MSPmentor

So much for a summer break here in North America. The channel conference machine is preparing to rev its engine again. Some MSPmentor readers are hitting the road over the next few weeks — surfacing at CompTIA Breakaway, HostingCon, VMworld and XChange, among other destinations. But before you head to your local airport here are seven managed services blogs that MSPmentor didn’t have time to write for the week ending July 29, 2011.

7. Message Received… Safely: It sounds like TestudoData (which distributes email and network security solutions) is set to partner up with Reflexion (a fast-growing provider of hosted email security solutions). I’m still poking around for details.

6. One Word, Big Difference: Intronis has quietly changed its tagline from online backup+recovery to cloud backup+recovery. Intronis built a strong managed services partner program even before the tagline change. But it’s clear that cloud continues to influence how storage companies position their brands, products… and search engine optimization.

5. In the House: Speaking of Intronis, co-founder Sam Gutmann is set to attend CompTIA Breakaway. With any luck, it will be the first time I catch up with Gutmann since he transitioned out of the CEO post in 2010. (He remains chairman of Intronis.)

4. Happy Birthday: masterIT, a manged services provider, turns five years old on Sunday, July 30. The company’s top-line revenues are up more than 30 percent this year and bottom-line results will more than double, according to CEO J. Michael Drake. I owe Drake — and dozens of other sources — return phone calls and thank yous for all the business tips they send my way. I’ll be sure to share more thoughts from Drake in a few days.

3. Old News?: A lot of MSPs and data center providers continue to promote their SAS 70 expertise. But I thought the SSAE 16 standard recently replaced SAS 70. Was I wrong?

2. Healthy Discussion: Watch for ETG and other health care MSPs to discuss their business strategies at CompTIA Breakaway. I’ve warned horizontal market MSPs not to go running into vertical markets too quickly. You need real expertise to master a vertical. But ETG can likely share some healthy guidance.

1. Apple in Small Business: As Apple Stores sell more and more hardware and software into small businesses, who exactly is going to manage those SMB deployments for customers? The answer increasingly involves OnForce — the online marketplace for VARs and MSPs. It sounds like Apple continues to work more closely with OnForce to connect SMBs with support services. Still digging for updates on this item.

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• CompTIA Breakaway: Where Cloud Meets Managed Services?