MSPmentor

Our team is back home after attending the ConnectWise Partner Summit, HTG Peer Group meetings and Symantec Partner Engage this past week. Now I’m packing and leaving tonight for Cisco Partner Velocity in Paris. In between all that, here are seven managed services blog entries we didn’t have time to write for the week ending Nov. 7, 2009.

7. Big Win?: Autotask says 4,000 Interwork VARs are standardizing on the company’s software. I spotted the news on our own MSPtweet, which includes Autotask’s Twitter feed. I’m traveling the next few days but will reach out to CEO Bob Godgart for more details.

6. More Free Stuff: Level Platforms will soon be talking about some sort of “free” strategy. Notes CEO Peter Sandiford: “The difference is that rather than just giving away free licenses that will never be used we are delivering something much more valuable (more to come).”

If you’ve been following MSPmentor’s blog in recent weeks, you know the Freemium trend has been a central focus.

5. Missing Clouds: Several MSP software companies that have promised big clouds initiatives didn’t promote the efforts in the ConnectWise Partner Summit exhibit halls. Could some clouds be a bit behind schedule? On the other hand, plenty of new faces surfaced at ConnectWise Partner Summit — including PacketTrap among others.

4. Iron Man: ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini is competing today (Nov. 7) in the Iron Man competition. To track his progress using this link. He’s contestant 1954. UPDATE: Bellini finished in 12 hours, 29 minutes.

3. Big Deal: Rumor has it MX Logic (now owned by McAFee) has won a $5 million engagement with AT&T. My sources insist it’s true… I’m still checking…

2. Here Comes A Giant?: Watch out for Salesforce.com. A few names in the know say Salesforce is trying to figure out a way to launch an IT services management system for VARs and MSPs. But would VARs and MSPs welcome the effort?

1. Saving Frustrated Customers: An MSP in Southern California tells me 75 percent of the MSP deals they’re winning involve helping customers who are walking away from failed engagements with peer MSPs. Lots of low-cost, low-quality MSPs are set to implode.

That’s all for now. Watch for several FastChat Video interviews from ConnectWise Partner Summit to surface soon on MSPmentor.

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