Microsoft Training Classes in Pleasanton, California
Learn Microsoft in Pleasanton, California and surrounding areas via our hands-on, expert led courses. All of our classes either are offered on an onsite, online or public instructor led basis. Here is a list of our current Microsoft related training offerings in Pleasanton, California: Microsoft Training
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15 December, 2025 - 19 December, 2025 - See our complete public course listing
Blog Entries publications that: entertain, make you think, offer insight
One of the biggest challenges faced by senior IT professionals in organizations is the choice of the right software vendor. In the highly competitive enterprise software industry, there are lot of vendors who claim to offer the best software for the problem and it can be really daunting to narrow down the best choice. Additionally, enterprise software costs can often run into millions of dollars thereby leaving very little margin of error. The real cost of choosing a wrong software can often result into losses much more than the cost of the software itself as highlighted by software disasters experienced by leading companies like HP, Nike etc. In such a scenario, senior IT professionals despite years of expertise can find it very difficult to choose the right business software vendor for their organization.
Here are some of the proven ways of short-listing and selecting the right business software vendor for your organization,
· Understand and Define The Exact Need First: Before embarking on a journey to select the software vendor, it is critical to understand and define the exact problem you want the software to solve. The paramount question to be asked is what business objective does the software need to solve. Is the software required to “reduce costs” or is it to “improve productivity”? Extracting and defining this fundamental question is the bare minimum but necessary step to go searching for the right vendor. It will then form the basis of comparing multiple vendors on this very need that your organization has and will help drive the selection process going forward. The detailed approach involves creating a set of parameters that the software needs to meet in order to be considered. In fact, consider categorizing these parameters further in “must-haves”, “good to have” etc. which will help you assign relevant weights to these parameter and how the software’s fare on each of these parameters
· Building The List of Vendors Who Meet The Need: Once you have defined your need and distilled that need into various parameters, it’s time to built the list of vendors who you think will meet the need. This is akin to a lead generation model wherein you want to identify a large enough pool and then filters your list down to the best ones. There are multiple ways of building a list of vendors and more often than not, you must use a combination of these methods to build a good enough list.
o Use Industry Reports: We discussed the IT intelligence offered by leading industry firms Gartner and Forrester in How To Keep On Top Of Latest Trends In Information Technology. These firms based on their access to leading software vendors and CIO network publish vendor comparison research reports across specific verticals as well as specific technologies. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and Forrester’s Wave are a very good starting point to get an insight into the best software vendors. For example, if you were looking for a CRM solution, you could look for Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for CRM and look at the vendors that make the list. These reports can be pricey but well worth the money if you are going to invest hundreds of thousands in the software. Having said that, you don’t have to trust these report blindly because how these firms define the best software may not match how you define the best software for your organization
o Competitive Intelligence: If you are a smart professional, you are already keeping tabs of your competition. Chances are that if you are a big organization, you might see a Press Release either from your competitor or their vendor announcing the implementation of new software. Extrapolate that across 5-10 key competitors of yours and you might discover the vendors that your competitors are choosing. This gives you a good indicator that the vendors used by your competitors must be offering something right.
The consulting industry is fiercely competitive and nets between $130B and $150B a year. In fact, professional consultants earn more money than many lawyers, doctors and other professionals.
Offering free consultations is a common way for a software consultant to seize new accounts. But is there a red flag where a consultant may be giving away too many services for free? The worst scenario for a professional software consultant is to offer free services to the client and then never hear from them again once they no longer need their help.
Although having the best intentions, many people will waste a consultant's time (i.e., client ignores or rejects any suggested approaches or solutions given by the consultant and seek the services of someone who will do it cheaper or will attempt to do it themselves). Small business owners especially can be challenging to work with. Some clients have a tendency to jump into projects before having adequate resources to finish what they have started, decide to go in a different direction midstream, while others simply don't want to spend any money when getting professional services. It's hard to believe, but some clients actually expect to receive free services for life. To counteract this notion, a software consultant can draw the line by offering free services within a promotional time frame and then begin charging a fee for services rendered after that time.
A good indicator of what a client's true intentions are is to monitor their activity within a specified period to see if their consultation activity bears fruit in the form of a contract. One big red flag is non-commitment on the part of the client. If they seem indecisive or vague about what they want it may be time to move on. Although there are times when a free consultation results in a paying client years later, who can wait that long?
Less of Your Time is Wasted When You're Upfront
After being burned, some professional software consultants no longer give free consulting. They find that clients are much more willing to follow their advice when they have paid something. In order to close an account, a happy medium can be agreed upon by both parties involved as a way to build a long term relationship with highly qualified prospects.
A software consultant's work, knowledge, skills and time are valuable. They can offer a potential client general solutions instead of addressing specific challenges. If a specific topic of discussion, troubleshooting session or other issue needs to be addressed, the consultant can inform the client of any upfront costs to receive a particular service if they need further assistance. Really, a free software consultation (if one is given) should be presented in a very similar way someone would hand out samples of a product at a grocery store. A professional consultant ideally wants clients to see how they can benefit using their services on a trial basis with a pitch leading to more extensive services which would only be available if they sign a contract with their firm.
Red Flags
Companies have been collecting and analyzing data forever, pretty much.” So what’s really new here? What’s driving the data-analytics revolution and what does it mean for those that choose to postpone or ignore the pivotal role big-data is currently having on productivity and competition globally?
General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt explains it best when stating that “industrial companies are now in the information business—whether they like it or not.” Likewise, digital data is now everywhere, it’s in every industry, in every economy, in every organization and according to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), this topic might once have concerned only a few data geeks, but big data is now relevant for leaders across every sector as well as consumers of products and services.
In light of the new data-driven global landscape and rapid technological advances, the question for senior leaders in companies now is how to integrate new capabilities into their operations and strategies—and position themselves globally where analytics can influence entire industries. An interesting discussion with six of theses senior leaders is covered in MGI’s article, “How companies are using big data and analytics,” providing us with a glimpse into a real-time decision making processes.
Millions of people experienced the frustration and failures of the Obamacare website when it first launched. Because the code for the back end is not open source, the exact technicalities of the initial failings are tricky to determine. Many curious programmers and web designers have had time to examine the open source coding on the front end, however, leading to reasonable conclusions about the nature of the overall difficulties.
Lack of End to End Collaboration
The website was developed with multiple contractors for the front-end and back-end functions. The site also needed to be integrated with insurance companies, IRS servers, Homeland Security servers, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, all of whom had their own legacy systems. The large number of parties involved and the complex nature of the various components naturally complicated the testing and integration of each portion of the project.
The errors displayed, and occasionally the lack thereof, indicated an absence of coordination between the parties developing the separate components. A failed sign up attempt, for instance, often resulted in a page that displayed the header but had no content or failure message. A look at end user requests revealed that the database was unavailable. Clearly, the coding for the front end did not include errors for failures on the back end.
Bloat and the Abundance of Minor Issues
Obviously, numerous bugs were also an issue. The system required users to create passwords that included numbers, for example, but failed to disclose that on the form and in subsequent failure messages, leaving users baffled. In another issue, one of the pages intended to ask users to please wait or call instead, but the message and the phone information were accidentally commented out in the code.
While the front-end design has been cleared of blame for the most serious failures, bloat in the code did contribute to the early difficulties users experienced. The site design was heavy with Javascript and CSS files, and it was peppered with small coding errors that became particularly troublesome when users faced bottlenecks in traffic. Frequent typos throughout the code proved to be an additional embarrassment and were another indication of a troubled development process.
NoSQL Database
The NoSQL database is intended to allow for scalability and flexibility in the architecture of projects that will use it. This made NoSQL a logical choice for the health insurance exchange website. The newness of the technology, however, means personnel with expertise can be elusive. Database-related missteps were more likely the result of a lack of experienced administrators than with the technology itself. The choice of the NoSQL database was thus another complication in the development, but did not itself cause the failures.
Another factor of consequence is that the website was built with both agile and waterfall methodology elements. With agile methods for the front end and the waterfall methodology for the back end, streamlining was naturally going to suffer further difficulties. The disparate contractors, varied methods of software development, and an unrealistically short project time line all contributed to the coding failures of the website.
Tech Life in California
| Company Name | City | Industry | Secondary Industry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mattel, Inc. | El Segundo | Retail | Sporting Goods, Hobby, Book, and Music Stores |
| Spectrum Group International, Inc. | Irvine | Retail | Retail Other |
| Chevron Corp | San Ramon | Energy and Utilities | Gasoline and Oil Refineries |
| Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. | Pasadena | Real Estate and Construction | Construction and Remodeling |
| eBay Inc. | San Jose | Software and Internet | E-commerce and Internet Businesses |
| Broadcom Corporation | Irvine | Computers and Electronics | Semiconductor and Microchip Manufacturing |
| Franklin Templeton Investments | San Mateo | Financial Services | Investment Banking and Venture Capital |
| Pacific Life Insurance Company | Newport Beach | Financial Services | Insurance and Risk Management |
| Tutor Perini Corporation | Sylmar | Real Estate and Construction | Construction and Remodeling |
| SYNNEX Corporation | Fremont | Software and Internet | Data Analytics, Management and Storage |
| Core-Mark International Inc | South San Francisco | Manufacturing | Food and Dairy Product Manufacturing and Packaging |
| Occidental Petroleum Corporation | Los Angeles | Manufacturing | Chemicals and Petrochemicals |
| Yahoo!, Inc. | Sunnyvale | Software and Internet | Software and Internet Other |
| Edison International | Rosemead | Energy and Utilities | Gas and Electric Utilities |
| Ingram Micro, Inc. | Santa Ana | Computers and Electronics | Consumer Electronics, Parts and Repair |
| Safeway, Inc. | Pleasanton | Retail | Grocery and Specialty Food Stores |
| Gilead Sciences, Inc. | San Mateo | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech | Pharmaceuticals |
| AECOM Technology Corporation | Los Angeles | Real Estate and Construction | Architecture,Engineering and Design |
| Reliance Steel and Aluminum | Los Angeles | Manufacturing | Metals Manufacturing |
| Live Nation, Inc. | Beverly Hills | Media and Entertainment | Performing Arts |
| Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. | Sunnyvale | Computers and Electronics | Semiconductor and Microchip Manufacturing |
| Pacific Gas and Electric Corp | San Francisco | Energy and Utilities | Gas and Electric Utilities |
| Electronic Arts Inc. | Redwood City | Software and Internet | Games and Gaming |
| Oracle Corporation | Redwood City | Software and Internet | Software and Internet Other |
| Symantec Corporation | Mountain View | Software and Internet | Data Analytics, Management and Storage |
| Dole Food Company, Inc. | Thousand Oaks | Manufacturing | Food and Dairy Product Manufacturing and Packaging |
| CBRE Group, Inc. | Los Angeles | Real Estate and Construction | Real Estate Investment and Development |
| First American Financial Corporation | Santa Ana | Financial Services | Financial Services Other |
| The Gap, Inc. | San Francisco | Retail | Clothing and Shoes Stores |
| Ross Stores, Inc. | Pleasanton | Retail | Clothing and Shoes Stores |
| Qualcomm Incorporated | San Diego | Telecommunications | Wireless and Mobile |
| Charles Schwab Corporation | San Francisco | Financial Services | Securities Agents and Brokers |
| Sempra Energy | San Diego | Energy and Utilities | Gas and Electric Utilities |
| Western Digital Corporation | Irvine | Computers and Electronics | Consumer Electronics, Parts and Repair |
| Health Net, Inc. | Woodland Hills | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotech Other |
| Allergan, Inc. | Irvine | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech | Biotechnology |
| The Walt Disney Company | Burbank | Media and Entertainment | Motion Picture and Recording Producers |
| Hewlett-Packard Company | Palo Alto | Computers and Electronics | Consumer Electronics, Parts and Repair |
| URS Corporation | San Francisco | Real Estate and Construction | Architecture,Engineering and Design |
| Cisco Systems, Inc. | San Jose | Computers and Electronics | Networking Equipment and Systems |
| Wells Fargo and Company | San Francisco | Financial Services | Banks |
| Intel Corporation | Santa Clara | Computers and Electronics | Semiconductor and Microchip Manufacturing |
| Applied Materials, Inc. | Santa Clara | Computers and Electronics | Semiconductor and Microchip Manufacturing |
| Sanmina Corporation | San Jose | Computers and Electronics | Semiconductor and Microchip Manufacturing |
| Agilent Technologies, Inc. | Santa Clara | Telecommunications | Telecommunications Equipment and Accessories |
| Avery Dennison Corporation | Pasadena | Manufacturing | Paper and Paper Products |
| The Clorox Company | Oakland | Manufacturing | Chemicals and Petrochemicals |
| Apple Inc. | Cupertino | Computers and Electronics | Consumer Electronics, Parts and Repair |
| Amgen Inc | Thousand Oaks | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech | Biotechnology |
| McKesson Corporation | San Francisco | Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech | Pharmaceuticals |
| DIRECTV | El Segundo | Telecommunications | Cable Television Providers |
| Visa, Inc. | San Mateo | Financial Services | Credit Cards and Related Services |
| Google, Inc. | Mountain View | Software and Internet | E-commerce and Internet Businesses |
training details locations, tags and why hsg
The Hartmann Software Group understands these issues and addresses them and others during any training engagement. Although no IT educational institution can guarantee career or application development success, HSG can get you closer to your goals at a far faster rate than self paced learning and, arguably, than the competition. Here are the reasons why we are so successful at teaching:
- Learn from the experts.
- We have provided software development and other IT related training to many major corporations in California since 2002.
- Our educators have years of consulting and training experience; moreover, we require each trainer to have cross-discipline expertise i.e. be Java and .NET experts so that you get a broad understanding of how industry wide experts work and think.
- Discover tips and tricks about Microsoft programming
- Get your questions answered by easy to follow, organized Microsoft experts
- Get up to speed with vital Microsoft programming tools
- Save on travel expenses by learning right from your desk or home office. Enroll in an online instructor led class. Nearly all of our classes are offered in this way.
- Prepare to hit the ground running for a new job or a new position
- See the big picture and have the instructor fill in the gaps
- We teach with sophisticated learning tools and provide excellent supporting course material
- Books and course material are provided in advance
- Get a book of your choice from the HSG Store as a gift from us when you register for a class
- Gain a lot of practical skills in a short amount of time
- We teach what we know…software
- We care…
Interesting Reads Take a class with us and receive a book of your choosing for 50% off MSRP.
