Posted January 14th, 2008 by
Peter Sandiford
SaaS (software as a service) and managed services are often mentioned in the same breath as though they were part of some collective goodness, but for many MSPs they have actually been more like mortal enemies.
In fact most MSPs have focused almost exclusively on the bread and butter servers, desktops, networks and applications that reside within the walls of their SMB customers. If SaaS was considered at all it was generally seen as a threat that would hopefully just go away if ignored long enough.
One result is that SaaS vendors have made very little headway in the channel. Selling SaaS has often been viewed by the channel as the equivalent of selling their birthright. With visions of all those shiny servers that have kept them alive through good times and bad for the last 20 years suddenly disappearing off into the cloud.
However, the huge NetSuite IPO (initial public offering) proves that SaaS is not going away. Now even Microsoft’s Small Business Server is being delivered as a hosted service in the cloud. The money is beginning to flow into SMB SaaS and the MSPs need to deal with it. Here’s how. Read More >