The Business Solutions Network

Last week, we featured the results of our RMM (remote monitoring and management) product reviews in our Networking Newsletter and Storage and Managed Services Newsletter. Both newsletters performed better than all of our 2012 Networking and Managed Services newsletters. This has been an exciting confirmation from you, our readers, who first told us in last year's survey that the one change you wanted us to make was adding product reviews to our editorial. As always, we're glad we listened.

With the holidays just behind us, it's the perfect time to start thinking about setting goals for 2013. For the 60% of you (according to CompTIA's research) that still aren't selling managed services, what better time than the present to start thinking about how you can change your business from break-fix to managed services or add managed services as an option for your customers?

5. Five Costly Mistakes IT Service Providers Make When Selling Business Continuity
This white paper, written by BDR (backup and disaster recovery) and BC (business continuity) vendor Datto gets to the heart of the contrast between mere backup and business continuity. The punchline: having your customers' data is stored safely in the cloud, that's nice, but if they can't access it after their local server fails, they're still losing money.

This morning I spoke with Sean Vojtasko, executive VP at BlueWave Computing, LLC, one of the largest MSPs (managed services providers) in the country. I was getting his input on a tech trend article I'm working on, and he mentioned something to me -- almost as an aside -- that I thought was so valuable that I wanted to share it with you right away. 

As the end of the year is quickly approaching, and I'm reflecting back on the nine trade shows, conferences, and events I've attended, plus the many conversations I've had with managed services providers (MSPs) and VARs, I've been thinking about the most important themes I've picked up this year, and I wanted to share one that I think will resonate with a lot of our readers. There's all kinds of research pointing to the fact that the channel is moving from the traditional break-fix business model to a subscription-based recurring revenue model. The sad reality is, however, that even those who now refer to themselves as MSPs, the majority of their customers (more than 80%, according to N-able's research), have yet to buy-in to this new business model. 

Rather than getting caught up in the holiday celebrations of Hanukkah or the upcoming celebration of Christmas this year, many people are instead turning to a more sober topic: the end of the world. What I'm talking about, of course, is the Mayan calendar, which ends on December 21, 2012, and with it an overabundance of sources are speculating this to be the end of the world. Whether the end is coming via rogue planets, asteroids, or solar storms colliding with the earth or shifts in the earth's polarity, doomsayers can't agree -- only on the date is there any consensus. This topic is generating so much buzz, that it's being covered by all major media sources and even NASA scientists created a video trying to address the claims.

Jenaly Technology Group, a managed services provider (MSP) based in Portsmouth, NH, was featured in Business Solutions magazine earlier this year in a cover feature story titled, "Why Now Is The Right Time To Sell Cloud Computing." In the article, Jenaly President MJ Shoer shared his growth strategy for 2012 and beyond, which included starting a cloud services company called TOGL. This joint venture, which comprises Jenaly and 16 other IT solution providers, opened for business on January of this year. I caught up with Shoer recently to find out how his business plans were turning out as we approach the end of 2012.

In the January issue of Business Solutions magazine, we'll feature the results of our first ever product review editorial. The test focused on seven RMM (remote monitoring and management) solutions from the following vendors: Continuum, GFI, Kaseya, LabTech, Level Platforms, N-able, and PacketTrap. While it's true there was no silver bullet winner in every category our testers at Remote Technology Management (RTM) considered, there was a clear underperformer in a key category that led RTM CEO Eric Brown to declare, "This would be a show stopper if we were considering this product for our company." Check out my three-minute video and see for yourself.