If you've been reading our updates this year, you've seen Proxmox come up again and again, and for good reason: it's becoming the default alternative for businesses leaving VMware behind.

Proxmox Virtual Environment is an open-source server management platform built for enterprise virtualization. It combines a KVM-based hypervisor with Linux containers, software-defined storage, and networking in a single web-based management console, everything most mid-size IT teams need to run virtual machines, containers, clusters, and disaster recovery, without a per-core licensing bill attached to any of it.

That's the part driving adoption right now. Because Proxmox is open-source, there's no licensing cost to migrate, and none to keep running. Costs shift entirely to implementation and ongoing support, which, for ZehnTek clients, already live inside a managed services contract instead of showing up as a surprise renewal every year.

As an Authorized Proxmox Partner, ZehnTek handles the full migration process: an upfront risk analysis to flag which applications might need attention, a rollback plan in case anything goes sideways, and a cutover built around your schedule, not your vendor's.

That's what Gattoni's team ran into when VMware changed its licensing model. Samsungh Healthcare USA develops advanced medical imaging systems, including ultrasound, digital radiography, and CT, and has relied on ZehnTek to support its VMware environment for five years.

Working with ZehnTek, Gattoni's team migrated the company's virtualization environment from VMware to Proxmox, the open-source platform ZehnTek supports as an Authorized Proxmox Partner. ZehnTek ran an upfront risk analysis to flag which applications might run into trouble during the move, helped build a backup plan in case anything went wrong, and managed the cutover in a single weekend.

"The cutover took place on a weekend, and come Monday morning, it was business as usual for our end users," Gattoni says. He rates the project an "A+" compared to other IT initiatives his team has handled.

The result: Samsung Healthcare USA eliminated per-core licensing costs entirely and projects a three-year ROI of 34% from the migration, with no change in day-to-day performance for its end users.

"With a partner like ZehnTek and a solution like Proxmox, we can keep the system running in-house where it's easier to control add-on costs," Gattoni says.

Earlier this year, ZehnTek hosted a live Microsoft 365 Copilot session walking through what Copilot's ecosystem can actually do right now, well past the basic chat interface most people have tried. A few highlights worth revisiting:

• Co-work can run your inbox on a schedule. It categorizes and prioritizes what's in your inbox, drafts replies to the messages you flag, and sorts junk mail, all using your own credentials and permissions rather than just answering questions.
• App Builder puts real apps in non-developers' hands. One attendee built a full governance dashboard from seven spreadsheets in about an hour, with zero coding experience required.
• The Word agent can restructure a document in one request. Starting from a stack of raw meeting minutes, it built an executive summary, a tracked requirements table, and a new recommendations section, all from a single prompt.
• One practical warning from the session: Co-work and custom agents consume Copilot credits separately from your license. A routine process left running unchecked can turn into a surprise bill. Setting per-user or per-agent spending limits from day one is the fix.

ZehnTek also offers a complimentary AI/Copilot readiness assessment, a review of your current environment, licensing, and data landscape, with a roadmap for the next 60 days, 6 months, and 12 months.

AI adoption inside small and mid-size businesses has moved past chatbots. A lot of organizations are already experimenting with AI agents, inside tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot and elsewhere, and the security conversation is starting to catch up. A few numbers worth knowing:

• Global spending on information security is projected to hit $240 billion in 2026, up 12.5% from last year. (Gartner)

• 40% of small and mid-size businesses still have no AI usage policy in place, even as agent adoption grows. (ESET SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026)

• AI-generated phishing emails get a 54% click-through rate, compared to 12% for standard phishing attempts. (Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2025)

None of this means AI agents should be off the table. It means they need the same governance any other piece of software running inside your business gets: visibility into what's connected, limits on what it can access, and monitoring for unusual behavior.