MSPmentor

As we all keep our eyes on Hurricane Gustav, our first thoughts turn to the safety and well-being of everyone caught in the storm’s path. In the days ahead, MSPmentor will write about contingency planning, managed services and cloud computing — and their potential role in disaster recovery efforts. But ultimately, we’ll strive not to lose sight of the fact that millions of Americans have been displaced by Gustav.

Stay safe.

Disappointing quarterly results at Dell Inc. dragged down MSPmentor’s SaaS 20 Stock Index for the week ended August 29. The index, which tracks the software as a service industry, fell 2.13% during the week.

The Saas 20 Stock Index’s biggest weekly losers were:

• Dell (DELL, -14.01%)
• SuccessFactors Inc. (SFSF, -8.18%)
• Google (GOOG, -5.56%)
• Amazon.com (AMZN, -5.22%)
• Concur Technology Inc. (CNQR, -4.16%)

The index’s only big weekly winners were Athenahealth Inc. (ATHN, +7.50%) and Salary.com (SLRY, +5.97%).

So, what went wrong at Dell last week and why did the broader SaaS 20 Stock Index suffer? Take a look.

Read More >

Erick Simpson over at MSP University has introduced a new managed services book, titled “The Best I.T. Service Delivery Book Ever.” I haven’t seen it or read it yet. But perhaps he’ll hand me an autographed copy when we meet at MSP Revolution in Chicago?

Attention U.S. business owners and entrepreneurs: We’re heading into a holiday weekend. Employees are already looking at the clock. Your staff has been working overtime to drive growth and improve customer satisfaction amid a mixed economy.

Assuming you don’t have any major customer commitments to fulfill this afternoon, do something smart: Give your staff the afternoon off so they can head home and recharge for September.

Oh, but don’t unplug completely. MSPmentor will be back soon to recap the SaaS 20 Stock Index’s performance for the week ended August 29, 2008.

Managed service provider partner summits are becoming quite the rage. In addition to industry summits hosted by CompTIA, MSPAlliance and MSPSN, the list of vendor-hosted events (ConnectWise Partner Summit, N-able Partner Summit) continues to grow. Do some quick math, and more than 1,000 managed service providers will be attending partner and vendor events this fall. Read More >

Sixty-two percent of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) now use managed IT and telecom services, according to the firm Research and Markets. That sounds impressive, but I’m always a little wary of such big claims about the managed services market. Here’s why. Read More >

If you’re heading to the MSP Revolution managed services summit in Chicago on September 4, you might want to arrive a little early. Stuart Selbst (from Secure My Company) and Matt Makowitz (author, A Guide to Selling Managed Services) are holding a pre-event session titled “How to Add $100k (Or More) In Revenue In the Next 6 Months.” The session runs 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on September 4. Find details here.

A single email from Nimsoft to me has now spiraled into a conversation involving hundreds of readers. What happened? Nimsoft alerted me earlier this week that the company had landed on the Inc. 5000 list, which identifies the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States.

I generally find news releases boring; I’m always looking for another angle. So I poked around the Inc. 5000 and discovered that Nimsoft was part of a bigger trend: Numerous managed services companies and software providers are on the list. And a few of our MSPmentor 100 companies are on the Inc. 5000.

But I suspect hundreds of MSPs missed out on this free opportunity for publicity because they don’t know how to actively promote themselves for zero cost. Here’s how to correct that mistake. Read More >