MSPmentor

Hi folks. We’re starting a quick weekly poll to make sure we’re in touch with our growing readership, and to help you get a feel for the key issues and opportunities facing today’s managed service providers. Here’s the first poll.

We’ll follow up each Monday with some quick observations about the poll results, plus we’ll post a new poll for you to weigh in on.

Thanks for participating and best wishes for a successful second quarter with your managed services business.

It was a busy first quarter for the new MSPmentor — and the managed services market as a whole. Overall, we posted more than 150 pieces of content on our Web site in Q1, ranging from news to white papers to the MSPmentor 100.

But what were the hottest managed services topics during the first quarter? Here are six key pieces of info that caught our attention. Feel free to weigh in with your own observations. Read More >

Ben Yarbrough has seen it. Bob Walters has seen it. And now, hundreds of managed service providers are starting to see it. What exactly is “it”? The simple answer: The convergence of open source with managed services.

Yarbrough, CEO of Calyptix Security, is seeking 100 managed service providers to embrace his company’s open source-based security appliance this year. Similarly, Bob Walters, CEO of Untangle, has bet his business on an open source network gateway, which is starting to attract strong interest from MSPs. Read More >

Alas, many managed service providers are tech-centric companies that don’t understand marketing and PR. But instead of rehashing this age-old weakness, let’s focus on the positive: There are some easy ways for managed service providers to generate positive press and media coverage about their companies. Here’s the simplest tip of all.

Read More >

It was inevitable. As Salesforce.com continues to ring up record sales, rivals, startups and even managed service providers are saying they can offer the same quality software as a service — at a lower price.

A case in point: InfoStreet Inc. (www.infostreet.com) has launched a new version of its online CRM application. It targets small businesses, “particularly those which do not wish to spend $65 and up (per user) price of other Web based CRM offerings,” according to an InfoStreet press release. If you didn’t take the hint, InfoStreet was pointing to Salesforce.com pricing, and the company says its SaaS service can be had for about $10 per month per user.

But this is more than a SaaS play. There’s a managed services angle here, too. 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 >

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.)

Whether you attended — or missed — the February 14 Breakfast on Broadway event in New York, you can download Editorial Director Joe Panettieri’s “Managed Services Reality Check” presentation from the MSPmentor Resource Center (registration required).

Within the center, you’ll also find our complete MSPmentor 100 report, and numerous case studies that help VARs embrace managed services. All downloads from the Resource Center are in PDF format.