From The Editor: Wanted: Total IT Solutions Providers

By Gennifer Biggs, Security, Storage, and Managed Services Editor, Business Solutions magazine.

Convergence. Collaboration. Unification. It seems the idea that IT is moving from individual industry silos to an integrated solutions industry is getting closer every day. I personally think it started with managed services —the advent of tools and a business model that allowed an IT provider to look into its customers' networks and see and manage all the devices impacting those networks. As those solutions providers got more comfortable with their capabilities, they moved from watching just servers and switches to watching firewalls and laptops. Now, we see enterprise content management (ECM) vendors partnering with IT management software vendors, printer vendors offering managed services tools, server manufacturers rolling out managed servicescentric programs, and managed services providers (MSPs) adding mobile device management to their service level agreements (SLAs).

Used with permission from Business Solutions magazine.