Frankly, both logos suffer because the concept is not particularly inspired (and has been overdone in the design world, IMHO). That said, the new version does very much one-up the other in execution, though the letterspacing toward the end has been compromised because of the attached letterforms. This throws off the balance significantly. A place to start remedying that issue would be the diagonal stroke on the N, which could certainly stand to be heavier.
I don't know about "professional" and depending on your ideal customer it is hard to say which is better for representing you but I think the new logo is a better "design". When looking at logos I think the following is important:
1) Are you proud of being represented by the logo
2) Who are you trying to appeal to - eg:walmart shoppers or Porsche buyers.
The new one is much better. Clear and crisp. The top one looks like someone played around with Photoshop. Reminds me of the beginning of the web when it was popular to render 3D logos.
One was created by a friend with design skills. The other was created by a design professional with a portfolio of work for some pretty big companies (Chase, Polo etc.).
I think the bottom one would look much better on a dead-tree letterhead, and this is what makes it look professional even if you aren't ever going to do this.