I’m not suggesting managed service providers are immune to the economic turmoil, but here’s a piece of good news all MSPs should note: DirectPointe, ranked No. 1 on last year’s MSPmentor 100 list, announced record-setting revenue for its third quarter. How does that compare with other MSPs? Here’s the scoop.
According to DirectPointe President and CEO Michael Proper:
“Tighter economic times create a compelling event to use our services. Business owners are looking for better ways to manage costs and results in all aspects of their business. IT outsourcing is a strong option. As they evaluate IT outsourcing providers, business owners want a trusted partner with staying power, ensuring their managed service provider is stable and will be around for years to come.”
Plenty of MSPs have made similar “positive economic spin” statements to me. But Proper is backing it up by crowing about his revenue growth. That’s smart. As a privately held company, DirectPointe can carefully choose how to disclose its revenue and sales success. During the current economic climate, it’s the perfect time for Proper to tell the world about DirectPointe’s momentum.
The Guy Never Stops
As you may recall, Proper is among the most aggressive MSP industry executives I’ve met. And I mean that in a positive way. I’m also intrigued by DirectPointe because the company has built its business on open source.
Despite the economic turmoil, DirectPointe’s business remains strong. Consider these milestones:
- DirectPointe’s customer base covers all 50 states and 29 countries.
- Q3 revenue reached the highest quarterly mark in DirectPointe’s eight-year history.
- The company’s latest quaterly results involve growing sales to established AND new customers.
- The company’s business model leverages centralization, standardization and economies of scale (in other words: open source on x86). The results, Proper claims, are greater cost savings and reliability than most companies can expect from in-house IT staff or independent IT vendors.
Reality Check
So, are all MSPs enjoying similar success? Certainly not.
I’m starting to hear about small MSPs that are struggling amid the bad economy. And I believe 20 percent of all MSPs will rise to dominate 80 percent of the manged services market — a theme N-able VP Mike Cullen discussed with me last week.
We’re all in for a bumpy ride. But the best MSPs will break away from the pack during these challenging times.
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Tags: | DirectPointe | DirectPointe CEO Michael Proper | Managed Service Provider | Managed Services | MSP | N-able VP Mike Cullen
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Just a word of warning about Directpointe. We have been a customer of theirs for 3 years and their service is not as great as what they make it out to be.
- It typically takes 24 to 48 hours for them to respond to a simple helpdesk ticket.
- They don’t keep our servers updated with the latest security updates so viruses, worms, and hackers can get in and steal our data.
- They limit our Exchange e-mail boxes to an unusable 250MB.
- They lock down so many outbound ports on the firewall that even NTP, SMTP, and VPN ports are blocked. So when we need to VPN out of the network and we have to call them and wait for days to get them to unblock them.
- They oversell equipment to inexperienced customers.
- Most of their employees are college students with no experience and thus they don’t properly implement networks and systems.
- They don’t support new technologies until they have been out for years (i.e. Vista) and even then they don’t test their implementation.
- When your contract expires and you don’t renew it because of the bad service, they just stop answering your phone calls instead of giving you the passwords you need to your own equipment.
Dear Customer: MSPmentor does offer equal time to all parties, but I wish your comment wasn’t anonymous… I will get in touch with DirectPointe for a response but I also wonder: Why did you stick with them for 3 years if you weren’t happy with their service?
Dear DirectPointe Customer,
As you may know I started DirectPointe in 2000 and have moved on to start a new company (on Jan 1st 2009) continuing to focus on simplifying how IT is delivered and managed.
However, after reviewing your comment I find myself sadden by your comments / experience with DirectPointe’s service. That said, I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do (it is your perception, which is your reality and now mine) and I do not blame you for expressing your feelings in this type form of communications “Leave a Comment”. However, I do know via proper communication (i.e. eSupport, escalation, etc.) DirectPointe solves hundreds / thousands of similar issues / requests daily.
Please feel free to contact me anytime, so I can help to properly solve your concerns (directly or in-directly) as they are exactly what DirectPointe can be/should be doing for you and your company. Know I am not actively operating DirectPointe today, however I will help to open the proper communications channels, as I am positive “communicating” will solve your concerns/change your realities. My new office phone number is 801.851.5556 and my email address is mproper[at]centralpointe.com.
I look forward to connecting with you personally apologizing for your experience and helping serve you better!
Michael Proper
PS. Have you had a NPS survey? If so, what was your score (0-10) and was any of your concerns expressed and/or followed up on by a DirectPointe executive (COO, CEO, etc.)?
“simplifying how IT is delivered and managed”
A great statement! “Simplified technology”, makes me giggle on more than 1 level.
Maybe this statement should read, “I’ll do it for a 1/4 of what you used to pay.” A fantastic deal! What I used to pay 100K for, now I can get for 25K??? Sign me up!
What happened to that guy we used to pay 100K for? Remember all that time he invested in himself learning IT so that he would not be one of those “college students with no experience and thus they don’t properly implement networks and systems”. Remember when he spent all those late nights, unpaid, learning new technologies to implement for us? HAHAHA, I cannot believe we valued him so highly. All this time he and his vast knowledge were worth only 1/4 of his salary.
If the return on an investment is continually negative, do not expect one to invest – “They don’t support new technologies until they have been out for years”… In other words, why am I going to learn this new stuff if some guy is going to sneak in behind me and tell the world not to pay me.
CRAZY SITUATION #1 (WHICH OBVIOUSLY COULD NEVER HAPPEN IN OUR SCREWED UP IDEA OF AN ECONOMY) – You lose your job, or receive a pay cut. (I know, crazy right…) What would you get rid of first, the television you own (Although, you probably paid for it on a high interest credit card which you only make the minimum payment on each month), or the monthly cable bill that NEVER ENDS? (btw, I pay monthly for cable with HD & all the premium channels, even Starz.)
Exploiting IT ignorance, undercutting the industry & having no care for how this will affect the economy at a grand level (who cares, all that matters is we just made 25K. Now lets get aggressive and start pushing this to everyone we meet.); not my idea of helping the big picture.
Finally, just so I hold true to my ideals that everyone (including me) is an idiot… HACKERS?!?! Are you serious? Quick story, a kid I knew hacked into his school server and got student records and teacher documents. He only got caught because another student told on him. Sounds like one of those scary hacker kids I heard about in the news. Please take money out of my wallet and protect me from these super intelligent maniacs!… Amazing what a “hacker” can do when a teacher says, “Log in to my PC with the following user name and password. I will be back in 10 minutes.”