I’m 42 but on some days I still have a lot of growing up to do. When I was 28, I headed to Las Vegas for Comdex even though my wife’s due date with our first son was fast approaching. When I was 30, I spent far too much time at the office trying to save a doomed magazine even as my wife juggled our two young sons. When I was 35, I missed most of my wife’s pregnancy with our third son because I was touring the world moderating CIO conferences.

How Do You Measure Happiness?

The paragraph above reads pretty harshly. My “hard work” paid off in some ways — but in reality my wife has always done the really hard work. And I’ll never get back the lost time with my wife and kids.

I guess I reached my inflection point when my wife’s brother was diagnosed with cancer in 2007. He was 41 at the time. We knew he was sick but he never told us the initial prognosis: Doctors said he had three to six months to live.

My brother in law — Ronnie — was always a bit of a rebel. He never listen to authority. Instead of accepting his doctors’ prognosis he battled cancel for nearly four years. And he spent as much time as possible with my family. Disney World. Hershey Park. Rush Concerts. Van Halen. We did it all. Ronnie was the ultimate uncle to my sons. He waged one hell of a war before dying in October 2010.

Ironically, his battle and death began to teach me how to live.

Phoning In Some Favors

Fast forward to 2012. When my wife’s sister — a.k.a. Ronnie’s sister — went into labor this week I started calling around and canceling my face-to-face meetings, which would have required business travel. Everything shifted to phone conversations.

To my amazement the world didn’t end. Vendors didn’t freak out. Our web traffic didn’t stop. I’ve spent 20 years putting work at the center of my universe. I’m finally discovering the work universe continues spinning right along — just fine — without me.

Special Delivery

I became an uncle for the eighth time on January 18. But this is the first time I got it right and stuck around to celebrate the event. My new niece is named Rosalba Marie. It’s time for me to stop blogging and go visit her.

Thanks for reading MSPmentor, and for reading my occasional rants that have nothing to do with managed services. Have an awesome weekend with your friends and family.

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• Related posts are coming soon

Here’s a look at the year’s newest job listings.

• Service Desk Technician in Nashville, Tenn.
• IT Consultant Level II-III in Denver, Colo.
• System Engineer in Tallahassee, Fla.
• IT Account Manager in New York, N.Y.

The MSPmentor Job Board is free to anyone who would like to post a job or career opportunity — as long as the opportunity is within the managed services, cloud services or IT channel market.

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• Help Wanted: MSP Engineers, Business Development Reps
• Help Wanted: Technology Marketing Pros, Network Engineers
• Help Wanted: Careers Across Managed Services, Cloud Services
• Help Wanted: Customer Service, Sales Reps for MSPs
• Help Wanted: MSP Technology, Business and Sales Leaders

Carver has over 20 years of experience leading managed services operations. He’s worked as a tech engineer for Nortel Networks, held CXO positions for three different technology firms, was the senior vice president of operations for GoRemote (now part of iPass) and was most recently the senior vice president of operations for MegaPath, a major MSP that focus on data, voice and security.

Carver will take over all customer services, internal IT and hosted operations for VirtuOz, which offers intelligent virtual agent services — a hot, growing market. Gartner predicts 50 percent of online customer self-service search will will involve virtual agents at large companies. Cisco Systems Chief Futurist Dave Evans added that virtual agents will be one of the top 10 technologies that will change the world in the next 10 years.

Carver is now one of the main VirtuOz executives charged with capitalizing on the opportunity.

Noell to Lead Alert Logic Expansion

Meanwhile, Noell’s expertise lies in bringing risk management and compliance products and services to the enterprise. He founded and led the governance, risk and compliance solution provider TruArx before it was acquired by ANX eBusiness, a managed network and security service provider. Noell was most recently ANX’s senior VP of product management.

Alert Logic has made it very clear that Noell’s appointment is directly tied to the company’s product expansion plans. Noell will lead product strategy, prioritization and execution plans tied to expanding Alert Logic’s cloud security and compliance solutions.

Meanwhile, SMB managed services veterans also are making career moves. An example: Former Evolve Technologies CEO Dave Sobel is joining Level Platforms as director of partner community, Level Platforms has confirmed. Evolve Technologies was acquired by Network Depot, a neighboring managed services provider in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

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• StrikeForce Signs Network Security Deal with UK-Based MSP
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• Alert Logic Hires Cloud Security Partner Program Leader

Story updated Jan. 10, 2012 at 9:27 p.m. ET. Evolve Technologies was recently acquired by Network Depot, a neighboring managed service provider in the Washington, D.C., area. Sources say Sobel will remain in the Washington, D.C., area and continue to assist the Network Depot-Evolve Technologies integration process while turning his career attention to Level Platforms.

In an email to MSPmentor, Wensley confirmed Sobel’s hiring:

“A formal announcement on Dave’s new role will happen on Thursday. However I can say we are excited about adding new experienced resources to our team that will directly benefit our partners. We have a number of significant product and service announcements that will be announced just prior to our road shows starting February 6… Adding a dedicated resource to work with the partners both individually and as a community will ensure they have continued success. Its going to be a great 2012!”

Sobel standardized Evolve Technologies on Level Platforms’ Managed Workplace software in 2011, and became an outspoken advocate for Level Platforms at the time.

Sobel has extensive experience as a public speaker and moderator, hosting educational sessions at CompTIA conferences and helping HTG Peer Groups to build an MSP- and VAR-centric group in Europe.

Sources say Sobel will now take his talents to Level Platforms, serving as a conduit between Level Platforms’ MSP partner base and the company’s executive team. Sources say an announcement could come within the next few days.

Sobel could not be reached for comment. MSPmentor has also reached out to Level Platforms for comment.

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One story involves Michael Kenwood, founder of Kenwood Technical Consulting in Princeton, N.J. Kenwood, also an emergency responder, died during Hurricane Irene in August 2011. But his tragic story has grown louder across the web in recent weeks, through the work of NYSBS and GFI Software.

Kenwood belonged to NYSBS, an organization that represents nearly 300 IT business owners in the New York Metro area. When Kenwood died, other NYSBS members scrambled to service Kenwood Technical Consulting’s customers on Kenwood’s behalf. But there were some challenges since Kenwood had not documented many of his business processes.

“You can’t walk around with the business in your head,” notes Michael Klein, an executive member of the NYSBS community, in a podcast posted by GFI Software. To help keep a business going amid an executive tragedy, Klein’s podcast tells peer MSPs to document:

• Client names, contacts, phone numbers, user IDs, passwords, and so on.
• Rates and invoicing processes.
• Employees, subcontractors, and key partner information.
• RMM tools in use. In Kenwood’s case, he was running GFI Max.
• Long term, who can you sell your business to? Which brokers can help?
• Make sure your spouse or business partner knows where to find all the information.

I realize this is a human tragedy — and I don’t want to position technology as a miracle solution. But in Kenwood’s case, RMM software played a key role in keeping his business going. GFI Software agreed to waive monthly fees on Kenwood’s account until the NYSBS community could get a really good feel for what Kenwood was managing, his client base, and so on.

Now, Kenwood’s peers and GFI are striving to raise money for Kenwood’s family; he left behind a wife and two-year-old daughter.

Network Technology Solutions

Unfortunately, Kenwood’s story isn’t unique. In October, Scott Mallet, president of Network Technology Solutions, died of an apparent heart attack. Mallet was only 36. HTG Peer Groups, of which Mallet was a member, offered emergency support to NTS. Among the associated business challenges: Making sure NTS’s bank accounts — and therefore payroll, vendor payments, etc. — continued to operate following Mallet’s death.

Small businesses have always struggled with succession planning and executive contingency plans. Heck, even massive companies like Hewlett-Packard have stumbled badly with CEO succession planning.

MSP-centric organizations like HTG Peer Groups and NYSBS have certainly seen the challenges first-hand, and can likely offer peer MSPs some timely guidance on a difficult subject.

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• Arlin Sorensen’s Next Move: Heartland Technology Consultants Preps 2013 Launch

Kaseya develops IT automation software for MSPs and corporate IT departments. Over the past few years, I’ve asked Blackie multiple times if Kaseya (A) will ever raise money or (B) will ever pursue an IPO. Each time, Blackie has offered me the same answer. He notes that Kaseya is privately held, self funded, profitable and has no debt. The company has no plans to pursue outside funding, he’s stated.

But when Kaseya named Anne Huemme CFO and Monica Hoppe executive VP, global human resources, I asked Blackie if the move signaled a change in strategy. He said no. Blackie complimented his former CFO and HR leaders, but said the company made the two executive appointments to reflect the fact that Huemme and Hoppe have experience in larger companies — a key requirement as Kaseya grows.

Generally speaking, I believe Kaseya has pushed beyond 400 employees and is well beyond $100 million in annual revenues, though I haven’t received any rough estimates on those figures in about a year or so.

End of story. For now. Yes, I’ll raise the same strategic questions during the Kaseya Connect 2012 conference. I suspect Blackie will offer up the same answers on strategy. If his reply ever changes we’ll be sure to report it.

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I’ve yet to speak with Kaseya directly (I’m reaching out to them now). But here are some quick perspectives. Updated, 10:53 a.m. eastern, Dec. 1: I’ve just received some additional insights from Gerald Blackie. Find them here. Blackie’s comments address some of the speculation I raised below.

Key Leaders

Huemme has more than 25 years of financial management experience, and 15 years of experience as CFO. She previously was CFO at WebLayers, and she also was CFO of at least two technology companies that were acquired. I believe Coleman White previously was Kaseya’s CFO, though I don’t know his current status with the company.

Meanwhile, Hoppe was previously outside counsel for Kaseya and now has joined Kaseya to oversee the company’s HR processes, benefits and compensation, legal compliance, diversity initiatives, and talent acquisition.

In recent months, some readers have suggested to me that Kaseya may be looking to raise money, and those sources suggest Kaseya has been approached by at least one potential suitor in the past year.

Now, some pundits may speculate that Huemme and Hoppe could help Kaseya to better position the company for a financial event… However, Blackie told MSPmentor earlier this year that Kaseya had no need to raise money and was not looking to sell the company, nor were there any plans for an IPO. The company, Blackie noted, was self funded, debt free and self sufficient. Blackie made the statements to me during the Kaseya Connect User Conference.

I’ll be back with updates if any additional details emerge. Blackie reiterated those views to me a few minutes ago.

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• CompTIA Breakaway 2011: Seven Trends Worth Tracking

Acronis claims to be one of the fastest growing privately held software companies in the United States — though I don’t have access to the company’s financial results. Among the data points worth noting, Acronis has:

• More than 175,000 business customers and over 3 million consumer customers worldwide — served by more than 20,000 partners.
• A channel effort that includes the Acronis MSP partner program.
• A longstanding relationship with Kaseya. Last I heard, the Kaseya Backup 4.0 offering was based on Acronis storage technology. But I need to double-check the relationships status.
• Promoted cross-platform virtualization support for VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, Citrix and Parallels.

Pinchev replaces outgoing CEO Jason Donahue. Acronis did not disclose the reason for the executive change, but the company has navigated executive transitions before. Former Acronis CEO Walter Scott (now head of GFI Software) apparently built Acronis into a $100 million software company before leaving in 2008, according to Wikipedia. I don’t know current annual revenue figures for Acronis.

Who Is Pinchev?

Meanwhile, Acronis gains a talented sales and software executive in Pinchev. He most recently was president of global sales, services and field marketing at Red Hat — which is on track to become the world’s first $1 billion open source company this year. Pinchev spent nine years at Red Hat, which derives roughly 50 to 60 percent of its revenue from channel partners, MSPmentor has heard.

Ilya Zubarev, chairman of the board at Acronis, said in a prepared statement: “We believe that Alex’s strong leadership will accelerate Acronis’ journey to be a global leader in backup & recovery solutions not only for physical servers, but for virtual environments, and into the cloud.”

Generally speaking, I don’t hear much from Acronis; several rival backup companies seem to have higher profiles in the managed services partner ecosystem. But I respect Pinchev’s track record at Red Hat. We’ll be watching to see if or how Pinchev adjusts the Acronis partner strategy in January.

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Noel disclosed his career move in his personal blog, which stated:

“Today I want to tell you about my decision to accept a position with Bradford Networks.

Bradford Networks is a Network Access Control (NAC) provider that is transforming the market by developing and delivering a cloud based NAC solution for the MSP and SMB space. (http://www.bradfordnetworks.com/cloud)

I was fortunate enough to have a real icon in our industry, Amy Luby, ask me to join her in developing this offering for our channel, and I was honored to accept.

I see this as a huge opportunity to provide our partners a service that has been missing from their managed services offerings. It has been missing from their offerings primarily because this service has not been available in a format or price point for this market. Now it is.

I am so excited about this opportunity and I am looking forward to sharing more information about it with all of you.

Network Access Control for MSPs

NAC companies have increasingly targeted MSPs and channel partners in recent months. Amy Luby, who previously built an MSP before assisting Synnex with its managed services partner program, joined Bradford Networks a few weeks ago. During a discussion at IT Nation in November, Luby asserted that Bradford Networks was unique because its NAC offering is truly cloud based and doesn’t require a hodgepodge of on-premise equipment.

Meanwhile, MSPmentor is checking with Autotask to see if Noel will be replaced.

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When Amy Katz and I launched Nine Lives Media (the foundation for MSPmentor) in 2008, we asked each other a lot of questions. One of them was the following: Can our friendship survive a 50-50 business partnership? Both of us openly wondered if we could build a business while also building a friendship. Fast forward to the present and our business partnership and friendship both have evolved dramatically.

Where It All Started

First, some background: Amy and I met back in 1998 while working for an IT magazine — she was in corporate sales and I was running day-to-day editorial operations for a print publication. Over the next decade or so, Amy would extend far beyond sales to become a business innovator. And somehow, I evolved beyond print journalism to piece together websites and online communities. Moreover, Amy and I kept reconnecting in the business market, working on projects together in 2002 and 2003, and then working for a start-up in 2006 and 2007.

So why did Amy and I go into business together? And what can entrepreneurs learn from our experience? I suspect Amy and I have different memories of how Nine Lives started. From what I recall, I was determined to launch some sort of media company. By November 2007 or so, I made it clear to Amy that anything I did would be 10 times more successful if she was involved. By December 2007, we had a handshake agreement in place — she’d oversee business development and I’d over see content development, with sites launching in January 2008.

In early 2008 we took a critical step: We sat down with a lawyer to hammer out a 50-50 partner agreement. It was Amy who broached the subject. At first I was uncomfortable discussing worst-case scenarios — what if one partner wanted to leave the business? What if one of us was incompetent? How could we work out a fair business divorce… if such a need ever surfaced? In retrospect, Amy has made dozens of savvy business moves at Nine Lives. The first one was getting us both to sit down with a lawyer and hammer out that partner agreement.

Common Goals, Different Skills

But before we even sat down with a lawyer, we knew there were clear reasons WHY we should go into business TOGETHER.

1. Clear Skill Sets With Minimal Overlap: I’m an editor and an amateur hacker of sorts, constantly piecing together content and code into community. If pushed, I can help to influence revenue concepts but I’ll never be a sales leader. Amy, on the other hand, is a business leader who understands how to build profitable services that meet customer needs. Amy can have an editorial dialog with the best of ‘em. But content ultimately isn’t her thing. In other words, we understand and respect each other’s roles.

2. Similar Business Ethics: During a breakfast with an MSP earlier this week, the MSP told me about his own business partnership. He mentioned that 98 percent of business decisions are “rubber stamp” decisions. In other words, he and his business partner see eye-to-eye on 98 percent of all strategic decisions. And the decisions always put the customer first. So, 98 percent of decisions are simple formalities: A quick discussion where both business partners already have a shared belief on how to meet a customer’s need. The situation is similar for Amy and me. Generally speaking, we see eye to eye on a range of decisions, and simply get “rubber stamp” approval from each other before moving forward with the actual implementation of a decision.

Still, there’s the 2 percent of business decisions that can be painful to discuss. Big financial decisions. Strategic shifts in the products or services you offer. Those 2 percent of conversations aren’t easy. They’re long and sometimes tiring. But generally speaking, Amy and I have succeeded with those in-depth decisions because:

• We discuss the big decisions together, then noodle them separately for about 24 hours before regrouping to share updated thoughts.
• We’re direct. I never wonder what Amy is thinking. She says it. Gradually over the past three years, I’ve gotten a bit better in this area. I increasingly say what’s on my mind… about life, business, etc.
• We’re human. At the end of the day, Amy and I each have families to go home to. We want Nine Lives Media to continue growing and succeeding. But we each have home lives. That reality helps us to keep business decisions in perspective.

3. Similar Work Ethics: Amy and I basically work until the job is done. We unplug for family commitments. We disappear for family vacations. But when the game is on the line, Amy and I can typically be found emailing each other at some crazy hours.

4. Similar Non-Exit Strategies: This is a big one. Peers often ask Amy and me how we built our “exit strategy” for Nine Lives. (Short answer: What exit?) Yes, Penton Media acquired Nine Lives Media in August 2011. But we didn’t exit. Amy is here, running the Nine Lives business as a division of Penton. I’m here, working on our content strategy. No signs of an exit because we’re happy with the surroundings and committed to Nine Lives.

Over the past three years, Amy and I really didn’t dwell on an “exit” strategy. Instead, I think we focused on a survival strategy.

• How can Nine Lives stay hungry?
• And how can the company march forward if one of us ever had a personal emergency. Or worse: What if one of us died?

That second bullet helps to explain why we partnered up with Penton. We didn’t exit. But we did reduce our risk while gaining big Penton advantages, which I’ve explained before.

5. Similar Conclusions: Generally speaking, Amy and I reach the same conclusions quickly about the people with whom we work. One bad recruit could have completely sunk Nine Lives during its first year or two. But time and time again, we’ve been fortunate to attract the right talent to the Nine Lives table — right from the start (side note: thanks Kim).

Back to The Central Question

Of course, I’ve yet to answer the question raised by the headline: Can friends survive as business partners?

Let me answer the question with a simple phrase: Happy Birthday Amy.

Stated another way: I’m not sure if friends can become good business partners. But I do know business partners can become best friends.

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