a technology service provider specializing in SharePoint solution development for midsize businesses and the enterprise. "Our customers get real value from our participation in the Microsoft Partner program. As a Registered Microsoft Partner, we can help customers take advantage of promotions to reduce solution costs, and offer them finance options through Microsoft Financing to get a solution in place faster," states Managing Partner John Ano.

"Being a registered partner is a great benefit to our customers, but that's just our starting point. We're doing things now with certification and services delivery that will soon align us as a Certified Microsoft Partner, giving us the ability to offer our customers even greater value and support,” says Ano.

"We are also looking at relationships with third party providers in areas like cloud services, security, and content management to add value to our services and solutions. Partnering with other providers puts more options on the table for our customers.”

As SharePoint continues to gain market share, the solution space for third party vendors is exploding with options. Building breadth and depth into a solution offering requires time to evaluate products and services before deploying with customers. "We need service providers and other partners that we know can deliver. Take cloud services for example. Since February 2009, we've been using Microsoft Online Services for our own internal IT infrastructure. That service model includes hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and LiveMeeting (now Office Communication Server). The subscription model saved us a lot of money in server build-out and licensing fees, availability is solid, it has a decent feature set, and their helpdesk resolved issues quickly and competently. Now that provider is a known quantity to us that we can confidently recommend to our customers who fit that service subscription model, and the Microsoft Partner program helps us bring that value along with our business solutions.”