Managed IT in Richardson for the small firms working next door to the big ones.

IT managed services provider in Richardson, Texas: what an owner-led agreement covers

A managed IT agreement from Cross River Tech covers the whole environment of a Richardson office of roughly five to fifty people: Windows and Mac computers, a server if you have one, the router, firewall, switches and Wi-Fi, printers, desk phones, and Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. I have over 15 years of IT experience across many industries and global organizations, and the point of the agreement is that all of that experience goes into planning your setup and staying your contact, with my team handling the routine monitoring and updates from the same notes, rather than whoever picks up the next ticket.

Included each month:

• Operating system and application updates for computers and servers, scheduled around your hours.
• Unlimited remote support, with onsite visits at no extra charge when remote cannot fix it.
• Antivirus management and email security for every user.
• Managed backup and disaster recovery, tested regularly.
• Management of your internet provider, router, firewall, switches, access points and printers.

Pricing is per user per month or per device per month, month-to-month, cancel anytime, quoted after a short conversation. Small business managed IT in the Dallas market is commonly quoted somewhere around $100 to $175 per user per month, which is a typical market range, not my figure. The difference between per-user and per-device billing matters more in Richardson than in most places, because engineering firms tend to have more machines than people; per-user vs per-device IT pricing explains which one usually saves you money.

Insurance agency IT support in Richardson, TX

Richardson has a lot of insurance offices: independent agencies, captive agents with a couple of staff, small brokerages, and the back-office operations that support larger carriers. Insurance is one of the industries I focus on, and my insurance agency IT page covers it in depth. The Richardson-specific version looks like this.

• Agency management systems. Applied Epic, AMS360, HawkSoft, EZLynx and similar tools are mostly cloud-based now, which means the daily problems are browsers, plug-ins, scanners, e-signature and the rating tools that hang off them. I support all of it and I know which vendor to call when it is their side.
• Carrier portals and multi-factor authentication. Every carrier has its own login rules. I keep passwords, authenticators and browser profiles organized so producers are not locked out during a quote.
• Cybersecurity and compliance. Agencies hold names, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and financial details. Texas has its own data-security and breach-notification rules, and your errors-and-omissions or cyber-insurance carrier will ask you specific questions about multi-factor authentication, backups and email security. I set those things up so the answers are honestly yes, and I document it. This helps you meet the requirements; nobody can promise compliance on your behalf.
• Backups that include the things people forget. Email, the shared drive, the scanned policy documents, and the exports from the agency system. A backup that misses one of those is not a backup.

For agencies with a lot of email-based workflow, Microsoft 365 security for a small business describes the settings I turn on first.

Small businesses in a city full of engineers

Richardson's business owners are often technical people. A former telecom engineer who now runs an eight-person consultancy does not need someone to explain what a subnet is. What they need is someone to take the IT off their plate so they can bill hours instead of patching servers at night, and someone who will not talk down to them or hide behind jargon in the other direction. That is a good fit for me. I explain what I am doing, I share access and documentation rather than holding it hostage, and I am happy to work alongside an owner who wants to stay involved.

The technical businesses here also have real requirements that a general-purpose help desk fumbles: Linux boxes next to Windows machines, developers who need local admin rights, lab equipment on the network, workstations with more cores than a typical office server, and file storage that grows by the terabyte. I handle mixed environments and I size networks and backups for the actual data rather than for a spreadsheet office.

The rest of Richardson, the medical and dental practices near the hospitals, the restaurants and family businesses along Central Expressway, the churches and schools, needs the basics done well: a business-grade firewall, Wi-Fi that covers the building, computers that get patched, email that is protected, and backups that have been tested. My hourly break/fix support is often where those businesses start, at $100 per hour remote and $150 per hour onsite during business hours, before deciding whether a monthly plan makes sense.

Remote first from Dallas, onsite in Richardson by appointment

Richardson is one of the easiest cities for me to reach from Dallas, straight up Central Expressway, with the President George Bush Turnpike crossing the top of the city. That makes appointments easy to place and makes same-day onsite for a real outage very realistic. It does not change the order I work in. Remote first, always, because it is faster for you.

Remotely I handle logins, email, software errors, printers, slow computers, Wi-Fi settings, firewall and switch configuration, updates, monitoring and backups. I install a small agent on each computer and connect only with your permission, and you usually watch the fix on your own screen. Onsite, by appointment, I handle failed hardware, new equipment, cabling and anything that needs a physical presence. Managed clients get those visits at no extra charge when remote cannot fix the issue; hourly clients pay $150 per hour onsite during business hours with a one-hour minimum. I bundle non-urgent onsite tasks into a single visit whenever I can, so you are not paying for three trips when one would do.

Cabling, office moves and second locations in Richardson

Richardson's office buildings range from newer developments around the Bush Turnpike to older office parks along Central Expressway that have been re-tenanted many times. In the older ones, the cabling in the ceiling is usually a museum of every previous occupant. When you take a new suite, I do a walkthrough, trace and label what is usable, and run fresh Cat6 cabling from the IT room to every drop that needs it, terminated, tested and labeled, with the rack, patch panel, switch, firewall and access points set up to match.

For moves, my office relocation service covers planning, internet coordination, cabling in the new suite, disconnecting and reconnecting every computer, phone and printer, and rebuilding the network so the first day back is a normal day. Insurance agencies opening a second office, which happens often as a producer buys a book of business across town, get a second site that shares email, files and phones with the first one and is supported from the same place. IT for an insurance agency opening a second location walks through that in detail.

After-hours IT support in Richardson

Remote support is available 24/7/365, including holidays, and after-hours rates apply. A Richardson agency whose email stops on a Saturday or an engineering firm whose file server dies on a Sunday night calls the same number and reaches me. For hourly clients, after-hours, weekend and holiday work is $150 per hour remote and $225 per hour onsite, one-hour minimum. Managed clients are covered by their agreement with after-hours rates where they apply.

Planned work, which is most after-hours work, is scheduled in advance: server maintenance, migrations to Microsoft 365, firewall replacements and move cutovers all happen when your office is empty. You know when systems go down and when they come back. If something is wrong right now, call (214) 612-7080.

Questions from Richardson businesses