Cloud vendors, at least the publicly held ones, have been disclosing cloud-centric revenue for a few quarters now. The top line revenue results are helpful, since they chronicle demand for emerging cloud services. But, obviously, it doesn’t say much about the underlying business fundamentals. With that in mind, what metrics should cloud companies use to track financial performance and operational efficiency? How should they keep score? Here are some clues — and some similarity between cloud success metrics, and MSP success metrics.
add a comment
How to Start Measuring Your Cloud Success
Posted March 9th, 2010 by John Moore
Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Arrives
Posted February 1st, 2010 by Joe Panettieri
Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud for independent software vendors and partners, officially debuts with a paid pricing model today. Matt Weinberger offers some timely Azure perspectives over on The VAR Guy. But I’d like to weigh in with a few perspectives for managed services providers — particularly thoughts on Azure vs. Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Here they are.
Cloud Computing: Why MSPs Need A Single Dashboard
Posted December 1st, 2009 by Nimsoft Guest Blog
Service Providers are worried about the future prospects of their current managed service offerings in the face of emerging competition. More and more customer compute dollars could flow toward cloud providers with huge scale advantages like Amazon, Google and Microsoft. I get the concern. But the cloud genie is not going back in the bottle. Here’s how to move forward.
Google: Managed Services Shifting to Applications
Posted November 5th, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
When Google takes the stage at the ConnectWise Partner Summit, channel manager Jeff Ragusa will deliver a key message: The managed services market is poised to expand beyond infrastructure management to application management. Regardless of your stance on Google Apps, Ragusa’s message is dead-on: It’s time for MSPs to figure out their application management strategies.
Amazon Web Services: The Big MSP Disconnect
Posted October 27th, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
Talk about two extremes: Yesterday, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth (the guy behind Ubuntu Linux) said Amazon Web Services has emerged as a de facto cloud standard until open, vendor-neutral cloud standards can be developed. Yet only three percent of MSPs leverage Amazon’s cloud, according to our ongoing MSPmentor 100 survey. What’s behind the disconnect? Here are some thoughts.
Nimsoft Launches Unified Dashboard for On-Premise, Cloud Monitoring
Posted October 20th, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
Nimsoft has launched a Unified Monitoring dashboard (shown above) that allows managed service providers to track the health of on-premise systems and cloud applications — from Google Apps to Salesforce.com. In recent months, several vendors have told me they’re working on similar dashboards but I saw a demo of the Nimsoft offering last week and it seemed to work as advertised. Here are some quick thoughts on the effort.
MSP Cloud Forecast: Varies By Region
Posted October 14th, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
As I travel from one MSP-oriented conference to the next, I’m reminded that there’s more than one way to attack the managed services market. A prime example: As the N-able Partner Summit kicks off here in Arizona, I’m hearing a healthy reality check on cloud computing. Here’s some background.
Learn How to Pitch TCO and Cloud Computing
Posted July 27th, 2009 by John Moore
Managed service providers (MSPs) use a range of tactics to get customers interested in their wares. Savvis Inc. has found a couple of ways to engage customers in managed services discussions: bring up TCO (total cost of ownership) and cloud computing.
Now Open: Managed Services Video Center
Posted July 23rd, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
MSPmentor continues to experiment with video — moving forward with some formats, abandoning others. During the CompTIA Breakaway conference (Aug. 3-6, Las Vegas) we’ll shift our video efforts into overdrive. Our cameras will capture top executives, entrepreneurs and experts from across the MSP industry and the IT channel. In the meantime, here’s a preview of our new MSPmentor FastChat video center. Thanks for your continued feedback.
Zenith Infotech: Cloud And Virtualization Moves Coming
Posted July 22nd, 2009 by Joe Panettieri
During a visit with Zenith Infotech earlier today, VP of Channel Management Maurice Saluan spent a few minutes telling me where the company is heading next. The strategy involves small business, virtualization and cloud computing.
Pure Cloud MSPs: A Near Future Possibility?
Posted June 26th, 2009 by Devanand
Will there be a day when a managed service provider offers every service from the cloud? Before you answer that question consider some recent trends.
Take a look at our 