MSPmentor

If you can’t fight them — join them? A growing number of MSPs and VARs seem to be finding cloud success promoting Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps to customers. And old arguments about thin SaaS profit margins and cloud customer billing models seem to quieting down. Why’s that? Here’s the update.

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As the techies in my extended family, the adults in my household are often called upon to provide IT support to everyone else.  (I’m sure you know how this goes.) Sometimes this means long, painful phone calls to a different time zone where a “user,” we’ll call her Grandma, is trying to describe what she sees on her computer screen. Normally we eventually figure out that the problem is that she’s just been typing in the wrong field. Our other IT support volunteer work involves a half-hour car ride to another relative’s house, only to find out that they’d forgotten their password and couldn’t see the password hint. (This relative refers to the desktop tower as the “modem.”)  It is hard to support this kind of user over the phone alone.

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SonicWall CEO Matt Medeiros connected with managed services providers (MSPs) and VARs yesterday, during the HTG Peer Groups gathering in Dallas. But this wasn’t an attempt to pitch MSPs on the Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) buyout of SonicWall. Instead, Medeiros and other industry leaders spoke with HTG members about business and company leadership, a growing theme in the MSP market.

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Things are apparently going well over at IT management platform provider BMC Software (NASDAQ: BMC). The  company today announced that more than 300 enterprises have adopted its cloud-based IT service management solutions. And BMC Remedyforce Service Desk solution has doubled its customer base in less than six months.

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This week’s HTG Peer Groups conference in Dallas will attract several hundred VARs and MSPs. Yes, the usual business management, sales and service discussions will happen. But there’s also a Spouse Track as part of the conference. Why’s that? HTG Peer Groups Founder Arlin Sorensen offered some insights to me over email. Read on for a timely reminder many of us need…

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I’m seated at the Ingram Micro VTN conference in Colorado Springs, Colo. Some impressive cloud statistics for VARs and MSPs just emerged, along with additional highlights from the Ingram team. But what else is going on? Plenty. Here are seven managed services blogs and MSP news stories the MSPmentor team didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending May 4, 2012.

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SMBs plan to adopt server virtualization at a much faster pace than their enterprise peers this year, according to the 2012 Global Disaster Recovery Index from Acronis, a provider of disaster recovery/data protection technology for SMBs. However, potential security risks related to server virtualization, as well as SMB trends relating to cloud computing, offsite backup strategy and downtime, present very tangible opportunities for MSPs.

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IBM (NYSE:IBM) is putting a sharper focus on MSPs recently, recruiting 500 new managed service providers in the last five months alone. The uptick coincides with the appointment of a new channel chief in January as the company’s new CEO Virginia Rometty assembled her own executive team.  Mark Hennessy, IBM’s general manager for the IBM Global Business Partners and Midmarket has spent his career at IBM in a variety of sales roles, and he’s no stranger to the value provided by channel partners. Hennessy told me that he is looking for partners to continue to grow as a percentage of IBM revenues between now and 2015.

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A poolside party at the Kaseya Connect 2012 user conference just wrapped up in Las Vegas. During a few dozen conversations with managed services providers (MSPs) and Kaseya employees, I picked up several more anecdotes worth sharing with the MSPmentor readership. Here’s the update.

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During various meetings at the Kaseya Connect 2012 user conference today, I picked up some key tidbits from managed services providers (MSPs) and cloud services providers (CSPs). Yes, there are CSPs here — and in growing numbers. Here are seven takeaways from today’s conference content in Las Vegas.

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Kaseya now supports roughly 3,300 managed services providers (MSPs) in the United States, but the company wants to grab more of the market while helping MSPs to compete with Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and other giants moving into the market. Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie delivered those messages and described emerging MSP opportunities during a keynote this morning at the Kaseya Connect User Conference in Las Vegas.

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Kaseya is developing several new software initiatives and seeking to re-accelerate the company’s growth after a challenging couple of years involving major software transitions and SaaS launches, sources say. Yes, the company is growing. But not as fast as the go-go years of 2005 through 2009, sources indicate. Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie will share his vision this morning at the Kaseya Connect 2012 user conference in Las Vegas, where more than 600 managed services providers (MSPs) and corporate IT managers have gathered. In the meantime, here’s an insider’s look at Kaseya.

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When the Kaseya Connect 2012 User Conference kicks off this week (May 1-4, Las Vegas), it’s safe to expect the managed services and IT automation event to focus on at least five technology categories for MSPs: (1) Business management and automation software, (2) cloud backup and disaster recovery services, (3) infrastructure management, (4) managed print services and (5) cloud security and managed security services. Here’s a closer look at each category.

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Nimsoft, a CA Technologies company, has hired former Alpheon CEO Greg Donovan as VP of partner enablement. Donovan has extensive experience as a managed services provider (MSP), focusing on the health care customers before selling to Alpeon to mindSHIFT in 2010 (which Best Buy, NYSE: BBY, has since acquired). Now, Donovan will help to empower Nimsoft’s partner base of roughly 500 MSPs.

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BYOD is still a hotly debated enterprise issue between employees and businesses, according to a new survey conducted by email security software as a service provider Mimecast. Forty-seven percent of the IT pros surveyed said consumerization of IT is important to highly important to the enterprise, while 21 percent said BYOD has been a risk to the business.

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Cloud based IT operations management solutions provider Summus Software has announced summer availability for the latest version of Summus IT Management Suite, powered by the company’s Summit Platform 4.0. So what’s new in this update? Summus Software says it delivers an IT contextual dashboard plus enhancements to its incident, service level agreement (SLA), configuration management database and product management.

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The MSPmentor team is preparing to cover a range of technology conferences and managed services events next week — including Kaseya Connect 2012, Ingram Micro VTN, IBM Impact and Tech Data TechSelect. But before we look ahead, let’s look back on the seven managed services blogs and MSP news stories MSPmentor didn’t have time to cover for the week ending April 27, 2012.

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Imagine a world where Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) helps managed services providers (MSPs) to maintain entire hardware infrastructures — mobile devices, PCs, printers, servers and network infrastructure. That’s the opportunity awaiting both Mike Parrottino and Scott Dunsire, two executives who are shifting into key channel leadership roles within HP. Here’s what could be next.

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For the past 18 years, I’ve been a PC, but lately I find myself among the Mac curious. It started simply enough. My colleagues here at Nine Lives Media Inc. seem to all be using Macs, and they seem more relaxed and stress-free than I am. I wonder if there’s a correlation.

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Critics who call President Obama “anti-business” may need to reconsider that assessment in light of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act he signed earlier this month. The bipartisan legislative package is intended to increase capital formation, accelerate the growth of startups and entrepreneurial ventures, and ease the process for privately held SMBs to go public. One of its key measures legalizes “crowdfunding,” or the raising of equity capital from private investors who may not meet SEC accreditation, with certain restrictions.

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Stress is an undeniable fact of the modern workplace, and is often especially felt in the IT world. IT administrators face long hours, multiple demands, unexpected problems, and the knowledge that one small glitch can cause catastrophic results. Add in the fact that IT administrators essentially report to everyone in the company and you have recipe for job burnout and high turnover.

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The Kaseya Connect 2012 User Conference (May 1-4, Las Vegas) is set to attract several hundred managed services providers (MSPs). Kaseya CEO Gerald Blackie (pictured), President Mark Sutherland and the rest of the leadership team will provide technology and business updates to roughly 700 attendees — from MSPs to corporate IT managers. So what questions will MSPmentor raise during the conference? Here are seven them.

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UK-based IT monitoring software provider Opsview has opened a Boston office and introduced an entry-level version of its platform targeted at MSPs.  Opsview also announced an update to Opsview Enterprise, Version 4, that adds dashboard capabilities to the product and could appeal to MSPs who need a multi-tenanted solution to adhere to customers’ service level agreements.

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