MSPmentor

There’s nothing like healthy competition to keep a market growing globally. In recent days, managed service platform providers have been busy leapfrogging each other with new announcements about their international efforts and milestones.

Here’s a sampling of the blow-by-blow involving Kaseya, Level Platforms and N-able. Read More >

From Microsoft Corp. to managed service platform providers, everybody is taking aim at small business IT opportunities. But small businesses may not be willing to open their wallets very wide for IT, according to a new survey by CDW Corp.

Overall, the big product reseller said IT decision makers are somewhat more optimistic now than the were in December. CDW offers some deeper details in a press release. But mainstream media companies like Reuters see the glass half empty, reporting that:

Only 30 percent of small U.S. businesses plan to increase technology spending in the next six months compared with about two-thirds of larger companies, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Still, I think CDW and Reuters may have missed the mark, because they didn’t consider key managed services trends. Read More >

The vast majority of successful MSPs say they now offer managed storage services. In most cases, I suspect, those services involve basic backup and restore capabilities. Still, a growing number of industry partnerships could help you leap from “backup” services to “contingency planning” services, which are far more strategic.

A case in point: N-able Technologies and Iron Mountain have inked a partnership that could empower managed service providers with Iron Mountain’s LiveVault server backup service. The relationship comes only a few weeks after EMC and Symantec each said they were launching managed storage services for VARs and customers.

More than 70 percent of leading MSPs already offer some form of managed storage, according to our recent MSPmentor 100 report. In order to stand out from the crowd, a growing number of MSPs are coupling automated storage management with on-site contingency planning and other services. Read More >

Want to run MSPmentor’s latest managed services headlines on your web site? It’s easy. Simply embed our MSPmentor widget on your site. It’s free and only requires a few minutes of effort. Read on, and you can have managed services headlines scrolling across your Web site before your next coffee break. Here’s how.

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A new tool for remotely managing Linux desktops and servers will debut on March 5. At first glance, the tool is for enterprise administrators who want to remotely manage and troubleshoot PCs and servers running Ubuntu Linux. But if you take a closer look, you can imagine the tool — dubbed Landscape — evolving into a potential managed services platform for businesses that embrace open source. Read More >

The same day Microsoft announced its software as a service (SaaS) strategy, some managed service providers are putting their own spin on the hosted Exchange market.

For instance, Azaleos announced a flat-fee offer for midsize companies (up to 1,000 users) seeking to migrate Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise and Pre-2007 Exchange environments to its managed OneStop service.

Aspiring MSPs and established Microsoft partners can learn several key things from the Azaleos strategy. Read More >

Under development now, the MSPmentor 250 will identify the top leaders and innovators shaping the global managed services market. To nominate someone for the MSPmentor 250, simply visit our MSPmentor 250 center.

When you visit the center, you’ll notice that we’ve launched a global map, displaying many of our current nominees (Note: being nominated does not guarantee placement on the final MSPmentor 250 list).

We will publish the official MSPmentor 250 report and global map in July 2008. We expect our final list to include CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, association leaders, entrepreneurs, marketing wizards, sales pros, venture capitalists and other experts shaping the global managed services ecosystem.

For more info about the MSPmentor 250 and to nominate an expert — even yourself — visit our MSPmentor 250 center.

(Note: We’ll begin work on our next MSPmentor 100, which focuses on companies rather than individuals, in September 2008.)

It’s great to know you’re competing in a growing market, but sometimes big-picture hype can distract you from regional and local opportunities.

A prime example: The worldwide managed security market will exceed $4.8 billion by 2013, predicts Global Industry Analysts Inc. Impressive, but the report focuses mainly on Fortune 500-type organizations (AT&T, Cisco Systems, etc.) and their managed security services for massive customers. Read More >