MSPmentor » Asia

Join Us Wednesday: Top 100 Managed Services Provider List

Joe Panettieri — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:06:35 +0000

The fifth-annual MSPmentor 100 — a list of the world’s top 100 managed services providers — will debut during a webcast this Wednesday, Feb. 15. Register now to join us. Here are some hints about what you’ll learn.

1. Managed Services Trends: How fast are the top managed services providers growing? And what services have they introduced? We’ve got the data.

2. The MSPmentor 100, Global Edition: We’ll unveil the complete list of MSPs, including managed services providers from North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and AANZ (Asia, Australia, New Zealand).

3. Analysis: Our confirmed guest experts will include:

Zack Schuler, President and CEO of Calnet Technology Group — an MSPmentor 100 company that has introduced cloud management services.
Tommy Wald, CEO, White Glove Technologies — an MSPmentor 100 company that has mastered mergers and acquisitions.
Jeannine Edwards, Director of Community, ConnectWise — providing perspectives from ConnectWise user groups worldwide.

Schuler, Wald and Edwards will answer your questions throughout the webcast. Note: ConnectWise is the webcast sponsor but the MSPmentor 100 report is vendor-independent research.

4. Deeper Details: Everyone who attends the MSPmentor 100 webcast will automatically receive our complete MSPmentor 100 report PDF — a 22 page document that highlights all of the key companies and trends within the managed services market.

Want more information? Register now for the Webcast. I look forward to unveiling this year’s top 100 managed services providers list on February 15.

Dimension Data Acquires on Xigo En Route to Becoming Full MSP

Nicholas Mukhar — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:07:45 +0000

Dimension Data, an IT solutions and services provider, has acquired the Xigo, a telecom expense management (TEM) solution provider, as part of its broader plan to become a complete managed communications services provider.

According to Dimension Data Group Executive of Global Solutions Steve Joubert, Xigo gives Dimension Data the ability to offer its enterprise customers spend analysis, sourcing, provisioning and invoice processing capabilities. Dimension plans to focus its new TEM offering in the U.S., where Dimension is based and already has a large enterprise customer base. Over time, Dimension plans to expand its TEM offering to other regions.

Dimension has not detailed where it plans to expand its new TEM capabilities next, but we should probably look for such a solution expansion in places like Asia and Australia both regions in which Dimension recently expanded into by acquiring BlueFire and Netforce — two managed services providers that gave Dimension data a broader regional reach and a larger customer base.

“As clients evolve their networks to address globalization, mobile device proliferation, virtualization and the cloud, Xigo will be instrumental to help them implement the most cost-effective roadmaps are architectures for the internal and external communications,” Joubert said in a prepared statement.

There is certainly no shortage of companies looking for TEM solutions these days as a way to have greater control over their expenses. Gartner Inc. predicts that the TEM market will reach $2 billion by 2015.

En route to becoming a full managed communications service provider, Dimension Data has also launched a managed video services offering to help its customers reduce operational costs and improve the overall user video experience. We’ll keep an eye out for Dimension’s next move toward its managed services goal.

eXo 3.5 Multi-Tenancy Targets Cloud, Managed Service Providers

Nicholas Mukhar — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:43:01 +0000

eXo, which develops a content management system, has released eXo 3.5. The multi-tenancy platform could allow managed services providers (MSPs) and cloud services providers (CSPs) to offer customers dedicated portals for content and collaboration, social streams and services, and mobile access. eXo Founder and President Benjamin Mestrallet (pictured) described the strategy to me last week.

“Even though we released eXo 3.0 more recently, we’ve been working on this multi-tenancy feature for the last three years,” Mestrallet said. “It’s not something that can be created overnight.” The multi-tenancy capability in version 3.5 allows cloud service providers and MSPs to deploy the platform in either a public or private cloud environment. It’s a capability that, according to Mestrallet, eXo’s enterprise customers have been asking for.

eXo 3.5 also offers mobile support for Apple iOS and Google Android mobile devices. As a result, mobile users can interact with dashboards, activity streams and other platform capabilities.

eXo has introduced new collaboration tools — including support for Wikis, forums, polls, FAQs and shared calendars. Users can now store, share and organize documents, and integrate more advanced workflows into their existing environments by leveraging eXo 3.5′s enhanced content management features. The platform includes a new search engine optimization (SEO) feature and an inline editing feature so that customers can edit and publish content from the front-end more efficiently. And finally, 3.5 comes with integrated sample sites that customers can use as examples of how to leverage all of the new technology included in eXo UXPaaS 3.5.

Mestrallet said that eXo plans to leverage channel partners to double its enterprise customer base in 2012. eXo currently sells its solution in North America, Europe, Asia and South American.

Mestrallet did not rule out a potential SMB push. MSPs could be a doorway into that market, and Mestrallet hinted that eXo is working on some sort of solution for SMBs. He did not give specifics or a timetable for such a solution.

Webcast: Partner the Right Way on Cloud Backup

Joe Panettieri — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:23:56 +0000

Two top MSPs — Data Storage Corp. and Bumi (Backup My Info!) — and Asigra are set to share their secrets to cloud backup. Their guidance will surface during our Channel Expert Hour webcast on Wednesday, Feb. 8. Join in to learn how you can set your own cloud storage pricing, margins and service level agreements.

Indeed, our guests will describe how they set their own pricing, margins and service level agreements. Both Data Storage Corp. and BUMI partnered with Asigra to build the cloud storage businesses. Now you can learn from each of them. Our confirmed guest speakers include:

Matthew P. Grosso, executive VP, Data Storage Corp.
Jennifer Walzer, CEO, BUMI (Backup My Info! Inc.)
Eran Farajun, Executive VP, Asigra

New SysAid Customer Support Software Available for SMB, Enterprise

Nicholas Mukhar — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:48:50 +0000

SysAid Technologies is wasting no time getting to work with a newly expanded executive team in tow. The IT service management (ITSM) and customer service support (CSS) software provider has released CSS version 3.5 in both an Enterprise Edition format and a Pro Edition format for SMBs.

“The 3.5 release is a result of SysAid’s total commitment to its customers,” SysAid Founder and CEO Israel Lifshitz said in a prepared statement.

CSS 3.5 is designed to give SysAid’s roughly 100,000 software end-users throughout 40 countries a more powerful helpdesk with greater overall control over customer service capabilities. And with two different editions, SysAid customers can now choose which version bets fits their business needs.

The CSS Enterprise Edition license comes with 10 free hours of professional services to help with implementation. It is tailored to larger companies that have more comprehensive helpdesk requirements like process management, advanced customization, LDAP integration and the need to scale up its helpdesk environment.

SysAid’s CSS 3.5 Pro Edition and Enterprise Edition do have many similarities. The software provider has included the mobile self service portal to both editions, which allows customers to contact SysAid’s support staff from and smartphone. The mobile application was included in previous versions but has now been upgraded with more intuitive and easier to read user interface (UI). The self service portals in both editions also have new language translations so that businesses can support end-users internationally. SysAid’s language translation support now includes French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian Hebrew, Portuguese and Chinese. The real difference between the two versions is the ability to scale up with the Enterprise Edition in order to support more customers.

SysAid Expansion Update

Last week we brought you news about SysAid adding two new members to its executive team in order to expand its international presence. At the time SysAid had not given details on where it was looking to expand. SysAid has updated MSPmentor since then, saying that it plans to expand its Australian and Israeli offices and expand its sales efforts in Asia and Latin America.

Sales Proposal and Quoting Software: Can You Compete Without it?

Joe Panettieri — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:49:39 +0000

I’m now convinced that all IT service providers — MSPs, VARs, resellers — need quoting and sales proposals software. Ironically, I reached that conclusion while researching a potential home improvement project. Here’s the back story, and how it shaped my views back in the managed services providers.

My wife and I have spent the past few weeks meeting with home improvement contractors and Home Depot. We may — or may not — remodel our aging kitchen. We’re still weighing the potential project “components” and costs. Call me crazy, but the process reminds me of a potential sales engagement in the managed services market.

Consider these three scenarios:

1. Contractor one is well-spoken and comes with numerous references. His work for some of our neighbors is stellar and he has incredible vision for how our kitchen could be remodeled. But we’ve met this contractor twice and we’ve asked him — multiple times — for a project estimate. He originally told us the sales quote would arrive in two weeks. It has been a month. We’ve yet to see an estimate from him.

2. Contractor two has a well-regarded team — rip-and-replace specialists, plumbers, electricians. We suspect he could handle the entire job. He’s a project manager of sorts and extremely personable, spending considerable time on-site making sure home renovations meet customer expectations. Here again, we’ve asked multiple times for a job quote but we’ve yet to receive one.

3. Contractor three is a tag-team involving Home Depot and a local contractor that is part of Home Depot’s outsourced “service provider” network (no joke). Here’s where things get really interesting:

Home Depot has essentially given us 20 hours of free in-store consulting. A Home Depot employee has sat with us two or three hours per weekend, designing kitchen layouts and then using the layout software to generate a real-time price quote for all the “hardware” (cabinets, etc.). Each time we change a cabinet or a design point, the sales quote is updated dynamically — in real time.
The local contractor, potentially working in combination with Home Depot, visited our house with a laptop. Using (1) our kitchen dimensions, plus (2) some custom requests (from us) plus (3) the Home Depot “hardware” quote, the contractor was able to generate a price quote for us during his first visit to our house. The quote covers installation services.

Also of note: We don’t have any “personal’ experience or “personal” references yet from Home Depot and the contractor, but we’re impressed by what we’ve seen so far. If we work with Home Depot and the associated contractor, all of the cabinet installation would be guaranteed for 25 years. And, the Home Depot service provider network leverages some sort of customer survey — making sure contractors have at least a 90-plus percent approval rating to stay in the service provider network.

Information Technology Projects and Managed Services

Now, apply our home improvement example to the managed services market. As Big Box retailers (Best Buy, Staples, etc.) continue to push into managed services, you can imagine the Home Depot price quoting model taking hold.

First, Best Buy can offer some basic hardware quoting services to small businesses — generating on-the-fly cost estimates for a 25-node small business network running email, for instance. Next, perhaps mindSHIFT — Best Buy’s managed services arm — could further customize the quote to blend in managed services and cloud services.

Get Moving

Where does that hypothetical scenario leave independent MSPs, VARs and IT resellers? The short answer: To compete with the big guys and with entrenched MSP rivals, you’ve got to generate accurate, comprehensive price quotes far more rapidly. It’s not enough to sit down with a customer, offer sound advice and great customer references. You need to follow-up rapidly and seal the deal with a compelling proposal.

That’s where sales proposal and price quoting software enter the picture. Two of the best-known options are Quosal and QuoteWerks. I’ve also heard some buzz about BigMachines, CIS QuoteBuilder, CNet ChannelOnline, QwikQuote and VARStreet (which Autotask recently sold back to VARStreet’s employees).

I wonder: How many incomplete sales proposals are sitting on your desk? And how many of your customers are choosing alternative IT service providers simply because they received a timely price quote?

LogicMonitor Adds New MaaS Features for MSPs

Nicholas Mukhar — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:43:07 +0000

LogicMonitor, the network, hosting and cloud monitoring software provider, has added new features to its Monitoring-as-a-Service (MaaS) solution for managed service providers. The move falls in line with what LogicMonitor CEO Kevin McGibben told me just one week ago about the company expanding its monitoring offering into Asia and further into Europe. A major part of LogicMonitor’s plan, according to McGibben, is to add more MSP customers. Here are more details on LogicMonitor’s first move as part of its regional expansion push.

LogicMonitor is calling its new monitoring solution release a “disruptive InTelligence” solution. It’s aimed at helping businesses avoid network outages and pull more critical and actionable data from their infrastructures. Here’s a quick rundown of the three main new features that LogicMonitor has added:

Geographic Host Mapping lets users find a given host and then launch its Google map location from the LogicMonitor portal. The solution is aimed at companies managing devices in multiple locations and MSPs that maintain equipment at multiple locations.
Built-in support for Juniper Routers, Extreme Routers, Fortinet firewalls, Redis and Zookeeper databases. The new support will help LogicMonitor expand the number of technology products that it offers automated reporting for.
External website monitoring that lets users monitor their web performance from multiple locations. This new feature is still in beta mode and includes synthetic monitoring, meaning IT admins have the freedom to define the steps they want to monitor. And if all of those pre-defined steps are not completed, LogicMonitor will automatically send an email or SMS alert the user.

“Our customers are not only using LogicMonitor to proactively monitor technology infrastructure performance — but to measure and monitor the operational performance of their business,” McGibben said in a prepared statement. “We’re providing Operations, Development teams, and business executives with intelligence to make smarter decisions about their applications, their customers, and the core of their business.”

LogicMonitor plans to roll out the new upgrades to its current customers in about six weeks.

Top Managed Services Providers Grew Revenues 28% in 2011

Joe Panettieri — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:05:53 +0000

MSPmentor 100 companies, representing the world’s top managed services providers, grew their recurring annual revenues to $1.04 billion in 2011, up 28 percent from 2010. Here’s a preliminary look at our fifth-annual MSPmentor 100 survey results.

First, a little background: We’ll unveil the complete MSPmentor 100 global list on February 15 during a webcast. At that time, we’ll also unveil regional lists for North America, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and AANZ (Asia, Australia, New Zealand). And, for the first time, we’ll offer a glimpse at up-and-coming MSPs in Central and South America.

Among the preliminary data points worth noting…

1. For the MSPmentor 100 Global List: The top 100 MSPs managed 2.70 million desktops and mobile devices as of the close of 2011, up from 1.79 million desktops and mobile devices in 2010. But here’s the wild part: Two of the 100 companies are managing 1.8 million of those desktops. Big players are growing fast but we’ll also zero in on small MSPs as part of our report.

2. For the top 250 MSPs in North America: Combined annual recurring revenues topped $1.07 billion in 2011 — up 32 percent from 2010. The number of desktop and mobile devices under management topped 4.2 million in 2011, up from 3.1 million in 2010.

3. For the top 50 MSPs in EMEA: Combined annual recurring revenues were US$191 million in 2011 — up 53 percent from 2010. The number of desktop and mobile devices under management topped 164,000, up 41 percent from 2010.

4. For the top 25 MSPs in AANZ: Combined annual recurring revenues were US$102 million — up 44 percent from 2010. The number of desktop and mobile devices under management was 137,679, up 37 percent from 2010.

But who are the MSPmentor 100 companies? And what about regional honorees from North America, EMEA and AANZ? We’ll share all the details February 15 on our special MSPmentor 100 webcast.

N-able Recaps Managed Services Market Momentum

Joe Panettieri — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:11:57 +0000

It’s not quite an earnings release, but N-able Technologies has offered some anecdotal information to describe the company’s continued momentum in the managed services software market — including key MSP milestones outside of North America.

N-able’s flagship product is N-central, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software platform for MSPs serving SMB customers. Also, N-able helps resellers to promote N-central into mid-market corporate IT departments. The market for RMM software remains fiercely competitive, with roughly a dozen companies serving the industry in various capacities.

N-able Claims

N-able partners now manage more than 59,000 end-user customers, up from 22,000 in January 2010 — a 168 percent increase in the past two years. Also, N-able grew its international partner base in Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the UK, Germany and South Africa by more than 40 percent.

N-able did not disclose actual revenue figures or profit figures; as a privately held company N-able and many of its rivals don’t offer up such figures. But N-able has previously stated that the company is profitable and growing.

How N-able Got Here

N-able’s apparent growth can be traced to several moves. CEO Gavin Garbutt has evangelized a freemium strategy that aims to ensure MSPs pursue 100 percent customer penetration with basic monitoring and security capabilities, while striving to upgrade such customers to paid services over time. In late 2010, N-able also named JP Jauvin president and COO, bolstering the company’s management ranks while VP of Sales Mike Cullen remained on the road to accelerate N-able’s global sales and partner strategy.

N-able has also built or strengthened relationships with Ingram Micro, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), International Business Products Inc. (IBPI), the ASCII Group Inc., the MSPAlliance and NetEnrich. A recent N-able/NetEnrich research report, penned by 2112 Group, described how many MSPs were underpricing their services.

Where is N-able heading next? Garbutt has vowed to keep the company focused purely on the channel — positioning N-central for MSPs, or leveraging MSP and reseller relationships to promote N-central into corporate IT departments.

10 Most Read Managed Services Stories Q1 2011

Joe Panettieri — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:10:44 +0000

Before MSPmentor marches forward with you into 2012, we’re spending this week looking back at the most read managed services stories of 2011. Let’s get started: Here’s a look at the most read MSP stories from Q1, 2011 and their implications for managed services providers.

10. How to Set Managed Services Pricing: Actually, this blog dates back to January 2010 and it offers six tips — from Entrepreneur Magazine — to help MSPs with pricing.

9. Six Surprises Inside the Halls of ConnectWise: When I took a January 2011 trip to ConnectWise’s headquarters, I heard more about ConnectWise’s API strategy and spoke with Co-founders Arnie Bellini and David Bellini about a potential ConnectWise exit strategy.

8. DirectPointe Puts Managed Services Business Up for Sale: MSP M&A activity was fast and furious in Q1 2011. We stumbled onto some documents indicating DirectPointe was up for sale. But come to think of it, I don’t think DirectPointe ever found a buyer for its managed services business — though I need to double-check.

7. Microsoft Office 365 – 10 Frequently Asked Questions: Whether you planned to partner or compete with Microsoft’s cloud, MSPs were eager for information about Office 365. And this FAQ delivered the goods.

6. HP Services, Software — Two Weak Spots In Strong Quarter: Ironically, this is quite an old blog — from February 2010. But it foreshadows the problems that HP would have under CEO Leo Apotheker; HP’s board ultimately replaced Apotheker in September 2011 with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

5. Memo to IT Consulting Shops With One to Five Employees: This guest blog, from Quest Software, helped really small MSPs realize that the could potentially compete with the big boys.

4. Kaseya Takes Managed Services to China: Our growing international readership continually digs for information about managed services in Asia. Hence, this 2009 blog entry remains widely read.

3. Microsoft Targeting July 1 for Office 365 Cloud Launch: MSPmentor was nearly on the mark with this blog entry. Microsoft actually delivered Office 365, the successor to Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) a week earlier.

2. ConnectWise, LabTech War Against Kaseya Intensifies: When MSPmentor started hearing some HTG Peer Groups members were jumping from Kaseya to LabTech, we spotted a bigger trend — though Kaseya has since sharpened its focus on existing and target MSPs as partners.

1. Konica Minolta Buys All Covered: This move, announced in January 2011, triggered a major MSP land grab. Interestingly, All Covered has continued to buy MSPs.

We’ll be back on Wednesday, Dec. 28, to share the 10 most read managed services stories from Q2 2011.

MSPmentor » Asia

Join Us Wednesday: Top 100 Managed Services Provider List

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Dimension Data Acquires on Xigo En Route to Becoming Full MSP

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eXo 3.5 Multi-Tenancy Targets Cloud, Managed Service Providers

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Webcast: Partner the Right Way on Cloud Backup

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New SysAid Customer Support Software Available for SMB, Enterprise

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Sales Proposal and Quoting Software: Can You Compete Without it?

Information Technology Projects and Managed Services

Get Moving

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LogicMonitor Adds New MaaS Features for MSPs

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Top Managed Services Providers Grew Revenues 28% in 2011

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N-able Recaps Managed Services Market Momentum

N-able Claims

How N-able Got Here

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10 Most Read Managed Services Stories Q1 2011

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