SMB Nation Blog

You remember the Worldwide SMB MVP tour a few years ago. There, a third-party Small Business Server (SBS) migration kit was one of the topics presented to Microsoft Partners. Fast forward the movie a few years and it’s déjà vu all over again. Today, the HP Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Migration Program was launched.

IBM announced the upcoming release of a storage-as-a-service offering on IBM SoftLayer, code named Elastic Storage on Cloud, which provides organizations access to a storage environment that includes SoftLayer bare metal resources and allows movement of data between on-premise infrastructure and the cloud.

This storage-as-a-service offering is especially significant for organizations with high performance computing and analytics, including seismic data processing, credit risk management, and genomics. It gives organizations a way to meet sudden deficiencies in storage capacity without requiring purchase, installation, or management of in-house storage infrastructure.

Today, NETGEAR, Inc. announced the general release of its ReadyRECOVER solution, which is an addition to the company’s ReadyDATA unified storage platform. NETGEAR actually utilizes StorageCraft Technology Corporation’s ShadowProtect technology to ensure an easy-to-use platform for SMBs.

“We’re excited to team with NETGEAR in the development of ReadyRECOVER, leveraging our ShadowProtect backup and recovery software,” said Curt James, StorageCraft’s vice president of marketing and business development. “NETGEAR and StorageCraft have co-engineered an extremely innovative new backup and disaster recovery appliance for SMBs that maximizes business continuity should disaster occur.”

A new strain of ransomware called CryptoWall (and variant CryptoDefense) has picked up where CryptoLocker left off. Hot on the heels of the botnet takedown, which stopped the spread of CryptoLocker (after infecting over 250,000 computers), the Center of Internet Security (CIS) has reported an increase of new CryptoWall malware infections, targeted at Windows systems running Windows 8, 7, XP and Vista. Similarly, this malware takes over systems, restricts access to files and folders, and attempts to extort users for a ransom.

When support for Windows* XP and Microsoft* Office 2003 ended on April 8, a lot of people were left in the lurch. Antiquated, vulnerable computing equipment leaves the business looking equally antiquated and vulnerable, yet investing in new hardware and/or software has dissuaded many business owners from upgrading their systems. Ultimately, as with any investment, it’s ideal to compare your immediate ROI to your future ROI. Spend a chunk of your budget today on technology that will move your business forward tomorrow, or save the money today so that tomorrow you can spend it on damage control.

I recently caught up with Katy Hunter (pictured), long-time Microsoft SMB leader and discussed her role at BING and the Digital Advertising Competency. If you are attending the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference this week in Washington DC, you will want to attend the two relevant sessions (listed below).

There are two ways to interact with the Digital Advertising competency. The first way is to make it part of your service offering. What I liked about that is it allows SMB IT Pros to easily add another arrow to the quiver. As the world turns and we expand beyond the on-premises server solution mindset, I said, why not? That is, why not provide digital advertising services.

Infonetics Research released excerpts from Centralized Signaling and Routing Control Market Outlook, a report which tracks and predicts through 2018 CSRC platform revenue by region.

As mobile broadband traffic continues to grow, so will CSRC. Infonetics forecasts that $282 million will be spent globally on CRSC equipment from 2014 to 2018, much of which will be used for LTE network expansion.

Here’s some of the key stories to help you prep for party small talk WPC this week in Washington, D.C.

IDC: U.S. Q2 PC shipments up almost 7 percent

It would appear that the black cloud that was forecast to rain out the PC market this year has failed to show up on time. Just about every analyst that covers the PC market has been predicting a serious decline in unit shipments, primarily resulting from new technologies (read: “tablets”) entering the space. This serves as a telling reminder that industry analysts, for all their models and research and the alphabet soup on their letter-heads, are little more than TV meteorologists. They take input from a few sources, mix it up and then come up with a prediction. It’s a best guess. According to IDC research (not forecasts, but actual surveys), U.S. Q2 PC shipments were up a whopping seven percent while the global market contracted 1.7 percent – the smallest decline in two years. Credit for this goes to Chromebooks, Windows XP upgrades, and better channel alignment from the OEMs. Hewlett-Packard maintained its lead in the U.S. and second place in the global market. The big winner in the IDC report, however, was Lenovo which extended its lead in the global market to 19.6 percent. These results have prompted IDC to reverse its position on the PC market, which in May it predicted would shrink by 6 percent this year. Now the firm says the market will be flat globally for the year and robust in the U.S.

Okta beefs up its channel program to support cloud-based identity management

Motivated by rising demand for more robust authentication from companies migrating to Office 365 and other cloud platforms, San Francisco-based security vendor Okta is adding support and incentives to its channel program to better position it in the eyes of systems integrators, MSPs and VARs. According to the company the growing adoption of subscription-based services for such functions as CRM, unified communications and collaboration and office applications is driving a demand for comprehensive authentication and password management capabilities such as single sign on. Okta is approaching the market with a hybrid model, expecting about 25 percent of its business coming through the channel. The company has 120 global partners enrolled in its four-tier channel program that provides MDF and tech support resources along with up to 30 percent net margins on sales and 10 percent on referral margins.

CA technologies spins out Arcserve

CA Technologies is spinning out its Arcserve data protection software business – selling it to Marlin Equity Partners, a private equity company, for an undisclosed amount. Through the deal, which is expected to close in July or early August, Arcserve will become a standalone, private company. The new company will be 100 percent channel focused and include a significant number of SMBs in its list of 43,000 customers. CA will focus on its mainframe and large enterprise management business. In May CA unveiled the Arcserve Unified Data Protection strategy, which combines backup, replication, high availability and global deduplication in a single console.

Google offers 2TB of free cloud storage

The latest chapter of the Cloud Wars has Google offering customers two terabytes of free storage on the Google Cloud Platform for a year. This marks Google's first significant response to a number of aggressive object storage price cuts from Amazon and Microsoft. For example, in June Microsoft increased its file storage limit for Office 365 customers from 25GB to 1TB. In order to take advantage of the offer customers have to install cloud gateway software from Campbell, Calif.-based storage vendor – and Google partner – Panzura. Panzura's cloud gateway is a virtual appliance that connects to all three major public clouds (Google Cloud Platform, Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure). Panzura, which until now charged a fee for the gateway, is hoping the move will drive demand for its higher end cloud storage offerings.

We are really excited for our Fall Conference, and we wanted to let you know that our recent webinar, which covers the main conference theme, location and times, is now available for replay!

Check it out below:

Earlier this week, RapidFire Tools, Inc. announced that it has added multi-lingual functionality to its Network Detective IT assessment tool. To be specific, users may now prepare and run reports in Canadian French and Spanish. RapidFire Tools added this functionality after seeing a growing international customer base. Interestingly enough, this growing international trend is something that we have seen as well at SMB Nation.

Hi! It’s Harry here. If you are attending Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Washington DC next week – you are invited to a global trade mission meeting that I’ll be hosting with Microsoft, IAMCP and Professional Options.

Sign up HERE:

Transatlantic Partner Link-Up - Exclusive Meeting at WPC

Constant Contact, Inc. , which offers an online marketing program for SMBs, has chosen Aria Systems’ platform for recurring revenue management to provide a greater variety of pricing, packaging, and billing options to its 600,000 customers.

Trend Micro Incorporated announced it has launched its second annual internship program, which provides work experience in a corporate environment and promotes cyber security education for millennial-generation interns.

Open-Xchange, an open source software developer based in Germany, recently announced a series of major updates to its OX App Suite. Chief among these updates is a redesigned UI, and better integration between the company’s e-mail solution and its productivity software suite (OX Text and OX Spreadsheet).

“There’s an app for that.” We’ve all heard it: the jingoistic catchphrase Apple users have been repeating for years. It’s consumer-oriented marketing drivel, but it’s powerful drivel because it carries more than a grain of truth. It’s also becoming true in the business market as app proliferation spreads exponentially with the addition of hundreds or even thousands of new offerings each year.

The examples are too easy to point out. Which public cloud vendor are you using, Microsoft, Amazon, Google? Or are you going with a smaller vendor or a private cloud or no cloud at all? Which BDR solution do you prefer? Which PSA? Which RMM? Which office productivity package? Which phone system? Which security vendor? There are dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of vendors offering each of these solutions.

Businesses are presented with the ever increasing challenge of selecting the best app for their business, no mean task considering the proliferation of apps that take vertical segmentation to an extreme. That done the challenge is passed along to the IT support team – whether internal or an outsourced service provider like a VAR or MSP – who then has to install and maintain the new solution.

Intermedia  and Osterman Research have released a new study and infographic that highlights the problem for SMBs. The report, “Death by 1000 Cloud Apps,” found that the average SMB is managing more than 14 cloud apps, with an average of 5.5 apps per user. According to the report, this leads to four main problems for SMBs:

Too much choice – Teams can spend months of valuable time vetting and deploying all of these cloud apps, distracting them from their most important goals/responsibilities.

Too much to manage – Once deployed, these apps must be managed, and that time adds up fast; if you have 15 people using the average of 5.5 apps each, that’s 82.5 accounts that will need to be managed on an ongoing basis.

Too many logins – This impacts team productivity outside of IT as well. It takes an average of 20 seconds to login to an app; that means that a 75-person SMB can rack up more than 570 wasted hours and $13,900 per year in lost productivity.

Too much risk – When forced to choose between security and productivity, security usually takes a back seat. This leads to lazy, risky password selections that are easily breached, leaving companies at risk.

“The fundamental issue here is that organizations are losing control over their content and their ability to control applications use,” says Mike Osterman, adding that in many small organizations people download their own apps, creating a bring-your-own-app situation much like the Bring Your Own Device movement that has played havoc with IT infrastructures over the past three years. Osterman calls it “BYOA” (app) or “BYOC” (cloud).

For example, some who needs to share large files might install Dropbox. But what if the person in the next cubicle prefers Google Drive? Or Skydrive? Or SugarSync? Or SpiderOak? Or iCloud? Or LogMeIn Cubby? Or...you get the idea.

While the ability to simply go out, find what you need and use it makes individuals more efficient, it causes serious problems for organizations, says Osterman. “Now if you have to search for that content it’s going to be very difficult. If you have to find content to respond to a lawsuit or maybe an employee has left the company, you can’t find their work. And from a security perspective if you have multiple apps in use, especially doing the same things, you have a lot more attack surface.

“The fundamental issue is that most orgs want to get away from this problem. They want to consolidate on a smaller number of apps. It’s just that they don’t know where to start.”

So how do you address the problem without denying staffers the value offered by the apps in question?

“We recommend that don’t start with a vendor, but rather start with a policy,” counsels Osterman. “Find out what (your staffers) are using and why and then use that to develop a policy that will provide the functionality they need. It starts with sitting down and thinking about the issue in a really cohesive way.”

Another solution is to pass the whole problem off to a vendor like Intermedia, which simplifies app management by doing all the selection, integration and management work for you and provides an all-inclusive service with a single sign-on. The SMB gets a single subscription service which includes most of the major applications – email, conferencing, security, collaboration, telecommunications, etc.

“If you’re a SMB the value we provide is that rather than having to go out to 12 different vendors, negotiate the deal, migrate people, deal with multiple support organizations and multiple control panels, we provide all that in a tightly integrated way. All the apps work with each other,” says Intermedia CEO Michael Gold.

Schneider Electric introduced the APC Back-UPS Connect BGE70, an uninterruptible power supply designed to power small loads for several hours during a power outage.

The BGE70 can charge consumer electronics such as tablets and smartphones during an extended outage, power a connected home hub, and power small loads such as modems, routers, and VoIP phones for about 3.5 hours during an outage.  It also protects devices from damage through voltage spikes or lows, noise or unstable frequencies with a three-battery backup, surge-protected outlets and an easy-to-use reset feature.

Today, Zynstra announced that it has completed an $8.4 million Series B funding round. This brings the total for the company’s first public year to $12.5 million. In a release today, Zynstra representatives explained that this funding will be used primarily to develop the company’s UK programs, as well as branch out into the North American Channel.

My Digital Shield today announced it has raised $500,000 in seed funding from private investors, including Litera Investments.

This funding will help support the growth of MDS, which was founded in 2013 to give SMBs access to enterprise-level security technology that is reasonably priced and easy to install, configure and use.

“This investment will allow us to expand MDS’ security offerings, build out our team, establish more reseller relationships, and grow our sales efforts,” said Andrew Bagrin, founder and chief executive officer of My Digital Shield. “Small businesses cannot afford in-house IT experts or the expensive Internet security solutions currently on the market and designed for the Global 2000. Our mission is to deliver much-needed protection against cyber threats and intrusion to business owners at an affordable and predictable price, helping them protect their brands and foster growth.”

Brother International Corporation and Protected Trust, LLC have partnered to offer a joint solution that includes secure cloud servers, email encryption services, secure hosted exchange services, email archiving services, and disaster recovery services.

Brother traditionally supplies technology such as scanners and all-in-one printers to SMBs and is continuing to develop its IT services to work in conjunction with its hardware and cloud offerings. 

Zenith customers who purchased StorageCraft ShadowProtect licenses through Zenith Infotech have the opportunity to transition to new licenses through July 31 at a discounted rate.

StorageCraft ShadowProtect, a backup software solution, includes products for virtual systems, desktops, laptops, servers, and Microsoft Exchange email systems.

Tigerpaw Software recently announced that it has appointed former AIM Director of Sales and Service, Corey DeJong, as its new Director of Marketing.

“As a user of products like Tigerpaw, I am excited to work with the team, the technology, and the vision, that will continue to move Tigerpaw forward and upward,” said DeJong in a press release. “I’ve seen a lot of companies – vendors, startups, partners – over the course of my years in marketing life, and Tigerpaw is one of a kind. Tigerpaw brings great value to its customers and partners and it’s just continuing to get better at an increased pace.”

Four years later, it’s the same coincidence. The FIFA World Cup final falls on the on the Sunday prior to the start of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (and another coincidence – it’s in Washington DC again!).

So our friends, and yours, at the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners (IAMCP) are hosting a party to watch the game from 2pm – 5:45pm Eastern. Harrybbb will be there cheering for Brazil or Germany (depends on the outcome) with long-time SMB leaders like Steve Hall from District Computers in Washington DC (an IAMCP leader).

Register here: http://www.iamcp-us.org/events/event_details.asp?id=454459&group

Learn more about IAMCP WPC activities here: http://www.iamcp-us.org/?page=WPC2014

Registration Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/358866673

Thursday, July 10, 2014 1:00-2:00 PM PDT

Presented by: Rhett Ryder, VP Business Development, Zynstra and Harry Brelsford, Founder and Chairman, SMB Nation

Webinar to review update from Harry on final leg of his world tour regarding SBS/WS03 migration plus an update on the Zynstra SBS/WS03 Migration and Hybrid Cloud IT product identified in SBS II. Hear how the Zynstra product has been stacking up against the “build your own” versus product approach. Hear what progress has been made and what has been the typical feedback or concerns from the SMB Partner community and how they have been addressed. Plus take part in an open discussion on what the SMB Partner Community would like to 1. ask of Microsoft at the forthcoming World Partner event to help further in this area.

Time stands still for no one. It’s now over 90 days since the April 8, 2014 Windows XP end-of-support. So where are we now? Basically, the migration cadence has accelerated since the April 8^th deadline. There was a surge in this past quarter as people finally took the matter seriously and motivated. SMB IT Pro partners and resellers have been embracing the opportunity, but their enthusiasm and excitement has been somewhat muted – to be brutally honest.

Pictured: Windows XP point-of-sale device seen mid-May 2014 in Dubai on my worldwide tour.

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. today introduced the Ethernet Switch MLAG, which allows hosts to connect to two separate switches with a pair of load balanced bonded interfaces and boosts speed of failure recovery.

Open Ethernet, as many of you may know, gives businesses the ability to choose switch solutions without constraints, separate hardware and software, and more effectively control network resources.

Today, the International Data Corporation (IDC) released the results of its Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker. The analyst firm reported that public cloud services revenue reached $45.7 billion in 2013, with an expected CAGR of 23% through 2018. For those of you not familiar with the IDC Cloud Services Tracker, it monitors the top 80 public cloud service providers across 8 segments worldwide. Today’s results cover the two main components of the public cloud services market: Cloud Software and Cloud Infrastructure.

Cloud Software led the way in 2013 with an 84% share of the public market, according to IDC. For the IDC tracker, Cloud Software included the revenue from SaaS and PaaS applications. On the SaaS side, Salesforce led the way with its CRM software, followed by Intuit and ADP. IDC also reported that this sub segment of the Cloud Software market was driven by ERM solutions, followed by CRM and Collaboration applications. On the PaaS side, leading applications were based in the Integration and Process Automation categories, led by Amazon.com with Microsoft and Salesforce tied for second in 2013 revenue.

Wireless LAN solution provider Extricom Ltd. announced availability of its RP-23ac access point that uses its Channel Blanket architecture to maximize the efficiency and reliability of the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard.

We are gearing up for our Annual Fall Conference!

Read what others are saying!:

“I just wanted to say congratulations on selecting Office 365 as the focus for this year’s SMB Nation. It’s currently something many MSP’s are selling and supporting. I have not sent any of our staff in several years because the content did not seem applicable to our client base or staff. This year we will be sending people from both the sales and tech departments. I think both departments will get value out of the topics that will be covered. I hope others feel the same and you have a successful conference.”
– Gordon Carlisle, BrightWire Networks, LLC, Tumwater, WA

Here are the details:

Event Website and Registration:
http://fall2014.smbnation.com

Dates:
September 26-28, with a Pre-Day on September 25, and a special Post-Conference Bike Ride on September 29

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

Last month I wrote about the huge opportunity that exists for EVERY IT service provider and MSP in the medical and healthcare market . . . selling HIPAA Risk Analyses.

Here’s why this is a target-rich opportunity:

• Prospects must have one annually, or they are breaking the law.
• You can offer a much better risk assessment than your prospects can do themselves.
• You have access to a professional diagnostic and reporting tool that guides you through the complex process, making it much easier.
• You already understand the IT security issues that confound your prospects.

And most importantly, the benefit of your risk analysis far outweighs the cost.

By Bob Vogel B2 Marketing

If you want to really understand the value of performing regular IT assessments for your clients, try doing an assessment on your own network – you might be really surprised at what you find.

Sean Tindall (pictured) is the Chief Technical Officer at Bulletproof InfoTech in Calgary, and he knows what I’m talking about.

At least $310 million is available in a class action settlement to businesses that purchased DRAM, or devices containing DRAM, such as laptops, desktops, servers, graphic cards, video game consoles, MP3 players, printers, PDAs, DVD players, etc. Eligible purchases are those that were made from any entity other than the DRAM manufacturer Defendants in United States at any time between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 2002. (Eligible DRAM types are EDO, FPM, RLDRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, ASYNC AND DDR.)

With the 4^th of July celebrations in the US and Canada Day early in the week north of the border, it was a relatively slow news week in the IT world. That’s par for the course this week every year, as any half decent PR pro knows not to pitch stories they actually want covered. However, business is business and a few things worth noting managed to squeeze out.

MobileIron takes EMM mobile with new tablet apps

Mountain View, California-based MobileIron has released a new app that will make it possible for IT administrators to manage mobile devices from their iOS and Android tablets. MobileIron Insight allows IT admins to view, monitor, and manage deployed devices from their own mobile devices. The new app provides admins with the same kind of flexibility EMM typically provides for mobile employees, giving them the ability to view devices by platform, ownership, carrier and compliance; drill down to device status and configuration data; troubleshoot problems and apply policies. The new app is one of several new capabilities announced by the enterprise mobility management vendor as part of its summer release this week including a new OS platform, data security and ecosystem integration capabilities to the toolbox for IT administrators. Additionally, MobileIron Spaces delivers a new way for IT to set data and task boundaries, to address user privacy issues and deliver flexible delegation of IT responsibilities in MobileIron Core – which adds mobile device management, mobile application management and mobile content management to the MobileIron Platform.

SimpliVity unveils new channel program

Westborough, Mass-based SimpliVity took the wrappers off its new and improved channel program this week. The hyper-converged infrastructure solution developer hopes SimpliVity PartnerAdvantage will help scale up business as more vendors make significant moves in the immature market – including Nutanix, which signed an OEM agreement with Dell last week. According to the company, the new program builds on a previous channel partner program with new benefits and streamlined processes. Hyper-converged infrastructure is a software stack which includes is set of resources such as computing, storage, networking, virtualization and others running on commodity hardware. This gives users a solution that is managed holistically rather than through individual management systems/interfaces.

Ingram Micro acquires Rollouts

In the first major move since it announced it was rebranding to broaden its focus to place more emphasis on services, Santa Ana, Calif.-based Ingram Micro added IT services capacity with the acquisition of Chaska, Minn.-based IT services company Rollouts. Rollouts specializes in providing the engineering and technical support to execute big projects and manage cost-effective solutions delivery. To this end the company maintains a network of more than 15,000 technicians, a project management team and a project tracking tool. According to Ingram Micro the acquisition will help provide partners with the value-add professional services they need to be successful, especially in vertical markets like retail, health care, finance, education and the public sector where Rollouts has particular expertise. “Adding Rollouts' proven and highly scalable workforce and project management services to our professional services portfolio will further enable our channel partners to pursue larger deals with confidence and look to Ingram Micro Professional Services as an extension of their own IT services practice,” said Paul Bay, president, North America Technology Solutions at Ingram Micro, in a statement. Rollouts will become part of Ingram Micro Professional Services.

Germany cancels Verizon contract over NSA spying

The fallout from the NSA spying scandal continued as the German government announced it will end a long-running contract with New York-based Verizon citing concerns that the company is facilitating NSA eavesdropping. The decision, announced late last week by the Germans Interior Ministry, kills a relationship through which Verizon has provided telecommunications services to several German government agencies since 2010. A report from the Associated Press suggests that Germany was already reviewing its contract with Verizon when reports surfaced indicating the U.S. government had focussed intelligence gathering efforts on German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed officials to drop the contract completely. Many US companies have seen their overseas business damaged by the scandal prompting the likes of Cisco CEO John Chambers and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to call on the government to change the way the NSA is operating.

New York metro telecom provider Lightpath expanded its portfolio of managed service offerings with Lightpath Video Conference, a cloud-based service that provides virtual meeting rooms and managed video services.

Lightpath Video Conference allows mid-market and large businesses to conference and connect with up to 25 attendees worldwide on most devices. It is a fully-managed service that provides an end-to-end feature set that includes system design and installation, virtual meeting room services that support either new or existing equipment, access to a 24/7 helpdesk, and optional proactive monitoring.

Investing in mobile devices is a necessary, yet serious expense for many small businesses. With work happening in and out of the office (if a traditional office even exists), entrepreneurs need devices that can be used for several tasks throughout any given day. To help find the best tools for the job, we’ll highlight the four different types available in the market today, with some examples of models that may pair best with your organization.

Tablets

Small, lightweight and with a touch interface, tablets are the ultimate on-the-go devices, ideal for quick updates on email, social media, and other channels. Plus, tablets are great for sales personnel who need to show customers presentations, product demos, price sheets, and other materials in a highly interactive fashion. Some business-level tablets include:

Earlier this week, GoDaddy released the latest addition to its technology offerings for small businesses. The Get Paid solution is designed to help small businesses collect and manage payments from clients from anywhere, and is based on two main trends in the small business arena: Mobility and e-payments.

I was able to speak with Steven Aldrich, GoDaddy’s SVP of Applications this week, and he went into detail about the two trends listed above. Primarily, he told me that more and more businesses, particularly in the “S” space, are doing business on the go. This means that not only is the actual work being performed at the customer site, but that the business owner often has to complete various other business duties while away from the office. This includes finances, and making sure that all payment is received for work completed. To compound on this, many SMB customers are preferring to pay electronically.

Red Hat, Inc. announced cloud management certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. This allows partners’ cloud management solutions to manage and interoperate with Red Hat Linux OpenStack Platform and assures Red Hat customers that OpenStack-based clouds and management solutions have been thoroughly tested and are supported by Red Hat and its partners.

By now, most of us in running small or medium businesses know a little about the magic that makes certain websites appear at the top of search engines when we type in terms such as "local shoe shops" Best dishwasher" or even “smartphone reviews” online?

And we know that getting to the top of these coveted search engine results pages (SERPs) is far more than a game of chance. But as a small business owner, do you know any of the tricks that will get you there?

Well let's look at the two main strategies for affecting your website’s SERP ranking and different situations for employing both.

It is SEO and keywords that make the difference between being top of the engines or relegated to page 3. But as with most things in life, money makes the real difference. The top slots are reserved for companies that pay top dollar. These are paid searches. The others are ranked organically thanks to carefully SEO campaigns, clever use of key words and great word of mouth.

tw telecom inc. announced it was selected as the recipient of seven ATLANTIC-ACM North American Business Connectivity awards. The Colorado-based Business Ethernet and networking solutions provider was awarded: Large Service Provider Brand, Sales Reps, Provisioning, Network Performance, Customer Service, Voice Value, and Data Value.

Unitrends announced its hybrid cloud Disaster Recovery as a Service offering that can recover entire IT infrastructures within hours of a disaster.

This new DRaaS offering allows customers to backup virtual and physical environments on-site with continuous replication of data, systems, and applications to the cloud through No Limits Cloud storage. If a disaster or failure occurs, live virtual machines and physical systems are instantly created within the same cloud to recover all IT infrastructure, preventing downtime and ensuring business continuity.

By Raymond Vrabel, Director, Technical Account Management, Continuum Managed IT Services

Part 5 of a monthly blog series examining tips on how MSPs can work to break “bad” business habits that they might unknowingly fall into as a result of just wanting to get things done.

In the previous installment of “Breaking Bad,” I discussed “How to Choose the Right Vendor Relationships.” In this month’s blog, I offer tips and advice on how to provide a mid-year assessment on the health and wealth of your business. A mid-year physical or check-up helps you and your staff avoid scrambling at the last minute at the end of the year. December will be here before we know it, so here are a few tips to help you get started now:

Zendesk, Inc. introduced customer service analytics tool Insights, which offers analytics capabilities for organizations to better understand their customer service interactions managed through its cloud-based customer service platform.   Zendesk urges organizations to use Insights to gain greater context, understand organization-customer interactions, and drive focused change.

Insights is designed to deliver simple visualizations and reports to allow organizations to measure the effectiveness of their customer support as well as compare their support to more than 23,000 industry peers and interpret interactions with customers.

Your weekly round-up of the IT channel news you don’t want to miss.

AppDirect adds mobile functionality

San Francisco-based AppDirect announced it will be extending its white label cloud marketplace and management solution to mobile devices. The pure-play cloud services company sells MSPs and VARs a platform that helps them – and their customers – cut through the noise and clear up some of the market confusion arising as more and more *-as-a-Service offerings emerge. Just a few short years ago there were only a few hundred cloud applications, but today there are thousands, with thousands more coming. The new capabilities support the intersection of cloud with another major tech trend – mobility (and BYOD). Going forward users will be able to find, purchase and access apps both through the platform and through their mobile devices. AppDirect has also added several features aimed at MDM vendors, including license management.

Reminder: New Canadian anti-SPAM law takes effect July 1^st

If you haven’t reached out to an Canadians on your contact lists to secure permission to continue contacting them you are almost out of time. A new Canadian law aimed at thinning the flow of unsolicited SPAM will go into effect July 1^st (Canada Day). Under the new regulation, which applies to email, SMS text messages, instant messages and any other electronic communication, messages much include an "opt-out" option, clearly identify the sender and have a valid return mailing address and contact information. Violators could face fines as high as $10 million. While the comparable U.S. laws haven’t been enforced and are thus often ignored, vendors should take the Canadian regulation seriously. Not that long ago the Canadian government laid numerous punitive fines against telemarketers for violating the country’s Do-Not-Call registry and it’s reasonable to assume that the anti-SPAM law will be enforced with similar vigor. This leads to a decent opportunity for service providers as organizations will need to update their messaging systems while many companies – specially smaller SMBs – are going to need to employ more sophisticated CRM solutions than they currently use.

Mitel restructures North American partner program

Mitel partners are currently ranked and rewarded strictly based on the revenue they generate for the unified communications vendor, but that is going to change in early July. The new program will have three separate tracks – for solution providers/VARs, carrier and cloud provider partners. Partners in the solution provider/VAR track, which will include partners who sell Mitel’s on-prem and cloud-based UC offerings, will be segmented into four categories: Authorized, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Partners will be ranked based on a combination of the number of Mitel certifications they hold and the amount of revenue they generate. As one would expect, partner discounts and resources increase at each progressive tier.

Trend revamps partner program with new tiers and incentives

Like Mitel, Trend Micro is also planning a revamp of its global partner program. Driven by competitive pressures from Intel Security (formerly McAfee), Symantec and IBM, which acquired Trusteer for $1 billion last year, the Tokyo-based security vendor has been reworking its market approach to emphasise the SMB channel, including the simplification of its product lines for the SMB market. The new set up, which will be rolled out throughout 2015, will standardize branding, naming, revenue requirements, benefits and will be supported through a new partner portal, simplified training for sales and technical engineers, and incentives that will be applied to partners regardless of geographic location. Under the new plan, Trend Micro will rely more heavily on regional distributors for program management and channel recruiting. A new tier system is being introduced and – possibly most interesting to partners, an up-front discount of 40 points for VARs carrying Trend’s SMB products.

Carbonite releases new hybrid backup appliance for SMB

Carbonite Inc. has released a new hybrid backup solution aimed at small businesses. The Carbonite Appliance HT10 promises to deliver the high speed of local backup but with the increased reliability of a cloud model. The new Appliance makes it possible for partners to deliver centrally-managed local and cloud data backup services. Because the device is managed entirely by the solution provider, it demands increased interaction between the client and the MSP, giving them the opportunity for increased touches and thus, increased intimacy with their customers. You can find out more about the new device at www.carbonite.com/hybrid-backup/how-it-works or, if you are attending Microsoft WPC, by visiting the Carbonite booth.

D&H adds Cisco's Meraki Wi-Fi to line-up

D&H Distributing has added Cisco's Meraki cloud-managed wireless technology to its portfolio. The Meraki portfolio – which was acquired by Cisco in 2012 for $1.2 billion – has been popular with Cisco partners, enabling them to turn wireless access infrastructure sales into opportunities for recurring revenue. According to D&H, the addition of Meraki to its lineup of Cisco offerings will be particularly beneficial to Cisco partners focused on SMBs extend their cloud services practices. D&H is planning a series of Meraki training webinars for resellers over the coming months.

This past Thursday, I was lucky enough to be the SMB Nation representative at the D&H Distributing Mid-Atlantic Summer Show in Hershey, PA. Although I am not new to the trade show experience, having worked at a few of our own shows as event staff, the exhibitor side was a new view of the event portrait for me. So I am giving my highlights below to you today, as I report from my family’s home in Northern VA.

The word “holistic” has turned into one of those phrases that marketers overuse, kind of like the unfortunate predilection so many have for using “leverage” as a verb – only in the latter case not only are they overusing the term, but they are grammatically incorrect too. “Holistic” is one of those Kumbayah words that tells us that we are all going to come together and life will be better through that unification.

In IT, a fractured field rife with systems and platforms that won’t work together without major integration efforts – and sometimes not even then – the application is obvious and the proffered benefits very real. So many offerings have fallen short though.

This week Santa Clara, CA-based NComputing released oneSpace, a new desktop solution that promises to empower the IT team to both unify and securely deliver applications and files and to extend them as a service to a variety of devices, including iPad and Android tablets – an endeavor that tends to be particularly complicated.

“End user performance and experience is paramount to our mobile computing strategy,” said Glen Nakashoji, Manager of Information Technology, Northeastern Catholic District School Board, in a statement.

According to the company, NComputing oneSpace is designed specifically for the needs of SMBs with delivery available in either on-prem or pure cloud (hosted by NComputing) models that obviate the need for forklift infrastructure upgrades, data migration, application re-writing, deep IT budgets, or a significant impact on IT staff for implementation and management. Also appealing to SMBs: pricing starts at less than a dollar per day per user.

Having evaluated oneSpace, Nakoshi says it will enable his organization to package and extend key solutions and services including Windows applications, cloud based services and existing file shares to a variety of mobile devices, including Windows Laptops, Tablets and Apple iPad. “Our ultimate goal is to establish a centralized application and virtual space that can be accessed at the point of learning by our students.”

Paul Collins, Associate Vice President of Technology, Adler School of Professional Psychology, is looking to solve similar problems and was one of the beta testers for the new solution.

“As a higher education institution, we have a large percentage of our students that are spread across two campuses in the USA and Canada bringing their own personal computing devices,” said Collins in a statement.

Collins says the new solution allows Adler to deliver “expanded access to both applications and data to these personal devices, including iPad and Android tablets, without compromising on security.”

To drive early adoption, NComputing is offering a number of programs including an introductory Production Pilot that promises will get users started with either version of oneSpace in one day and a free 30-day trial.

The oneSpace pilot allows customers to quickly provision a standard set of productivity applications, and both on-premises and cloud file shares to their end users on iPad and Android tablets. NComputing is offering free support during the Production Pilot for the one day onboarding process.

The trial provides access to the oneSpace cloud trial service from iPad and Android tablets and includes a standard set of Windows, web and SaaS applications and access to both Windows and cloud file shares. You can find out more at http://www.ncomputing.com/products/onespace.

SMB Nation’s proud tradition of hosting a beerfest reception continues at the upcoming Microsoft Worldwide Partner (WPC) conference in Washington DC. The reception, sponsored by Zynstra and eFolder, is Sunday, July 13^th from 7:30pm – 9:30pm.

Why attend?

Simply stated – it’s to drive community in a casual environment. SMB IT Pros from all walks of life can share and collaborate. It’s been a very popular format.

Who should attend?

Anyone with an interest in SMB technology and solutions. You CAN ATTEND even if you are not attending the full WPC conference. This is your chance to “touch” WPC from the outside and gather with your friends.

More information: https://clicktoattend.microsoft.com/en-us/Pages/EventDetails.aspx?EventID=193051

Call SMB Nation at 206-201-2943 with any questions.

See you there!

HP announced the new HP 5400R zl2 Switch Series, which is intended to help businesses make the switch from legacy network infrastructure to software-defined networks to enhance performance.

Legacy network infrastructure’s complexity and limitations on performance make it ineffective and outdated when compared to SDN infrastructure. SDN offers flexibility that allow organizations to implement new applications, provide quality service for end users, and align network activity with bottom-line goals. One of the most important features of SDN is that it has open standards that allow customers to avoid vendor lock-in; as many of you know, vendor-lock in can prohibit businesses from being able to take advantage of the latest innovations.

Glip, Inc. announced yesterday the integration of applications Jira, Harvest, and Github into its business messaging platform Glip as the first phase of its integrations initiative.

These integrations will unify distinct services into a cohesive conversation, resulting in simpler communications and better decisions. The integrations initiative was the result of a survey of thousands of Glip customers, and more integrations will be introduced in the coming weeks.

Colorado-based Ethos Distributed Energy and Rev1 Renewables have merged to become Ethos Distributed Solutions. The combination of resources will allow Ethos to become a nationwide leader in installation, operation, and maintenance of distributed renewable energy systems.

"We are really excited about the marriage of these two businesses," says Paul Roamer, President of Ethos Distributed Solutions. "By combining resources and talent with Rev1 Renewables, this acquisition allows Ethos to provide competitive professional services nationwide and increase our effectiveness with our current clients. Additionally, our name change better reflects the inclusive spectrum of services we provide in both the renewable energy and telecommunications industry."

Registration Link: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/464822920

Thursday, June 26, 2014 10:00-11:00 AM PDT

Presented by: Harry Brelsford, Founder and Chairman, SMB Nation

What if you could turn back time to attend the first SMB Nation in September 2003, right before the launch of SBS 2003? So many people have said “I wish I had been there!” This is your opportunity to be there at the start. Whereas SBS took over 14+ years to sell a million installations, Office 365 is selling two (2) licenses per minute and is the fast growing product I Microsoft history. Learn how our 12th annual Fall conference will dive deeply into the technical and business conversations surrounding all aspects of Office 365. Also included are on-premises server installations + Office 365 so there is something for your inner Server babysitter to benefit from (LOL). Worked up about the “Honey – I shrunk my paycheck” syndrome? Well the Fall conference offers money makers and booty shakers to make you $$$ whole with Office 365. The choice is yours. Lead. Follow. Or get out of the way. Don’t miss on this Office 365 Nation preview to THE FALL CONFERENCE (September 26-28, Microsoft Redmond).

The gUnify Salesforce Connector, released last week by gUnify , is a cloud-based system that works with BroadSoft and Google Chrome to boost value of Unified Communications as a Service, or UCaaS, business productivity. It allows users to integrate Salesforce CRM information on IP-connected devices with BroadSoft’s hosted unified communications platform and Google’s Chrome cross-platform browser.

The 12^th annual SMB Nation Fall conference is open for registration. This is your bucket list chance to visit the Microsoft HQ and live like a blue badge for a few days. The theme is total immersion into Office 365. Why? Simply stated – in its various forms, including hybrid on-premises server-side deployments, it’s the new Small Business Server (SBS). It’s selling two (2) licenses a minute, or over 2-million licenses a quarter. To put that in perspective, it took the 16+ year lifespan of SBS to hit one million installations. (Check out my intro video at right)

Invest forward. I selected this tagline, as I think it really summarizes where we at in the SMB IT Pro community. Because you have selected a career in technology, every ten years, we have to reinvent ourselves. For example, when was the last time you worked with NetWare NDS? Not only has the SBS product reached End of Life (EOL) and is now starting to reach End-of-Support (EOS) for the SBS 2003 generation (July 15), and its decision-making time.

The high rollers in the business world know that, although they may seem to be on a winning streak, luck can change in an instant and take away all they’ve worked for. Business owners need to be constantly aware and ready with a responsive strategy the moment things change. Your first line of communication with your clients and potential clients? Email marketing.

Don’t furrow your brow just yet. Email marketing campaigns have come a long way from the pyramid schemes, fake foreign investment “opportunities” and phishing techniques of the past. The email marketing of today is far more sophisticated. It is personalized and designed to appeal to the specific people you are trying to reach and has become a great tool for reaching an audience that truly wants to know about your business.

The study Energy Consumption of Consumer Electronics in U.S. Homes in 2013 , released today by the Consumer Electronics Association, found that consumer electronics account for a lower percentage of residential electricity usage than three years ago despite growing use.

The sophisticated life learners in the SMB Nation community reading this will understand my reference to “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes (PORTFOLIO). We used it in our Pocket MBA program and it’s about 12 key sales strategies. It’s affectionately known as the Red Book. One of these strategies is the steak lunch-and-learn. And that’s where eFolder, a multi-facetted cloud service provider, kicks in.

The volume of work that comes with running a small business is enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime. So when it comes to the technology that powers a small business, it needs to enable productivity without any user coaxing or coercion. For many, a tablet could prove the simple solution to a lot of complex problems. Tablets with Intel® Core™ and Intel® Atom™ processors have the performance and compatibility to power productivity, with the functionality that will allow for a simplified and satisfying user experience.

Your weekly round-up of the IT channel news you don’t want to miss.

Red Hat boosts cloud services offering with eNovance acquisition

Raleigh, NC-based Red Hat announced its intent to acquire Paris-based cloud services provider eNovance in a cash and stock deal worth 70 million Euros. Founded in 2008, eNovance is one of the largest contributors to the OpenStack community championed by Red Hat. According to the company, the acquisition will add much-needed internal capacity for building and managing OpenStack clouds. Along with a high quality service component that will make it easier for the company to disseminate the open-source technology. Red Hat channel partners will have to wait until after the deal closes and all due diligence is completed for word on whether they will be asked to resell eNovance solutions or if the Red Hat will maintain the managed services component of its newest business unit.

Gartner releases first Magic Quadrant for converged infrastructure

Industry research firm Gartner published its first Magic Quadrant for Integrated Systems – solutions that include storage, server and network hardware along with management software from more than one vendor and are referred to by most people in the industry as “converged infrastructure.” Nomenclature aside (analysts are always renaming things), Gartner expects the market for “integrated systems,” which includes single-vendor and multivendor converged infrastructures and hyper-converged infrastructures, to grow more than 50 percent in 2014 to reach $6 billion.

Only three vendors were named in the coveted Leader’s quadrant:

• VCE – a joint venture between EMC, Cisco and VMware, which produces the Vblock solutions
• The alliance of Cisco and NetApp, which develops FlexPod reference architectures
• Oracle, which develops "engineered systems," combining hardware with a specific application such as a database.

Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell, Nutanix and SimpliVity all placed in the Visionaries quadrant, while other vendors mentioned in the report include Teradata, Fujitsu, Hitachi Data Systems, Huawei and Unisys.

NPD Group offers good news for the channel, predicts increased SMB tech spending

Port Washington, NY-based industry analyst firm NPD Group has added its voice to other industry observers offering good news for MSPs and resellers by predicting a rise in tech spending from SMBs. According to NPD's Quarterly Tech Monitor, 57 percent of surveyed SMBs expect to invest in technology over the next 12 months, a rise of four percent over the prior quarter. Forty-seven percent say they will make those investments within three months. This investment is being driven by several factors, including a recovering economy, growing acceptance of cloud computing and the end of support for Microsoft Windows XP – the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. The NPD survey suggests that organizations at the larger end of the SMB segment are more likely to spend on technology, with 78 percent of companies with 50 to 200 employees and 79 percent of companies with 201 to 500 employees planning investment over the next year. NPD advises solution providers to make sure they are in regular contact with their clients – and especially those that fit this profile – as they

QLogic rejigs partner program

Aliso Viejo, California-based QLogic released the details on its revamped Signature Partner Program. The high performance networking equipment vendor wants to make the channel program easier for partners to use with changes such as reducing the number of tiers from four to three and a lowering of revenue thresholds between the tiers. The new program begins with Preferred, which doesn’t have a revenue obligation. Premier is the next tier, which comes with a requirement for $100,000 in annual revenue and the top level, Elite, requires $500,000 in sales. Under the old program, Silver partners had no revenue target, while Gold partners had to sell $225,000 and Platinum $800,000. QLogic's acquired Brocade's Fibre Channel and converged network adapter business in January, following that up in March with the purchase of Broadcom's 10-, 40- and 100-Gigabit Ethernet businesses giving the company a tight focus on Fibre Channel and Ethernet network connectivity.

Avaya revamps channel partner program

Avayaannounced a major reorg of the Avaya Connect Channel Partner Programaimed at making it easier for Avaya partners to increase the depth of their technical expertise with Avaya products and to differentiate themselves from competitors based on that expertise. Changes to the program include revisions to the requirements for achieving Silver-, Gold- and Platinum-level status and the introduction of half a dozen new Solution Expert designations. Partners can achieve the new solution experts designations by earning specific credentials in sales and design, meeting revenue thresholds and demonstrating customer satisfaction. Silver-, Gold- and Platinum-status appointment will also be based on the number of Solution Expert designations achieved by the organization. Avaya says the new program, which will take effect October 1^st, will have a one year transition period over which partners will be expected to meet the new requirements.

D&H partners with Wells Fargo to finance education tech purchases

It’s no secret that the K-12 education market is exploding for VARs and resellers. New programs like ConnectED have suddenly increased tech spending in the education vertical and solution providers are scrambling to meet the demand. In order to make that easier, Harrisburg, Pa.-based distributor D&H has teamed up with Wells Fargo to provide VARs – and especially smaller VARs – with the ability to make the purchases they need to when they need to to take advantage of the market opportunity. Under the partnership, a special financing program has been created including interest-free financing and extended financing terms for resellers, making it possible for them to compete for the multimillion dollar deals a lot of districts will be tendering.

The Smartphone space got news from an old player and a new player this week with the industry’s creator announcing that it isn’t dead quite yet, while a brand new player entered the market.

BlackBerry reported a small profit for the fiscal period ending on May 31. The $23 million worth of black ink the waterloo, ON-based company announced both beat the street’s expectations and turned around losses of $423 million in the preceding quarter and $84 million in the same quarter last year.

Revenue came in at $966 million, down from $976 million in the prior quarter ahead of analysts' expectations of $963 million. Ultimately this meant a loss of 11 cents a share after adjustments – also ahead of analyst projections of a loss of 26 cents a share.

“Our performance in fiscal Q1 demonstrates that we are firmly on track to achieve important milestones, including our financial objectives and delivering a strong product portfolio,” said Executive Chairman and CEO John Chen, who took over the reins of the embattled mobility vendor in November, in a statement. “Over the past six months, we have focused on improving efficiency in all aspects of our operations to drive cost reductions and margin improvement. Looking forward, we are focusing on our growth plan to enable our return to profitability.”

BlackBerry also announced what appears to be one of the steps in that plan: a deal with Amazon that will make BlackBerry apps available through the Amazon Appstore. Through the deal, which will become relevant with the release of BlackBerry 10.3 in the fall, BlackBerry hopes to dramatically revitalize BlackBerry World, the vendor’s moribund app store. This certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing, however some observers may question what appears to be a primarily consumer play from a vendor that might be better served focussing on the Enterprise space.

BlackBerry also hopes to foster the development of BlackBerry 10 apps and said it will unveil an enterprise application partner program for corporate developers, ISVs and systems integrators over the coming months.

Amazon had news of its own with the introduction of its first smartphone.

The Amazon Fire features a new 3-D dynamic perspective technology, four front facing cameras and Firefly – an app that will recognize objects including artwork and music and then streamline the shopping experience through Amazon’s retail portal.

The new device, which is available for pre-order online from Amazon and AT&T and through brick and mortar retail shops, has a 4.7-inch HD display and runs the proprietary Fire operating system on a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 2.2GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM. AT&T will be the exclusive distributor of the device, making it available to AT&T Partner Exchange members, but limiting its overall market reach (as does the proprietary OS). Pricing for the new device, which will ship July 25^th, comes in at $199 for the 32-GB model and $299 for the 64-GB model, with an AT&T contract.

Awards in the IT space can be plentiful, especially if you spend any time on the conference circuit: Best Solution, Best Software, Best in Show, etc. All of these awards offer a measure of value, but for some that measure is slightly more significant than others.

When Object Consulting recently won the 2014 Microsoft Cloud Partner of the Year, Small and Medium Business (SMB) Award Kevin Francis knew it was the kind of award that would bring in major revenue for the Sydney, Australia-based solution provider.

Last year the Microsoft Gold partner won Microsoft’s Cloud Partner of the Year award for the enterprise segment and found it really put the organization on the map, says Francis, Object Consulting’s National Microsoft Practice Manager. “We grew our Microsoft business more than 50 percent last year and that’s really a testament to what winning this kind of award does. It gives us instant credibility. And it’s the kind of credibility that brings customers to us. They are calling us and that’s gold. We’re looking at another year of massive growth.”

The most recent award is recognition for a project Object Consulting completed for a two-man startup called Xpreshon which delivers free and subscription-based action sports content to users on Microsoft Xbox, Windows 8 and Windows phones. The media streaming and customer management components of the solution run on Microsoft’s public cloud Windows Azure, which makes it possible for a two-man shop like Xpreshon to manage and scale its business without compromising the time they need to spend on delivering core value.

Xpreshon’s original vision was to develop an offering specifically aimed at gamers however using the Azure platform made it possible to extend feature-rich applications to multiple platforms. “Running our applications on Windows 8 devices using Windows Azure means that our users have access to Xpreshon content wherever they are,” says Jason Webb, director and co-founder of Xpreshon.

The code sets for all three applications overlapped enough to provide an efficiency of scale that made it possible for all three to be released within one year. “We thought it would be great if we could be on multiple Microsoft platforms as a single presence,” says Webb. “The strength of our brand is enhanced by having simultaneous offerings on all three devices.”

This is exactly the kind of project that Object Consulting has specialized in, carving out a narrow niche that mixes specialty media with a variety of delivery platforms. The award they won last year was for a similar project – the creation of SuperFooty Live HQ for News Limited which delivered rich media content including video, images and data visualization to Aussie Rules Football fans on their smartphones, tablets, desktops and TVs.

According to Francis Cloud and Devices are the new frontiers in media delivery. “That combo of cloud at the back end and devices at the front end, that’s our space and it’s a fast growing space.”

Object Consulting was a very early adopter of the cloud and also quickly saw the potential of mobile and the convergence of the two. Today the company is one of the only premier Xbox developers in the APAC region and has also invested heavily building out its mobility capabilities with Windows phone, iOS and Android development.

“It’s been expensive for us to set up. It was a big risk, but it has paid off. Winning awards like this is what happens if your solution is really innovative, if it pushes the envelope then you can win against the big players.”

Next up, says Francis, is geographic expansion. Object Consulting already had plans in place to drive geographic expansion, but winning the Microsoft award will help accelerate that plan.

“We’ve started a move into Southwest Asia and we are actively looking for work globally. We have a unique set of capabilities – less than five partners globally have the kind of focus we have – we’ve found a way to play in a way that few others are doing and Azure helps us go to market globally with our capabilities.”

As many of you know, Harry has been on a traveling streak these past few months. After completing a worldwide tour, Harry took the time to visit with our partners in the lovely city of Boston, MA (check out one of his blogs on this visit here), where he was able to meet with Continuum in time for the filming of its weekly MSPtv series.

The phrase “Time is money,” coined by inventor Benjamin Franklin, can often ring too true for small business owners around the world. The global nature of today’s business landscape means that even though an organization is a small business, it is competing against large corporations for a global audience. How do small businesses keep up? The answer lies in small business owners being resilient, efficient, and economical–but unfortunately outdated tools and technologies can hold small businesses back.

Deepak Aatresh, co-founder of Aditazz, Inc., was appointed CEO of the Silicon Valley technology company earlier this week and will continue to serve on the board of directors.

Deepak, who has a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Arizona State University, holds eight patents and worked at Intel Corporation, Yago Systems, Riverstone Networks and Lucent Technologies before co-founding Aditazz.

FlexPrint ranked as #371 in The Channel Company’s 2014 Solution Provider 500 list of the top revenue-generating technology integrators in the United States and Canada. Companies are chosen for this list not only based on their ability to generate revenue but also their approach to the technology channel that allow them to succeed in the modern era of IT.

LogMeIn announced the release of AppGuru, a cloud app management product that can assist IT professionals in regaining monitoring and management capabilities for employee cloud app use. The ‘bring-your-own app,’ or BYOA, trend, as many of you may see in your business today, makes a management and monitoring system for employee cloud app use necessary to maintain security.

TDS Telecom announced yesterday it achieved Platinum level status in the Polycom Choice Partner program for its fifth year. To qualify for this honor, TDS demonstrated expertise in handling project needs with exceptional service and quality solutions.

The organization credits this achievement to its relationship with its customers. “The Platinum designation is a testament to the partnership we’ve established with our customers,” said Matt Loch, vice president of Commercial Marketing at TDS. “By working closely with each of our customers, we’re able to really understand their needs and help them leverage the power of hosted VoIP technology.”

Grandstream Networks introduced the GXV3275 IP Video Phone earlier this week, which is a 3-in-1 voice/video communication and business application solution.

The GXV3275 offers the same features as Android smartphones and tablets in a 7-inch touchscreen. SMBs using the GXV3275 have access to Android Apps in the Google Play Store and can sync contacts and transfer calls between the GXV3275 and mobile phones or Bluetooth headsets.

Starting today, Carbonite is shipping an SMB on-premises hybrid backup and recovery solution that threatens to disrupt the SMB BRD oligopoly, that is effectively limiting channel partner choice to just a few high-end solutions. I liken Carbonite in the BDR space to Uber, a company currently breaking up the regulated taxi industry, and this is exciting stuff. Having met with Carbonite last week at its Boston headquarters (see photo right), I can see that it thrives on and embraces the role of being a disrupter.

And its good news for SMB channel partners. By my simple calculation, having more choices will lower prices. That’s what free and competitive markets do. Carbonite lands at about 50% less than the “Big Four” BDR solutions on the market. It all starts at $99/month with no upfront fees (hardware, program or license). And Carbonite further disrupts the status quo by introducing greater duration flexibility. There’s even is a 30-day refund period upfront. As of this writing, there is no annual commitment, so you can use this month-to-month and return if needed, though Carbonite reps said that they will be offering an annual option for clients who prefer that model.

Lenovo announced the release of the ThinkServer RS140 on June 10, a new powerful, inexpensive entry-level single-processor 1U rack server. According to Lenovo, the server is ideal for SMBs because of its versatility, compact size, and expansion options.

“The Lenovo Enterprise Group is aggressively expanding its server offerings in the rack segment by adding a new 1P rack to our portfolio,” said Darrel Ward, vice president, Enterprise Product Group, Lenovo. “The new ThinkServer RS140 1P rack offers a remarkable combination of SMB friendly features and options, at an attractive, budget-friendly price point, that our customers have been looking for.”

D&H Distributing recently announced that it will be hosting its 2014 Mid-Atlantic Technology Show on June 26. This event is slated to take place at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center in Hershey, PA, with over 100 manufacturing partners expected to attend.

Here’s a look at the June 26^th Agenda:

A new research report from Gartner found that IBM leads the worldwide flash storage market based on its 2013 revenue. According to the report results, IBM has a 25 percent market share of Solid State Array revenue.

As many of you are aware, Flash, or Solid State, is an important memory technology in improving application performance and analytics for businesses in the Big Data era. IBM has embraced this growing tech trend and it currently offers a variety of flash storage technologies as systems that are all-disk, all-flash, or a hybrid of disk and flash to best suit client needs.

While some SMB technology resellers cater to a wide range of clients and requirements,
others have found greater success servicing specific market verticals.

Demonstrating impressive sales growth over the past quarter, Compass Network Group (www.compassnetworkgroup.com ) is one such example that sticks to a simple philosophy; they focus exclusively on dental clinics to deliver the highest standards of IT integration and compliance. Servicing more than 400 clients, Compass Network Group streamlines dental office networks to meet HITECH and HIPAA requirements for electronic protected health information (ePHI).

Apps and gadgets have changed the way we live. Access to information has become so convenient that telephone directories, Rolodex and calling cards have become a thing of the past. Nowadays, people consult their tablets and mobile devices to find the trendiest bars and clubs, gastronomic bites and the most happening places in any new place.

We have embarked on an age where people substitute old-fashioned face-to-face conversations with instant messaging, social media, interactive chat, and other digital means. The traditional word-of-mouth, which is the oldest form of publicity, has gone digital too. People share, check-in and tweet their experiences and latest discoveries online. This movement spawned the term “SoLoMo” which is short for Social, Local and Mobile to describe how people search, review and share information about local businesses while on-the-move. As an effect, small businesses are left with no choice but to open up their digital doors and let the World Wide Web see inside.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

If you’re running a service-based company, you’ll relate to one of my favorite quote-jokes: “This would be a great business if it didn’t require having clients!”

It’s a sad fact that even the most discriminating IT service companies sometimes end up with some clients that are ridiculously demanding, others that don’t appreciate or value the service they’re getting, and still others who are simply a royal pain.

A week ago at Autotask Live, Autotask reported it was being acquired by Vista Partners, an $11.5B private equity firm. The short press release, specifically brief and lacking details, roared across the MSP community. As I researched this topic over the past week, it was apparent that everyone has an opinion ranging the full spectrum. I’ll start with my own:

I was already scheduled for an MSP TV session, which was to be filmed at Continuum’s Boston offices (see photo), so that was a natural forum to discuss the Autotask acquisition. I offered that:

Object Consulting, a Sydney, Australia-based IT Consultant, announced yesterday that is has received the Microsoft Cloud Partner of the Year Award in the Small and Medium Business Space. This organization, which was founded in 1989, provides high-level Cloud services, including those based on Open Source, .NET, Enterprise Java and Salesforce technologies, to customers across Australia.

Your weekly roundup of the IT and channel news you don’t want to miss.

Report: cybercrime costs $400B each year and that will only grow

It’s another week, so it’s time for another Cybercrime study. This time we are being provided with a picture of the actual cost of cyber attacks – $400 billion and as many as 350,000 jobs in the US and Europe. Despite the fact that we seem to be getting this kind of report almost constantly these days, it still makes for compelling – and somewhat chilling – reading. Almost half a trillion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. The report, Net Losses – Estimating the Global Cost of Cybercrime, crunched open-source data about security incidents including corporate network attacks and intellectual property theft, and associated losses and then officials in 18 countries were interviewed to calculate its numbers. Conservatively, annual losses are at least $375 billion, but they could reach as high as $575 billion! The report was conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank and commissioned by Intel Security (formerly McAfee) and includes information about driving factors and security weaknesses. The study also highlights data from Framingham, Mass.-based research firm IDC, which projects a major increase in security spending, including on such elements as digital forensics tools, next-generation firewalls, and identity and access management software. Ironically, the report suggests that such increased spending may be negatively effecting the global economy as companies shift spending from innovation to security. It’s well worth reading for anyone in the IT space concerned with providing or provisioning security applications for themselves or clients.

Google to acquire Skybox for $500 Million

Google announced plans to expand its mapping services with the purchase of satellite image provider Skybox Imaging for $500 million. The Search-engine giant plans to use Skybox to add more accurate imagery to its Google Maps and Google Earth services. “Skybox’s satellites will help keep Google Maps accurate with up-to-date imagery,” the company said in a statement. “Over time, we also hope that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief—areas Google has long been interested in.”

ZyXEL unveils next-gen UTM firewalls for SMBs

ZyXEL launched a new line of Unified Threat Management products. The new products address a couple of major issues the Anahiem, CA-based company says SMBs are running afoul of: The need to maintaining high system throughput, even with security services turned on, and simplifying systems management with a new, easy-to-use interface. The new UTMs improve performance and add an integrated management interface that simplifies security provisioning for both solution providers and their SMB clients. Key features for new UTM series include:

• Gigabit throughput with multi-core processer
• Redesigned management interfacethat consolidates all security policies in a single location to deliver a single point of control for firewall, IDP, anti-virus, content filtering and application control.
• Application intelligence identifies, categorizes and controls over 3,000 social, gaming, productivity and other Web applications and behaviors to boost productivity and prevent bandwidth abuse.
• An integrated WLAN controlleris integrated with security management to help SMBs set-up a secure WLAN network.
• SSL inspectionprovides deep packet inspection for SSL traffic

Barracuda releases new Mobile Device Manager for K-12

Barracuda Networks Inc. has launched the Barracuda Mobile Device Manager, a free cloud-based mobile device and application management service designed to simplify management of iOS devices from a centralized console for K-12 educational institutions. “We believe mobile device management is an integral part of this broader security solution, particularly for educational institutions looking to leverage mobile technology in the classroom,” said Stephen Pao, GM Security, for the Campbell, CA-based provider of cloud-connected security and storage solutions. The new service allows administrators to:

• Set device security policies including revoke access and device restrictions such as passcode policies and global proxy settings
• Deploy and manage applications including other Barracuda mobile applications such as Safe Browser, Copy, and SignNow to enforce browsing policies, to help improve workflow between teachers and students, and manage the document signing process for parents
• Remotely manage and monitor mobile devices

Mobile Device Manager is a free add-on for existing Barracuda customers and can be accessed through the Barracuda Cloud Control portal.

GFI Software adds Integrated Remote Access and Control to GFI Cloud

GFI Software has expanded its GFI Cloud Suite IT platform for SMBs with remote control and access capabilities. GFI Cloud is designed to provide IT administrators with the ability to manage and secure servers, workstations, laptops, and mobile devices from a single Web-based interface. Pricing for Remote Control for GFI Cloud starts at $24 per computer, per year. Multi-year and service bundle discounts are available. To learn more visit http://www.gficloud.com/. To sign up for a free 30-day trial, go to https://signup.gficloud.com. 

Intronis launches new BDR platform with fixed-fee pricing, partner resources

Intronis was especially busy last week, announcing a new platform, fixed-fee pricing model and the availability of new partner support resources. First, the cloud backup and data recovery vendor launched its new Intronis ECHOplatform – offering a single solution for data recovery and cloud backup, while folding a range of existing services under the new platform for simplified delivery, including: imaging, VMware and Hyper-V, SQL and Exchange backup, BMR, and file sync and share. Intronis then announced it was reengineering its pricing model for cloud backup storage. Under the new Intronis U2 Plan partners will pay a monthly flat fee for unlimited cloud storage for all their clients rather than paying by the Gigabyte. Finally, Intronis announced the release of a new Partner Toolkit which will provide the channel with marketing materials, sales tips, and technical content such as onboarding instructions.

Israeli startup SiSense Raises $30 million, to launch channel program

Big data analytics startup SiSense says it’s planning to invest a portion of the $30 million it just received in Series C financing to build a channel program and accelerate its go-to-market. SiSense develops business analytics, reporting and dashboard software that enables nontechnical staffers to combine, analyse and visualize data from multiple sources. The company, which added the ability to analyse data from mobile devices with the launch of SiSense 5 in February, is one of several next-gen analytics developers (including Tableau Software and QlikTech) looking to take a piece of the big data market away from established giants like SAP's Business Objects and IBM's Cognos. According to the company, which is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and opened a US sales HQ in New York, it is looking to recruit a channel management team and launch a full channel partner program complete with partner training, a formal pricing plan, and sales and marketing resources. Several ISVs are already designing SiSense products into their offerings.

VMware makes NSX software-defined networking tech available to the channel

Palo Alto, CA-based VMware has added its NSX software-defined networking technology to its general price list, making it available for resale through the company’s channel partners. NSX was initially released last November, but VMware restricted sales to a specially trained internal sales team but the company is now looking for the channel’s help to compete with Cisco for marketshare. NSX can be sold with either perpetual or term licenses. List pricing for a perpetual license starts at $5,996 per CPU, while a term license starts at $34 per virtual machine per month. VMware also is offering volume discounts for the technology. So far, VMware has around 10 partners selling NSX through an early adopter program launched in February. Channel partners can expect VMware to launch a new channel program competency for NSX at VMworld in August, which will establish the requirements for partners that want to resell the technology. Cisco, which takes a hardware based approach to its SDN technology, has started actively bashing VMware and it’s software-based NSX – possibly prompting VMware’s move as the company needs the push NSX from early-adopter phase to general market availability in short order to keep up.

DLT Solutions releases new procurement tool for government customers

DLT Solutions, an integrator focussed on the federal government market, launched of DLT Cloud Navigator, a new cloud solution designed to help public sector client procure products and services. According to Rick Marcotte, president and CEO of DLT, "The goal is to help (federal government clients) develop a practical cloud strategy." The new offering is built on products and services from a number of DLT partners, including Oracle, Red Hat and Amazon, and folds in procurement support for various government procurement processes. Users will also have access to a new managed services offering, architectural support, and pay-as-you-go billing. Marcotte added that he expects government investments in cloud – which are slow now as IT spending is trending downwards across the fed – to grow significantly over the next five years as departments try to lower costs.

Nimble Storage releases new hybrid array, flash expansion shelf

San Jose, Calif.-based Nimble Storagereleased a new enterprise model hybrid disk and its first-ever all-flash storage expansion shelves. The new CS700 hybrid array and flash shelves are part of the company’s Adaptive Flash management platform and are aimed at meeting end user needs for both storage capacity and performance in the data center. According to the company, most current offerings focus on one or the other, leaving a meaningful market opportunity. The CS700 hybrid array has the same form factor as the company’s CS200 and CS400 arrays and is configurable with 12 hard drives and four SSDs to provide more than 125,000 IOPS of performance in a single node. The new all-flash expansion shelves ship with up to 12.8 TB of SSD memory. When combined with the CS700's 3.2 TB of flash, each CS700 node delivers as much as 16 TB of flash storage. The solution is managed through the Nimble Storage Adaptive Flash management platform, which is built on the company's CASL file system and its InfoSight cloud-based management and support tool.

D&H Distributing recently announced that its Canadian division has moved to its third, and largest, location. The move took place on May 19^th and allows the Canada division to have two times more space, while keeping the same backup systems that allows same-day shipping in the event of power loss.

With the help of 'Googling' and Internet research, consumers are more clued-up and savvy about products and services than ever before. On the Web they can get instant results and useful information to help them weigh up whether they want to get in touch and make a purchase. Instead of reaching out to customer services or sales reps for answers they may consider online reviews before they do anything else.

While technology is paving the way for exciting innovations, this tech jungle can pose a real challenge to the small to medium sized business with limited time and resources. The answer is to take positive steps that are not only going to help you survive, but thrive; helping you turn leads into quality clients.

Mark Cattini, president and CEO of East Greenbush, N.Y.-based Autotask Corp., kicked off his keynote address at the Autotask Community Live conference in Miami this morning with the news that the professional services automation (PSA) vendor is being acquired by Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm.

The future ownership of the market’s leading PSA vendor has been a popular topic of speculation for months, with most industry experts betting on the company being picked up by an RMM player. Such a move would have been logical given the evolution of the RMM/PSA space over the past few years – including the marriage of LabTech to ConnectWise and the acquisitions of N-Able by SolarWinds, Level Platforms by AVG and Kaseya by an equity group.

The financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close later this summer, were not disclosed however Cattini did say that Autotask will continue to operate as a private company.

“We are still private and still independent,” he said, adding that remaining so will allow Autotask to “continue our mission of delivering smart IT to you. If you liked Autotask version one, you will love Autotask version two.”

He then said users could expect to see an accelerated product roadmap and increased innovation leading to “a bigger and better Autotask.”

With Cattani at the helm, Autotask has aggressively expanded its market reach, recruiting more partners in North America and opening sales offices in Chicago, Beijing, London, Munich and Sydney, Australia. All this despite the fact that many industry reports suggest the managed services market is cooling off with growth projections falling off.

In a prepared statement, Cattani spoke about accelerating the value Autotask delivers. “We are devoted to our clients’ ongoing success and are confident that our partnership with Vista will drive innovation and growth and deliver dynamic solutions as the traditional IT landscape evolves.”

“Autotask has a long history of dedicating itself to customer-centric solutions and has built a strong foundation for sustained, long-term growth,” said Alan Cline, Principal at Vista Equity Partners in the sme statement. “We are very pleased to be working with the Autotask team to expand and enhance the company’s solutions to help IT service providers more efficiently and effectively meet their clients’ changing needs.”

Your weekly roundup of IT news for the channel

LabTech creates App Exchange for RMM with open source Synergy Platform

LabTech Software announced the launch of new capabilities that will allow third party developers – from software vendors and MSPS – to build onto the company’s RMM platform, customizing for the needs of their own businesses and potentially opening up new revenue streams. The Labtech Synergy Platform, which has been in beta for a year, will include fundamental APIs and an app exchange where MSPs and ISVs can sell the solutions they’ve developed to other users. “If you can imagine something in LabTech that you want to do, you can create it,” LabTech Software CEO Matt Nachtrab said at the Automation Nation 2014 conference in Orlando. “Anything you can imagine in LabTech you can turn into innovation.”

Staples takes pre-orders for new Microsoft Tablet

Staples is taking pre-orders for the new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 – the new 12 inch tablet that Microsoft is hoping will give a major boost its tablet business when it hits the streets June 20^th. The Surface Pro 3, which will be priced in the $800-plus range, is driven by a fourth gen Intel Core processor and comes with Windows 8.1 Pro pre-loaded and includes the full Microsoft Office suite and a new Surface Pen. The target market is small businesses and students – users who might want a laptop-type experience in a more mobile form factor. According to research from research analyst firm Gartner, tablets based on the Windows operating system, make up about 2.1 percent of the global market – well behind Android (61.9 percent) and iOS (36 percent).

And in related news…

HP unveils Windows-based HP Pro x2 612 Tablet-Notebook

Hewlett-Packardhas announced the HP Pro x2 612, a full-featured Windows-based notebook with a detachable tablet screen. The new device, which is a major move in the fight for the notebook tablet market, features a 12.5-inch screen and comes with an HP Power Keyboard that gives the product 14 hours of battery life. The HP tablet will use Intel Core i3 and i5 processors with options for Intel Celeron and Pentium and will ship in early September. HP didn’t reveal pricing for the system however it is expected to sell for several hundred dollars less than the Surface Pro 3. While the HP product beats the Surface Pro 3 in all these areas, the biggest advantage it has in the SMB market may be the broad channel community that will be able to sell it. The Microsoft product is available only through select retailers (like Staples), from Microsoft itself and 10 Large Account Resellers.

Fonality launches New Partner Marketing Program

Dallas, TX-based Fonality, a vendor of open-source VoIP and Unified Communications, announced Marketing 360 – a new partner marketing program that it hopes will help boost its channel business to hit 50 percent of overall revenue by the end of the year. Marketing 360 is an online resource that includes numerous new partner resources, incentives and marketing tools, including co-branded email campaign templates, monthly marketing webinars, sales presentations, and end user case studies and testimonials. This is just the latest of several changes Fonality has made to its partner program over the past few months. Other moves included a new compensation model that lets partners receive an up-front commission, in addition to monthly recurring revenue, on sales of hosted UC services so partners can pay off their salespeople quickly, and the Fonality Partner Exchange online community. Currently Fonality does about 45 percent of its business through the channel and has roughly 2,500 partners worldwide.

Amazon adds Windows Server 2012 R2 to AWS

AWS is shoring up the functionality of its cloud, this time by introducing its main rival’s own newest operating system – Windows Server 2012 R2. Offering Microsoft’s most advanced server OS eliminates a significant competitive advantage that Microsoft Azure enjoyed over AWS and levels the playing field between the two public cloud players. Windows Server 2012 R2 added new features and functionality to Microsoft’s popular server operating system including tiered storage capabilities through which the OS shuffles data between the fastest memory devices available on the system, improving overall performance. The new OS option will be available to all AWS customers, including those who fall in the Free Usage Tier, according to Amazon.

Yorktel acquires MultiSense, Expedite VCS

Eatontown, NJ-based Yorktel, a global unified communications vendor, has acquired two video service providers increasing its market share in crucial industries: MultiSense Communications, a British firm with a focus on the health care vertical, and Expedite VCS, which delivers a solid public sector customer base including distance learning, corporate communications and telejustice. Yorktel’s VideoCloud delivers videoconferencing-as-a-service, with its cloud infrastructure situated mostly at Equinix data centers in the U.S., U.K. and Singapore. According to Greg Douglas, Yorktel’s executive vice president of sales, multipoint videoconferencing is a natural fit for health care and government – markets that mix demand for high quality face to face distance communications but have significant security demands. Last year Yorktel began offering channel partners white-label solutions and support, allowing them to resell videoconferencing solutions under their own brand. These new acquisitions will broaden the solutions channel partners can brand as their own, says Douglas.

WAN Op startup Aryaka expands global channel

WAN optimization startup Aryaka is recruiting partners and expanding its global channel footprint while continuing to take aim squarely at chief competitor Riverbed Technology. Currently Milpitas, Calif.-based Aryaka does about 25 percent of its business through about 30 channel resellers, but the goal is to get as close to 100 percent as possible. The company also said it's received $10 million in Series D funding from existing investors InterWest Partners, Presidio Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures, bringing total VC investments to $64 million.

If you were wondering why Microsoft felt a need to “remind” everyone that they are a player in the Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) market last week, you didn’t have to wait long. A couple of key EMM studies were released this week including interesting new research from CompTIA, which highlights potential business opportunities for solutions providers, and Gartner Group’s EMM Magic Quadrant.

The MQ provides a snapshot of the EMM vendor landscape, grading each vendor by completeness of vision and ability to execute and then labeling them – Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players – based on their capabilities. Fourteen vendors get some love from Gartner, from leaders MobileIron and IBM to niche players Tangoe and Landesk. Microsoft isn’t mentioned, despite making several EMM moves late in 2013 (The company has stated that it is confident it will be included next year).

Gartner defines EMM as the following:

“Enterprise mobility management (EMM) suites consist of policy and configuration management tools and a management overlay for applications and content intended for mobile devices based on smartphone OSs. They are an evolution from previous generation MDM products that lacked application and content management. IT organizations and service providers use EMM suites to deliver IT support to mobile end users and to maintain security policies.”

According to Gartner, an EMM suite provides hardware inventory, application inventory, OS configuration management, mobile app deployment, mobile app configuration and policy management, remote view and control for troubleshooting, execute remote actions and mobile content management.

The vendors:

Leaders: AirWatch, MobileIron, Citrix, Good Technology and IBM.

Challengers: SAP.

Visionaries: SOTI, Symantec and Sophos.

Niche Players: Blackberry, Tangoe, LANDesk, Absolute Software and Globo.

Gartner expects the EMM to continue evolving and thus posing challenges for vendors and service providers. “As enterprises' use of mobility becomes increasingly complex, their requirements to protect data and support users will become more complex as well.”

Meanwhile CompTIA’s Third Annual Trends in Enterprise Mobility found that while many organizations are pushing aggressively ahead with mobility programs, many are facing significant challenges – challenges that could mean major opportunities for service providers.

Key findings:

Among companies that provide mobile devices, 76 percent provide smartphones and 61 percent provide tablets, implying that many workers are operating in a three‐device environment.

More than 70 percent of all companies, regardless of BYOD stance, have made some level of investment in mobile devices and technologies.

There has been no significant progress in building formal mobility policies over the past year. Just 30 percent of companies have such a policy in place.

Security is one of the top challenges for companies, including the ability to centrally monitor and control security; and poor security implementation by end users.

Essentially, managing mobility – from procurement to management – is a major challenge for many organizations. CompTIA found that small companies are hampered by serious resources constraints, medium-sized firms have more resources but have to balance the needs of IT with the needs of users department and large firms have to deal with a high degree of complexity, with a large number of employees using a significant variety of devices. Alleviating these pain points could mean significant revenues for solution providers.

“Mobile devices get used heavily in employees’ personal lives, but there are enterprise aspects such as encryption, proper security settings and enterprise apps that require further and ongoing education,” said Seth Robinson, director, technology analysis, CompTIA in a statement.

The Third Annual Trends in Enterprise Mobility study is based on an online survey of 400 business and IT executives in the United State who are directly involved in setting or executing mobility policies and processes within their organization. The survey was conducted in March 2014. More data from the study is available at http://www.slideshare.net/comptia/slideshare-charts-2014-mobility-study.

Vonage recently announced that its President, Wain Kellum, is currently a finalist in EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 Awards for the US Southeast Region. Mr. Kellum is counted among 24 finalists in his region, and the winner is slated to be announced on June 26 at a gala event.

For a small business five years ago, meetings meant a lot of paperwork: documents to be shared with employees and clients, agendas, daily planners, presentation materials, the list goes on. All that paper–and preparation–would be used once, disposed of promptly thereafter, and inevitably forgotten in the shuffle of paperwork meant for the next meeting. The lifecycle of the information sharing that happened within the meeting was defined by the retention of physical documents. Luckily, a lot has happened in technology over the past five years and a small business owner is no longer restricted to antiquated methods of collaboration.

Even if you’re not using paper and a pencil to present documents and projects to business partners, bringing an older laptop to an important client meeting could still color some people’s perceptions of your overall plan and cause them to see your company as being outdated.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

There’s nothing more inspiring than listening to true entrepreneurs with clear visions for their companies, and game plans for turning those visions into reality.

Dan McCoy is one such person, and I was lucky enough to catch him talking about his plan to literally “own” the IT Services market for Chiropractors within 2 years.

If you’d like to hear his 11-minute story, click here and I’m sure it will get you thinking about what market your company might own.

Yesterday, San Jose, CA-based MSP, Myers Network Solutions announced that it has seen a significant year-over-year annual revenue growth of over 20% in 2013. The company cited the development of new partnerships, as well as the growth of its Cloud service offerings as the two main reasons for last year’s growth.

As it stands now, Myers Network Solutions has experienced revenue growth for the past seven years running. For 2013 specifically, the company formed partnerships with Datto and Star2Star. It was the partnership with Star2Star that allowed the company to expand its VoIP offerings to include cloud-based phone systems with desktop integration capabilities.

Epson recently announced the debut of eleven WorkForce printer models designed for SMBs, SOHOs, and Engineers. These printer models all utilize the company’s next generation technology, PrecisionCore, which allows for a consistent print quality across the life of the device.

RapidFire Tools, Inc. will be presenting at today’s Datto Partner Show, taking place in Las Vegas, NV. In particular, the company will have Mike Semel, President, Semel Consulting, who is one of the leading HIPAA consultants in the US, presenting an educational session on how to sell/price HIPAA Risk Analysis Reports.

It’s no secret that providing wireless internet connections is a big deal for consumer businesses. Starbucks has made a lot of money selling overpriced coffee to students, businesspeople and wannabe-J.K. Rowlings because they can get free Wi-Fi by walking through the door.

But simply offering a hotspot connection is not actually as simple as buying an 802.11N router at Best Buy and plugging it in. There are several factors to consider and those factors have left an opportunity for the likes of Cisco Meraki and GoBig to create specialized devices and services that help businesses like restaurants, hotels, boutiques, spas, salons and even golf courses offer secure, reliable and useful WI-FI services to customers.

Today Comcast announced it is getting into the game too, launching a new offering for its Internet customers – the Business Wireless Gateway – that not only delivers Internet connectivity, but does so with the added security of a dual band service that keeps critical back office operations separated from the riff raff.

“Today’s ‘main street’ small businesses want to offer Wi-Fi to their customers to get them in the store and keep them coming back, but concerns can arise from over security and how challenging it will be to set up and maintain a Wi-Fi network,” said Matt Davis, director of Consumer and Small Business Telecom Services at IDC in a Comcast statement.

“The Business Wireless Gateway from Comcast Business gives SMBs a single box solution to quickly set up both public and private Wi-Fi, with public access being managed and maintained over the Comcast network. This can alleviate security concerns because customers are not accessing the same Wi-Fi network that your employees are.”

According to John Guillaume, vice president of Product Development, Comcast Business, the new service is targeted at SMBs with as few as three and as many as 100 users, “but anyone buying our high speed Internet product is eligible.”

The technology is also scalable with WiFi extenders going on sale later this month to expand the physical coverage area making campus service possible.

Regarding costs, Guillaume said, “The Business Wireless Gateway and Business WiFi are value added services that are included with our most popular Internet speeds – from 16 Mbps to 150Mbps – for no additional cost. We have an existing $9.95 equipment fee for Internet and voice customers and the device is included in that.”

So the cost for the basic level of plan, including Comcast Internet with 16 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speed for up to three people, is $69.95 per month plus the equipment rental. The new offering will be sold through all of Comcast’s direct and indirect channels, so distributors like Synnex (one of Comcast’s largest channel partners) will be offering it.

This move isn’t a shocking one for Comcast. Like other cable and telecom providers such as Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T, the company has been targeting the SMB segment of the U.S. business communications market – which some analysts value at $20 to $30 billion – for expansion. The company will deploy SIP trunking capabilities by the end of the year, significantly enhancing its VoIP offerings for the larger end of the SMB market (Comcast Business has traditionally focused on small businesses) and potentially to larger enterprises in the future.

Moreover, Comcast Business recently softened the ground by sponsored research by market analyst firm Bredin Research that indicated small businesses got significant ROI , including better customer satisfaction levels and higher sales, from offering free WiFi than they did from other common patron-oriented conveniences.

Key findings:

• WiFi is equally or more effective at making patrons feel welcome than other amenities such as magazines (94 percent), community bulletin boards (91 percent), candy (90 percent) or water (86 percent).
• Nearly eight in 10 businesses offering WiFi (79 percent) say it helps keep customers happy while they wait. Sixty-five percent report it has encouraged repeat business, and 55 percent say it has brought in new customers.
• More than half (55 percent) of businesses providing Wi-Fi believe it has resulted in higher sales per customer visit.

“Many different types of customers – coffee shops, law firms, real estate offices, gyms, libraries and more – want to attract and retain visitors to their location and give employees the tools they need to be more productive. Wi-Fi can be critical on both fronts, and this device can help make that easy to manage,” said Guillaume, in a statement. 

Today, SHI International Corp announced that its President and CEO, Thai Lee, has been named to CRN’s 2014 Women of the Channel List, and that the company has been named as one of 2014’s Inaugural Power 50 Solution Providers. SHI International is currently the largest minority- and woman-owned business in the United States. In fact, SHI International reported that it has a 99% customer retention rate and that it had a $5 billion revenue record in 2013.

“I am honored to be included among so many impressive female leaders and successful business people,” said Thai Lee, in a recent press release. “Our customers give us a tremendous opportunity to serve them with the most cutting-edge solutions from partners that include the biggest names in technology. The tradition of excellence and success that SHI has established continues to drive the company forward, and I’m pleased to represent the entire company as a symbol of its success.”

A bit of background on the two lists to which Thai Lee was named: The 2014 Women of the Channel List is in place to recognize the accomplishments and overall impact of female executives in either solution provider, vendor or distribution companies. The Power 50 List is set to recognize a smaller set of female execs who are taking their company’s influence beyond its traditional sphere. Watch for Thai Lee, and the other 2014 winners in the June issue of CRN Magazine.

Today, Kaseya announced the release of Version 7.0, which offers enhancements to the company’s cloud, mobility management and core IT solutions. In particular, the 365 Command, Virtual System Administrator, Traverse, and Enterprise Mobility Management solutions were enhanced in today’s release. I was able to speak with Tom Hayes, Kaseya’s VP of Product Marketing, late last week, and he ran me through some of Version 7.0’s features.

NovaStor’s recent release of a convenient backup solution for both physical and virtual machines, NovaBACKUP Business Essentials 16, responds the demand for an alternative to the complex and overpriced backup solutions on the market today.

But with all the companies in the marketplace offering products and services for data-protection,
why are resellers making the switch to NovaBACKUP as their backup solution of choice?

We take a closer look the reasons cited for joining the NovaStor ValueCREATE! partner program,
and the motivation for selling NovaBACKUP software over the competition.

Most technology providers have built their business by working with every conceivable type of business. To adapt to changing service models, vendors and channel leaders are strongly recommending vertical focus. The advice is, in large part, based on the way customers search for technology solutions on the internet. Your potential clients are getting more and more specific, looking for service providers that understand their industry.

The great news is that a shift to an industry-specific focus doesn’t mean that you have to leave the rest behind. There is no reason to stop building your regional business through local targeting and face-to-face networking. But the internet has opened up the opportunity to build connections within industry communities that will expand your horizons and extend your business.

Uber and AT&T recently announced that they have entered into an agreement which will allow Uber to greatly expand its coverage in the United States. As of this writing, Uber is in 60 cities, and has been able to cover 43% of the US population in four years (you may remember Harry’s article on his experience with Uber). The company is now switching its focus slightly from expansion in distinct cities, to general overall coverage in a campaign known as UberEVERYWHERE.

A new cybersecurity survey from PwC and CSO magazine makes for some chilling reading for U.S. businesses. According to the 2014 U.S. State of Cybercrime Survey the rate of cyber attacks is increasing and the majority of U.S. organizations are falling sort when it comes to addressing them. In fact, 62 percent of organizations do not have the structure in place to prioritize security investments based on impact and risk.

The survey, through which CSO queried more than 500 U.S. executives, security experts and others from both the public and private sectors, was conducted by CSO magazine in collaboration with PwC, the U.S. Secret Service and the CERT Division of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Other key findings:

•              Organizations detected an average of 135 security incidents over the past year.
•              More than three quarters (77 percent) of respondents reported a security event in the past year.
•              More than two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents who detected a security incident were unable to gauge its financial impact. For those who could, the average annual monetary loss was projected at $415,000 per organization.
•             59 percent reported they were more concerned about cybersecurity threats this year than last year.
•             34 percent said they had seen an increase in the number of security incidents in their organizations.
•             Enterprise mobility is a massive hole. Only 31 percent of respondents have a mobile secuity strategy, while only 38& bother to encrypt devices. Only 36 percent employ an MDM solution.
•              Less have half of respondents have an effective risk management program. Only 47 percent perform periodic risk assessments and only 24 percent have an objective third party assess their security program.
• "Cyber criminals evolve their tactics very rapidly, and the repercussions of cybercrime are overwhelming for any single organization to combat alone. It's imperative that private and public organizations collaborate to combat cybercrime and gain intelligence about security threats and how to respond to them. A united response will prove to be an indispensable tool in advancing the state of cybersecurity," said David Burg, PwC's global and U.S. advisory cybersecurity leader, in a prepared statement.

PwC also offered the following eight recommendations for combating cybercrime:

•                    Assess risks associated with supply chain partners
•                    Develop threat-specific policies
•                    Enhance training and create workforce messaging to boost cybersecurity awareness across the organization
•                    Ensure that mobile security practices keep pace with adoption and use of mobile devices
•                    Hold third parties to the same or higher cybersecurity standards
•                    Invest in people, processes and technologies
•                    Perform cyber risk assessments regularly
•                   Take advantage of information sharing internally and externally to learn about new cyber risks

“Despite substantial investments in cybersecurity technologies, cyber criminals continue to find ways to circumvent these technologies in order to obtain sensitive information that they can monetize,” said Ed Lowery, Special Agent in Charge, Criminal Investigative Division, U.S. Secret Service in a statement. “The increasing sophistication of cyber criminals and their ability to circumvent security technologies indicates the need for a radically different approach to cybersecurity: A balanced approach that, in addition to using effective cybersecurity technologies, develops the people, processes, and effective partnerships in order to strategically counter cybersecurity threats.”

The full survey is available for download here.

Your weekly roundup of IT news for the channel

Good news for MSPs: 61% of IT leaders plan outsourcing investments this year

According to a new report from Elk Grove Village, IL-based IT solutions provider American Digital Corporation, 61 percent of IT leaders plan to invest in outsourced managed services over the next two years. The study – titled the "2014 State of SAP Report – was queried IT professionals in February and March and was primarily focussed on identifying the trends surrounding SAP use this year. American Digital is a prominent SAP partner. While IT leaders clearly have a level of comfort using MSPs for support, the news is mixed when it comes to handing over total control of their internal IT infrastructure. "Today we see companies comfortable with outsourcing application support, but many are still holding on to the infrastructure in-house," said American Bill Loupakos, Digital Professional Services Vice President in a statement. For example, 74 percent of IT leaders stated they will retain full control of their data centers while the remaining 26 percent will use some combination of internal and outsourced capability. As far as SAP findings are concerned: SAP HANA, SAP Mobile and Managed Cloud are the most in-demand SAP offerings and all are likely to be outsourced with only 29 percent of respondents saying they'll use in-house resources for SAP-related support.

Unitrends picks up cloud-based disaster recovery startup Yuruware

Columbia, S.C.-based data protection and disaster recovery vendor Unitrends announced it has acquired Yuruware, an Australian start-up that is developing technology that allows easy disaster recovery using public clouds. According to Unitrends, the Yuruware technology gives users the ability to run virtual machines and virtual networks in nearly any public cloud, including Amazon Web Services and OpenStack clouds, with Microsoft Azure on the road map. Unitrends will use Yuruware's machine and network transformation capabilities – the ability to spin up a virtual machine in the cloud – to further build out its existing Reliable DR product line, which it acquired in December with the acquisition of PHD Virtual and which can already spin up a virtual machine in both physical and virtualized environments.

Microsoft: We Have MDM Solutions for Enterprises, Too

Microsoft may not be the first name you think of when you think about enterprise mobility but wants to remind enterprise mobility management providers that it offers enterprise class mobile device management solutions. The software giant is in the process of publishing a series of how-to blog posts that highlight specific tasks required for successfully managing a client’s mobile assets. The new posts build on a series of strategic articles by Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of Windows Server and System Center at Microsoft, which describe what it takes to be successful in enterprise mobility at a strategic level, including defining enterprise mobility, what's coming for enterprise mobility, what components are relevant to enterprise mobility and what enterprise mobility looks like in action.

You can find the first few blogs through the links below:

• How-to perform device enrollment for mobile devices
• How-to configure mobile device setting
•  Deploying apps to mobile devices (forthcoming)

Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks found cyber defense consortium

Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks have partnered to create a cyber defense consortium which will use shared threat intelligence to help member organizations protect their customers from increasingly sophisticated cybercrime attacks. The consortium will provide a forum for collaboration on threat intelligence and sharing of preventative measures including:

• Better cross-industry, cross-vendor threat intelligence
• Better coordination of incident response
• Better prevention of cyber attacks using advanced malware 

You can learn more about the consortium at www.cyberconsortium.org.

ESET allies with Ingram Micro for NA distribution of its cyber security solutions

Ingram Micro and Bratislava-Slovakia-based ESET have formed a strategic alliance under which the distributor will provide U.S. channel partners with access to ESET’s digital security products. The new alliance enables ESET – which is dedicated to the channel distribution – to offer a combination of products and services, along with a volume incentive program, flexibility for resellers in securing credit, and a facilitated process for securing quotes and placing orders. According to Eric Kohl, executive director, Advanced Technology Division, Ingram Micro, the alliance will make ESET’s full line of Endpoint Solutions for business will be available through the agreement while Ingram will support ESET’s penetration of the north american channel community with targeted marketing programs, technical support and financial services. “The need and demand for flexible and powerful security services is at an all-time high and we’re excited to team with ESET to bring greater choice, performance and value to channel partners throughout the U.S.“

CloudBerry Lab cloud backup enhanced with remote management in latest update

Newport Beach, CA-based cloud backup vendor CloudBerry Lab has released an upgrade to its Managed Backup Service that will allow service providers to create and manage key backup and recovery processes remotely. The service is designed for MSPs and VARs who can use their own storage accounts at Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, or Windows Azure to provide branded cloud backup to customers. There is no charge to service providers for signing up for CloudBerry Managed Backup service and users get 2 GB of free cloud storage to evaluate the service.

Zoho updates remote support software, unveils iPad app

Pleasanton, CA-based business, collaboration and productivity applications provider Zoho has released an updated version of its remote support software. New features added to Zoho Assist, the company's RMM software, include a new file transfer window, a new HTML5-based technician console in Linux and Mac and a "Help Me" tab for live support. Designed for independent IT technicians, outsourced IT firms, remote PC repair service professionals and SMB IT support specialists, Zoho Assist is an on-demand, Web-based application that enables users to provide assistance on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. The company also launched Zoho Assist for iPad, an app that makes it possible for users to:

• Connect with IT professionals when they need help
• Capture screenshots of a remote computer
• Switch between multiple monitors
• Take control of a remote computer

Follow this link to access a free 30-day trial

Acronis Disk Director 12 Updates Data Manipulation, Disk Management

Woburn, Ma.-based Acronis has released the latest version of its backup and disaster recover (BDR) solution: Acronis Disk Director 12. The company said the solution provides new features aimed at helping users organize hard drives for superior performance, while protecting and securing users’ data through the use of multiple volumes on a single drive.

The major new features available in Acronis Disk Director 12 include:

• Partition management
• Extended Windows support
• Across-the-board PC support – Users can create Acronis bootable media (Linux-based or Windows PE-based) and boot into a recovery environment on a UEFI-based machine.
• Improved recovery capabilities with Acronis Recovery Expert tool

Sophos delivers individual file encryption and anti-virus with new EMM solution

Oxford-based IT security vendor Sophos has released the latest version of its enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution Sophos Mobile Control 4.0. According to the company, the solution is designed for SMBs who want to manage and secure content, applications and devices. The new release includes individual file encryption, integrated anti-virus and web filtering and also supports Apple, iOS, Google, Android and Microsoft Windows Phone 8 devices. SMC 4.0, which is available on premise or as a service, integrates with Sophos UTM, Checkpoint and Cisco to provide network access control and allows IT administrators to manage devices through a web-based management console or to create a self-service portal that allows users to perform several basic tasks like changing passwords, registering devices and reporting lost or stolen devices.

We just want to reach out and let you know that this year’s Fall Conference is coming home to Redmond, WA! Join us September 26-28^th, 2014!

Also,  save the day of September 29 for a post-conference bike ride with Harrybbb!

Keep watching this site for more news and information!

Earlier this week, D&H Distributing announced the addition of a new site dedicated to its Education Resellers. This site, located at www.dandh.com/K12, features a number of resources, including new webcasts and white-label marketing materials.

D&H noted some recent initiatives in the education space dedicated to helping schools update their technology. These initiatives include Microsoft’s “Shape the Future” campaign and the ConnectEd program, which is a parallel to the old E-Rate program in the 1990’s. In addition, the new Common Core State Standards policy specifically uses technology as part of its coursework. D&H is passionate about this vertical, citing it as one of the fastest-growing in the next few years. As part of the company’s mission to help its Education Resellers, D&H has added a major emphasis on education to its upcoming Mid-Atlantic Trade Show (June 26). This show will include an “Education Lounge” in which attendees can test the latest technologies and products in this vertical.

New computers can be a big expense for small businesses, but old computers can cost your company in a number of ways too: necessary repairs, downtime for employees, and potential security risks to name just a few. Perhaps you’ve been putting off updating your staff’s computers, but there are five important reasons to stop delaying and upgrade soon.

By Raymond Vrabel, Director, Technical Account Management, Continuum

Part 4 of a monthly blog series examining tips on how MSPs can work to break “bad” business habits that they might unknowingly fall into as a result of just wanting to get things done.

In the previous installment of “Breaking Bad,” I discussed how to maintain a healthy work/life balance. In this month’s blog, I offer tips on what MSPs need to look for when identifying and establishing vendor relationships. At first, researching and picking the correct vendor to mesh with your business model might sound like a daunting task – if you follow these steps, however, and watch out for the potential “red flags” that I outline below, you can find a vendor relationship that will be mutually beneficial for both of you.

Santa Clara, CA-based virtualization provider NComputing has launched the public beta of its NComputing oneSpace workspace-as-a-service (WaaS) solution. The move cements the organization’s transformation from a hardware company to a cloud service-based software vendor.

Initially announced in February, oneSpace is built on NComputing’s vSpace virtualization platform and allows users to securely access applications and files through a unified workspace from whichever device they prefer, including iPads and Android tablets. Meanwhile the IT group has complete control over the workspace environment.

Unlike other desktop virtualization vendors, including Citrix and VMware, NComputing uses a Server Based Computing model rather than VDI – a difference that Dave Burton, NComputing’s Vice President of Global Marketing, says makes it better suited to SMBs. “VDI certainly has its applicability, especially for enterprises. But in the SMB a server-based approach is going to fit their needs better.”

To start with, adds Burton, the server based approach is simpler than VDI, and requires less storage and fewer licenses which reduces overall costs. Additionally the big VDI vendors have been focussed on the large enterprise market leaving the SMB space underserved. This has created an opportunity for NComputing, which is entirely focussed on the channel. Indeed, later this year the company will launch a more formal partner program, but Burton says the company is being strategic in the way it will do that.

“We aren’t looking to get to 1000 service providers in the next year, he said. “Instead we want to select service providers that expand our reach into markets or where they have specific expertise.”

This announcement builds on last week’s news that NComputing is making its first foray into the desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) market. The DaaS solution – which, like oneSpace, is built on vSpace – is designed to simply and inexpensively enable service providers to rapidly deploy hosted desktops as a service to SMBs.

According to NComputing desktop virtualization is becoming increasingly important for SMBs who are looking for more efficient delivery and management of the corporate desktop. DaaS eliminates the need for the IT department to build and manage a desktop virtualization infrastructure, while enabling provisioning, scaling and management of end user desktops. Like oneSpace, the DaaS offering takes a server-based computing approach.

NComputing also announced that So-net Corporation, a member of the Sony Group, is the first NComputing partner to offer desktop virtualization based on its vSpace platform. So-net’s new DaaS offering for the Japanese market, called Virtual Desktop Service, is already live.

The NComputing oneSpace beta program is open to a limited number of participants in the US and Canada; with general availability of the platform expected by the end of June. To learn more and to sign up for the beta, visit http://www.ncomputing.com/products/oneSpace.

Earlier today, MicroPower Technologies, Inc., a San Diego, CA-based surveillance device company, announced that it has been awarded the top honor in the Green Technology category at the first annual American Technology Awards.

MicroPower Technologies earned this honor with their solar-powered, wireless surveillance camera that can monitor between ½ and 2 miles, and work for 5 straight days in complete darkness. As a company, MicroPower has been working to help its customers keep on top of the technology trends while remaining sensitive to the environmental impact of new technology. You can read one of their white papers here.