But with all associations/organizations (MSPAlliance, MSP Partners, CompTIA, etc.), I suggest MSPs meet with with organization leaders and speak with peers to determine which organizations are the best fit(s) for their needs.

Sorry for the vanilla reply. I’m at a conference and I truly haven’t had time to research your comment more fully.

From the MSPAlliance website, the following text is quoted:

“The MSPAlliance™ is the world’s largest professional association and accrediting body for the Managed Services Industry.”

Operating in Washington, DC, we are surrounded by professional associations and accrediting bodies. The vast majority of these organizations are non-profits, IMHO they are established as non-profits by their members to ensure that they remain dedicated to the needs of their members and progression of their industry.

I see that MSPAlliance.com is owned by IT Alliance Group, Inc. Is IT Alliance Group, Inc DBA MSPAlliance a non-profit organization?

Thank you!

I don’t mind who is backed by who. It’s a competitive world out there and we’ve all got to feed our families, so any innovation/honest advantage anybody can swing is fine by me. So lets get on.

HoundDog takes a pragmatic view, we’ve recently sponsored MSP Mentor and we knew of MSP Mentor’s history, but hey ho, its a great hub for the industry.

My other point is on the point of accreditation! I think there is a drawback … i often think accreditation programs stifle innovation / ideas. It could be argued that(blindly) following accreditation or eating up somebody elses ‘business transformation’ could perhaps remove your competitive advantage ….

I guess i think of these types of things as ‘Painting by numbers’. No doubt that will offend some. Sorry!

Chris Martin
HoundDog Technology
Easy, Affordable Tools for IT Support
http://www.hounddogiseasy.com

As to your request for me to turn over our members’ private emails to you- that would violate our privacy policies and violate the code of ethics that we are sworn to uphold.

But the MSPAlliance made a huge mistake putting out a letter about an alleged accreditation controversy/concern that does not exist. Everybody — and I mean EVERYBODY — knows MSPAlliance wrote the letter in response to MSP Partners’ accreditation move.

Care to debate me on this? I was told directly by an MSPAlliance board member — BEFORE the letter came out — that a potential MSPAlliance letter about MSP Partners accreditation was being drafted. So give me a break, really.

And in the past 24 hours, your association has been reaching out to many of the most influential members of the MSP industry that MSPAlliance alienated in recent years.

Book authors.
Trainers.
Educators.
Community leaders.

People who were told to cease and desist or told they were no longer welcome in the alliance. Why are you reaching out to them now? Did Justin’s word — exclusionary — hit a nerve?

If people step on the MSPAlliance trademarks, you have every right to protect those trademarks. If I make an editorial error, you have every right to demand an immediate correction.

But please do not suggest — directly or indirectly — that the MSPAlliance’s letter was not in direct response to MSP Partners. Your own board member told me it was. It was a thinly veiled attack on MSP Partners, without mentioning them by name in the letter. Period.

I’m now done with this topic. Unless, of course, you’d care to turn over the nearly 1,000 emails and letters you’ve allegedly received from concerned MSPs.

2) We state in the letter that the vendors are an extremely valuable part of the organization. Please note that we have well over 1,000 vendor members in the MSPAlliance- including Level Platforms.

3) Vendor members are not charged any money to join the MSPAlliance. They only pay for accreditation if they choose to pursue it.

4) We’ve not named names or slung any mud here, but we sure took some painful shots.

5) There is NO rival, war or battle between Level Platforms and the MSPAlliance. In fact I had a very pleasant exchange with Peter and members of his team today. They are a member of the MSPAlliance and have exhibited at every single conference we have ever had and will be exhibiting at our conference in Orlando as well.

I would just like to add that we stood by this industry when everyone else abandoned the business model and said that managed services was nothing but a fad. We were mocked by the press and the analyst community, but we did not care, we believed in the model. We worked tirelessly with Lloyd’s of London to convince them that MSPs had a legitimate business model and deserved their own insurance program. We’ve had some members save over 40k per year on their policies! We’ve done a tremendous amount of good for the industry and will continue to stand up for what is right; even if that means that we have to take a few shots.

Open conversation is awesome, but some of this stuff reminds me of the soap opera my wife watches where someone marries the same person 5 times, dies twice, but comes back to life, goes away 5 yrs old, and then comes back 6 months later 22 yrs of age.

2) As for the board- there are NO vendors on the board. They are all MSPs. We do have a vendor advisory committee- but they play no policy or governing role in the MSPA whatsoever.

Thank you Gary for the kind words- we hear so many positive things about Nimsoft and Ken Vanderweel has been such a tremendous asset at our events; always smiling, always courteous and always taking wonderful pictures..thanks for all you do.

PS: It’s time for me to write some new blogs. So I’m going to try and remain silent on the comments boards for a bit.