SMB Nation Blog

We’re one week away from what I affectionately call the Windows XP Election Day. As you know by now, Windows XP end of support (EOS) is April 8^th. For those political wonks amongst us, you’ll fondly note that politicians barnstorm hard the last week for every single vote. It’s called a “get out of the vote” strategy and our current worldwide Modern Partner Tour is akin to that exhausting final push. Voices grow hoarse, staffers catch colds, and we go 7X24 the final week. That’s exactly what’s occurring.

(Pictured: The Auckland Modern Partner Tour Workshop last week)

Yesterday, Belkin International announced the debut of its new PartnerAdvantage Program, a reseller program designed to support the growth of SMB IT Professionals. As many of you remember, Belkin acquired Linksys in March of 2013, and the organization has been able to offer both power management solutions, as well as infrastructure solutions ever since.

I was able to speak with Belkin’s VP of Product Management, Mike Chen, a week ago, and he went into the finer points of this partner program with me, as well as some new product announcements (to be covered in a later blog). To begin, Mr. Chen explained that this new partner program combines the best of both Belkin’s and Linksys’ existing partner programs, and that it is open to all current partners.

Learn why schools like Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins use Retrospect. Attend our webinar Protecting EDU Environments with Retrospect. Participants receive a free Retrospect NFR!

So what do EDU customers need?

By Tim Kelsey, Pronto Marketing

In its goal to deliver the best marketing analysis tool to businesses, Google has recently made vital improvements to Google Analytics - Google’s reliable Web-based analysis tool. Although there were new reporting features added, many of the existing features remain the same. This goes to show that the recent improvements made by Google are a clear statement that they’re keen on developing a more solid and profound marketing analysis platform.

Good morning, SMB Nation Community! I received word from our contact at Acronis that today marks the 4^th Annual World Backup Day, on which IT Pros, SMB business owners and enterprises all take a pledge to back up their most important documents.

According to the World Backup Day page at:http://www.worldbackupday.com, 113 phones are lost or stolen every minute and 29% of all data loss disasters are complete accidents. In addition, 30% of the public has never completed a backup. The site above offers tips on places to do backups, from a simple external hard drive, to an internet-based service.

This week’s IT news features a cloud war brewing between Amazon and Google, a CompTIA report that says you could be making more money and major partner program overhauls from Cisco and AMD.

Cisco overhauls partner program

Cisco Systems unveiled significant changes to its global partner program at its Global Partner Summit in Las Vegas. Going forward more Cisco partners will be pushed to sell cloud and managed services and to target customers beyond IT. The Next-Generation Cisco Channel Partner Program includes numerous changes to the company’s partner certification structure – many of which address managed services and cloud. Additionally, Cisco's various deal registration programs, including the Cisco Opportunity Incentive Program and Teaming Incentive Program, are being consolidated into a single initiative.

Other changes ushered in by the new program include:

• Gold partners have to sell at least four Cisco cloud or managed services offerings (a minimum of one of each)
• Gold partners are also required to have a staff member achieve the new Cisco Business Value Practitioner certification, a new certification also announced at Partner Summit that changes the focus of the sales process from IT to lines of business.
• The Silver designation will be eliminated.
• Premier partners will have to sell at least one Cisco cloud or managed services offering and must also hold either a Cisco Express or Advanced Architecture Specialization.
• There will be no changes to Select Partners.
• There is also a series of new technical specializations

Gold and Premier partners will have between 16 and 24 months to meet the new requirements under. There are no changes to partners at the Select status.

Price war brews between cloud giants Google and Amazon

Google fired the first shots in a price war with Amazon by slashing prices for many of its cloud services and rolling out a new consumption-based billing model that offers deep volume discounts. According to the company the cuts, ranging from 32 to 85 percent, are the result of falling hardware component costs. Google is simply passing the savings along to customers. The move instantly catapulted Google into player status in the market for computing resources delivered as services over the Internet, a space dominated by Amazon Web Services. Amazon responded just a day later with its own series of price cuts. As of April 1, AWS will cut Elastic Compute Cloud pricing by 10 to 40 percent. The price of Simple Storage Service will fall by an average of 51 percent – cuts will range from 35 to 65 percent depending on the level of service. Amazon's Relational Database Service will be 28 percent cheaper on average, the price of ElastiCache will drop an average of 34 percent, and Elastic MapReduce will be available for 27 to 61 percent less depending on the instance type.

HP increases partner support with new marketing programs

Hewlett-Packard is offering to help drive significant pipeline growth for solution partners with a series of new marketing initiatives. The foundation of the new program, announced at HP’s Global Partner Conference, is a demand generation marketing program that will automatically direct leads directly to partners. Under the present system HP sales reps pass the leads to partners. According to HP, the company passed along more than 100,000 opportunities valued at more than $14 billion to partners in the last fiscal year. These leads were generated by marketing campaigns across all HP business units. HP also is rolling out a co-marketing zone for partners that contains all HP marketing assets including collateral, templates, direct marketing campaigns, ads and banners. HP partners will be able to customize those assets with their own brands and information, effectively tapping into HP’s tremendous marketing force. HP partners can get more information from their HP Partner Business Managers.

Kaseya acknowledges securoty hole

Kaseya has publicly acknowledged a security vulnerability in its Virtual System Administrator product. The RMM vendor posted a new product vulnerability note on March 24 and urged users to immediately download and install the patches released on March 17. According to Kaseya, customers have been targeted by malware that mines Windows-based PCs for the digital currency Litecoin – in some cases successfully. In addition to patch installation, Kaseya advised users to audit all Windows end points. Kasaya reported that the Litecoin mining malware is a process running “SoftwareUpdate.exe,” version 1.0.0.0, and the file description is “Apple Software Update.” There is legitimate Appple software usng other version numbers so note the affected version to avoid false positives. Kaseya partners can find detailed removal instructions in its Knowledge Base and can file a ticket with the help desk using the keyword LCCLEAN.

CompTIA report: MSPs leaving money on the table

According to CompTIA’s "Third Annual Trends in Managed Services" study, MSPs are not making as much money as they could be. The reason? Market education. Or rather, the lack of it. While many companies use MSPs and report both a high degree of satisfaction with the services provided and with the prices they pay for them, they rarely allow an MSP to manage their entire IT portfolio. They hold back at least in part, because they don’t understand how an MSP can meet all their IT needs. The report advices MSPs to eliminate this disconnect through better communication with their customers by listening to their needs, understanding how they use technology, gain a better understanding of how tech is applied in specific verticals and promote your industry-specific knowledge.

SOTI Unveils New Partner Program

SOTI Inc. unveiled a new channel program aimed at helping partners expand their mobility businesses. The Altitude Partner Program offers a multi-tiered approach, a new program for on-boarding, additional support services, RFP services, new training programs and a new partner portal. According to the company, the industry is at the tail end of BYOD 1.0 and taking basic BYOD implementation to the next level – mobility workflow management. The new channel program is designed to help service providers find opportunities to sell the next stage of mobility services. According to the company, SOTI’s channel business grew 45 percent year-on-year and it will continue to dedicate 70 percent of its overall business to its channel partners.

AMD overhauls partner program for the 1^st time in five years

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker AMD has revamped its partner program for the first time in five years, rewarding partners for evangelizing AMD products and helping the company compete with Intel in new markets. AMD has gradually moved beyond its CPU roots and added APUs, HSA features and Radeon R-Series GPUs. The new program will benefit partners who help AMD push beyond its traditional PC system builder market. One of the changes is the addition of the Hero Builder designation for Elite-level partners. Obtaining the Hero Builder badge will unlock access to additional benefits, such as early access to select AMD technology.

By Melinda Curran

For businesses today, technology can be an unsettling investment. It won’t be long before said technology is outshined by something cheaper, faster and stronger.

Considering Moore’s Law, most technology will outgrow itself within two years and many technologies won’t make it that long. But, constantly shuffling your budget to adopt the next generation of networks and technologies on the market hurts your bottom line. “Rip and repair” costs are not cheap, especially for companies with multiple locations and extensive networks and systems. By the same token, the cost of downtime and inefficiency from inadequate systems come with a price of its own.

GoDaddy is continuing to expand its service footprint for SMBs. Over the past several months the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company has been rebranding itself and aggressively branching out from its foundation in domains and online presence to add more and more services for SMBs. Today the company unveiled a partnership with Dwolla – a low-cost online payments network – that will help SMBs simplify the invoicing process, replacing the entire invoice/cheque/deposit process with an electronic transaction.

The new service, which is available today, offers GoDaddy’s 12 million small business customers an alternative to paper checks or more costly options like PayPal, says Steven Aldrich, GoDaddy Senior VP of Applications.

Paper cheques are still the most prevalent form of payment for SMBs, says Aldrich, adding that cheques introduce a variety of inefficiencies and issues to the process of getting paid that are “less than ideal.” To start with they take time, introducing long cash flow lags. Then they cost money in a number of ways – from the cost of the cheques themselves to processing fees that can run to more than $7.00 per transaction to the money you have to pay your accountant/billing department to manually deal with each transaction.

Credit cards or alternative online options like PayPal aren’t much better. Credit companies usually take a three percent cut of the invoice, which will be about $33 on the average invoice of $1100. By Comparison, Dwolla charges a flat 25 cents on all transactions over $10.

In the past SMBs could use Dwolla, but it was often necessary for the payee to register for a Dwolla account, making the service cumbersome for thousands of small services businesses like plumbers and IT consultants. Dwolla overcame this last year with e-cheque technology that enabled guests to make one-time or multiple payments to Dwolla users from an existing bank account – the technology underlying the GoDaddy offering. The problem was that the Dwolla user needed to do some coding up front to make it work. GoDaddy has simplified the process and done that coding for them.

“This is not just about traditional ecommerce providers,” said Aldrich. “It’s about anyone that gets paid by check today. We’ve found that SMB owners are doing more with the Web and more with their phones. It’s all types of transactions, whether it’s over the web, or I came to your house to fix your roof. Now all you need is an email address and you can send them your invoice.

“With the Dwolla option, you save the SMB hundreds of dollars. It’s also easy, fast and safer for people to move to electronic invoicing and electronic payments.”

This is part of a massive strategic evolution for GoDaddy. In January the company unveiled a new brand identity with a new Super Bowl ad featuring Danica Patrick focussed more on customer identity than titillation and announced a relationship with Microsoft to make Office 365 available to its SMB customers. The company is also moving beyond its traditional strength in the digital business world.

Out of an estimated 28 million SMBs in the US, 23 million of them have five or fewer employees. “That is the customer we are targeting,” says Aldrich. “Those types of firms want that very easy to use service. They are not accountants or web developers so they need an affordable service and they want it to just work.”

To this end GoDaddy no offers a suite of services that deliver four key areas. In addition to its traditional strength in domains and online presence services, the company has been building out its marketing services and business support offerings – including the Dwolla e-cheque services, Office 365 and online bookkeeping.

By Travis Adams

As an information technology professional, you know that your work is about more than bits and bytes, despite stereotypes perpetuated by movies and popular television shows. As technology takes an ever more prominent role in everyday life, possessing the skills and knowledge necessary to maintain computers and computer systems becomes increasingly essential. In many instances, specialized training is necessary to perform the functions necessary to keep systems up and running.

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/465034921

Date: March 27, 2014

Time: 10-11am PDT

Presented by: Thomas Koll, CEO and Chairman, LapLink Software

On April 8th, Windows XP users will see an end to technical support, hot-fixes, and security updates, leaving them vulnerable.

Laplink is Microsoft’s official Windows migration partner and will give you a simple cost-effective plan to help you avoid the 5 costly mistakes of staying on Windows XP. Join Laplink’s chairman and CEO Thomas Koll to discuss why moving off of Windows XP is crucial to your business and how Laplink’s PCmover provides the possible best solution.

By Raymond Vrabel, Director, Technical Account Management, Continuum

Second part 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 premiere installment of “Breaking Bad,” I discussed how MSPs can get to know their customers better. Now, in this month’s blog, I continue this theme by exploring the other lifeblood of an MSP’s business--your employees. More specifically, I dive into how you can retain and keep solid employees and talent, once you get them onboard.

Let’s look at a few best practices that I have firsthand knowledge of from speaking with MSPs when it comes to hiring and keeping staff that best aligns with your business. These tips apply to any staff member including techs, marketing and sales, and administrative and support staff.

Early yesterday morning, HP announced a series of new storage systems designed for SMBs. I had the chance to speak with Brad Parks, HP’s senior manager, GTM strategy and messaging, who went over the new storage devices, which have all been wrapped around a program designed for the company’s SMB IT Pro resellers.

D&H Distributing recently announced the dates and topics for its first trade show of 2014, being held at the Pacific Palms Resort in City of Industry, CA. This event will take place from 11:00 am – 9:00 pm on this Thursday, March 27, 2014, with an expected 500 resellers in attendance, as well as 60 vendors.

No two businesses are the same. And if you are one of the many thousands of companies who provide IT support, computer repairs or managed IT services then understanding how companies differ in the way they work, and organize their business is vital to your success.

The IT world is changing and it's not enough to simply fix broken machines, provide virus protection, backups and system checks. Cloud computing has revolutionized the way IT service providers operate. With less physical infrastructure to take care of, expertise is now more valuable than technical skills. You are no longer a every-day IT nerd, you're a Chief Business Technologist.

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Participants receive a free Retrospect NFR!

So what are their data protection needs?

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

Darryl Anderson is CEO of Owia Technology, a small IT service company based in Washington DC, with clients up and down the East Coast. And he’s making a big business out of helping non-profits to migrate to the cloud.

“If you’re a non-profit, Microsoft is pretty much giving away licenses of Office 365,” Darryl told me recently, “and so that makes it very compelling for these organizations to get away from the hassles and cost of maintaining internal Exchange – especially when so many of them are running off of old boxes.”

Click here to hear more about Darryl’s story in his own words.

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

Symantec fires CEO

The turmoil at Internet security giant Symantec is continuing with the termination of CEO Steve Bennett. Long-time board member Michael Brown has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer on an interim basis. The company will begin searching for a permanent replacement immediately. Trading of Symantec stock was temporarily halted following the announcement late Thursday. It dropped as much as 10 percent in after-hours trading. Bennett was in the second year of a transition that was supposed to help the company recover from several years of mediocre performance. Bennett was working on delivering a more integrated product portfolio but the company has failed to explain what that would look like. He had focussed on overhauling the company’s go-to-market strategy, laying off hundreds of employees and refocusing sales efforts on an elite group of about 100 US partners, however the process seemed to be taking longer than expected and he recently said that the coming year would see the process continue. The company announced another quarter of declining revenue with its third-quarter performance numbers, released in January, reporting $1.71 billion, down from $1.79 billion a year earlier.

Xerox launches push for managed services, recurring revenue with new partner program

Xerox introduced a new unified, global partner program last week, and is making a push to promote recurring revenue models that will help partners make more money from print products. According to Toni Clayton-Hine, Vice President of Channel and Global Marketing at Xerox, there is still a huge opportunity in the channel for managed print services, which go beyond simply selling a printing device and making sure it’s online and functional to include the ongoing sourcing of consumable supplies like toner and paper. This kind of ongoing work can be extremely lucrative, with margins in the 60 to 70 point range on consumables. Xerox has prioritized recruiting MPS channel partners and will provide them with new tools, education and training around engaging customers in recurring revenue models, and with opportunities to connect with each other.

Verdasys names new CEO, unveils plans for channel push

It was a big week for Verdasys. The Waltham, Mass.-based data loss prevention vendor announced a $12 million investment round, named a new CEO and unveiled plans for a major channel push. Former McAfee exec Kenneth Levine has taken the organization’s reins and announced that the new investment – which brings the total venture capital investments in the company since it was founded in 2003 to $65 million – will be used to boost the reach of its partner program into new markets through improved channel outreach and to enhance the capabilities of its agent-based data loss prevention platform, Digital Guardian. According to Levine, there is an opportunity for Verdasys to expand the product beyond data loss protection to address a broader security footprint, and include such features as malware detection.

AppDynamics boosts partner margins with updated partner program

AppDynamics has made moves to protect partner margins by rolling out a new compensation model for its channel program. The San Francisco-based company sells application performance management software that provides clients with visibility into their application stacks and the ability to identify patterns and diagnose problems. Since launching in 2008, AppDynamics has seen year-on-year growth rates in the 175 percent range, something the company credits largely to the growth of its channel business – which has growth to represent 10 to 15 percent of the company’s revenue. Going forward, AppDynamics partners will get 20 percent margins on the first $500,000 of business, 25 percent up to $1 million, and 30 percent on anything topping $1 million. Renewals, which have been in the 96 percent range, will be worth 10 percent margins, 20 percent with support.

Acuative acquires consulting capabilities with Thrupoint purchase

Acuative, formerly known as TelSource, has added consulting capabilities to its portfolio and expanded its geographic reach with the acquisition of the U.S. division of Thrupoint. However, the value of the deal was not disclosed in this week’s announcement. Traditionally, the Fairfield, N.J.-based solution provider was particularly skilled in services implementation and technology operation and maintenance. This move adds consulting services expertise that makes it possible for the company to deliver a credible end-to-end technology service that begins at the earliest consultative phase and continues through delivery to operation. The deal closes a competitive weakness and the company expects to address other weaknesses in like manner as the year progresses.

Intermedia focuses on the channel with increased cloud service commissions and new integrations

Cloud services provider Intermedia has made moves to increase its indirect sales by raising partner commissions and adding a set of new integrations – with Salesforce, ConnectWise and QuickBooks – that will help solution providers simplify their workflows and processes. Going forward, the three platforms will be integrated with Intermedia’s Partner Portal, providing 350,000 users with the ability to synchronise customer account data with the platforms. This works by allowing customers to create new accounts within the applications and then connect their billing systems. According to the company, this move will make it more attractive to potential partners. Adding further gloss to prospective relationships, the company is raising commissions. For example, partners will receive 10 percent commission on Intermedia's hosted PBX, a 66 percent increase over previous commissions, and eight percent on hosted Exchange, Lync, SharePoint and SecuriSync – a 33 percent increase.

Mitel launches white-label partner program for UCaaS

Ottawa, Canada-based Mitel has launched a new white-label program that will allow partners to resell its MiCloud Enterprise Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) offering under their own brands. Mitel will continue to host MiCloud UCaaS in its own data centers, although there will be an option for partners that have their own infrastructure to host it within their own environments in the future. MiCloud Enterprise UCaaS delivers a suite of hosted UC applications, including voice, chat, telepresence, and audio and videoconferencing that can be delivered through as subscriptions either through recurring or up front billing. Mitel, which announced the $400 million acquisition of Aastra Technologies earlier this year, has been gradually pushing its partners to adopt cloud models. Over the last year the company introduced a new sales unit dedicated to driving sales of MiCloud and also unveiled AnyWare Cloud Contact Center, a hosted contact-center-management suite aimed at SMBs.

Huawei Enterprise USA appoints new channel boss, offers major discounts to raise brand awareness

Huawei Enterprise has appointed channel veteran Glen Ziegler – who previously held senior channel positions with Hewlett-Packard and 3Com – as its new Senior Director of Channel Sales. Ziegler’s first move since taking the reins is an aggressive play to raise the company’s brand recognition in the channel and take market share away from Huawei’s chief competitors, Cisco, Juniper Networks and Extreme Networks. The company, which currently has more than 100 North American channel partners, is offering a 30 percent discount off competitive quotes from those vendors. The next move is a channel recruiting process for its data center offering.

Cbeyond Inc., has signed a marketing deal with Microsoft. Through the alliance, the IT services vendor will gain access to Microsoft’s US channel partners – MSPs, VARs and SMBs – and offer them incentives to put their customer’s solutions in Cbeyond’s cloud. In turn, Cbeyond’s will provide them with its TotalCloud Partner Edition cloud platform which is based on Microsoft enterprise cloud technologies, including Microsoft Windows Server 2012.

According to Greg Treanor, vice president of SMB-oriented IT consultancy RoseBud Technologies, the Cbeyond-Microsoft alliance “lets us address the needs of more SMBs seeking to create and maintain the right technology infrastructure for their business.” RoseBud is both a Cbeyond channel partner, a designated Microsoft Silver Certified Partner and Microsoft Cloud Accelerate Partner.

A key element of the company’s Cbeyond 2.0 cloud strategy, TotalCloud Partner Edition is an advanced cloud platform that enables private, public, and hybrid cloud deployments, a multi-tenant datacenter and cloud infrastructure that simplifies IT service deployment. Previously released Cbeyond 2.0 product platforms include TotalCloud Data Center, TotalCloud Phone System and TotalCloud Foundation.

Cbeyond’s portfolio of TotalCloud computing services makes it possible for SMBs and other businesses to transition fully or partially to the cloud through a suite of customizable, scalable solutions. Customers can access such features as multiple virtual computer and storage bundles, security options for compliance support, integrated network connectivity and intuitive self-service applications. Optional services included dedicated and shared storage, or dedicated physical services to create private or hybrid cloud deployment.

“By embracing cloud OS technologies Cbeyond has the ability to provide unified management, single identity across clouds with integrated virtualization, enabling organizations to shift to more efficiently managing datacenter resources as a whole,” said Aziz Benmalek, general manager, partner hosting & cloud services at Microsoft Corp, in a statement, adding that the deal makes it possible for Cbeyond to provide SMBs access to hybrid cloud technologies that would normally be beyond their reach.

SMB Nation has successfully launched a worldwide tour visiting over 25-countries and 30-cities in Q2 2014. Led by Harry Brelsford, Jay Weiss and Sharon Fry, this tour has already visited Singapore and Kuala Lumpur with stops in Manila, Hong Kong and São Paulo this week.

The Modern Tour is an invitation-only partner event focused on devices, Windows 8.1, Office 365 and Windows XP migrations. At each location, top Microsoft resellers are nominated for the privilege of attending a four-hour executive briefing presented the SMB Nation team. The goal is to empower these elite partners to hold customer-facing events that result in more sales and partner revenue.

(Pictured: Jay Weiss presents in Singapore on March 14)

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

There is simply no getting around it. You MUST continue to acquire new clients. Even if you don’t have any plans or desire to GROW your company, no customer lasts forever, so that means winning new business just to maintain your current level of income.

Marketing and selling is hard work, and doesn’t come easy for the IT professionals I talk to every day. But I’ve found that a lot of the dread is fear of the unknown, and fear of failure. Marketing and sales is very much a numbers game. You need to kiss a lot of toads before one turns into a prince (or princess). That translates into a lot of rejection, and who likes that?

D&H Distributing recently announced that it has added the Sophos Unified Threat Management (UTM) network security software to its offering list for VARs. This announcement marks another expansion of the two organizations’ three-year partnership.

“We see a window here for solution providers to possibly increase revenues through a managed services offering. We will work to provide as much resources as possible to optimize that opportunity for our VARs,” said Jeff Davis, Senior Vice President of Sales, D&H Distributing, in a press release this week.

SMB Nation’s own Harrybbb was recently featured on School for Startups Radio. He sat down for an interview with Jim Beach, where he discussed SMB Nation as a company, as well as the end of support deadline for Windows XP.

You can listen to the full interview at the site here: http://schoolforstartupsradio.com/2014/03/harry_brelsford_brad_farris/

While your success is well-deserved, Salesforce, your accompanying hubris was ultimately your downfall with us at SMB Nation. We’ve left you for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Online for some very important reasons. I’ll share the story right here, right now.

Money. As we approached our annual Salesforce renewal date, it wasn’t lost on us at SMB Nation how expensive Salesforce had become. I call it the “CRM cost creep.” It’s funny how in year one (a few years ago), the entry-level for Salesforce looked very cheap compared to our then CRM/ERP system (NetSuite). But fast forward the movie and somehow, someway the costs had escalated. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but I felt “poorer” continuing my journey with Salesforce. Of course, a proper lady will never kiss-and-tell, but the amount of money in play was significant.

(Pictured: Jenny, Edna and Marianne wave "goodbye" to Salesforce)

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Attend our webinar Protecting GOV Environments with Retrospect. Participants receive a free Retrospect NFR!

What do they need in a data protection software?

Today, snom technology, an international developer of IP phones for business use, announced that its snom UC edition Lync-qualified phones, including the snom 7xx and 821, can now be provisioned directly from the Lync server interface.

This now allows snom UC edition Lync phone users to remove some of the hassle from mass provisioning and deployment. According to snom, this is the first solution of its kind capable of leveraging Lync’s native Server components. Provisioning is a three-step process:

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

Computex Acquires ENETsolutions

Computex Technology Solutions, a national IT services company, has completed the acquisition of Houston-based MSP ENETsolutions. The acquisition strengthens Computex’s cloud services and unified communications offerings. In particular, the move bolsters the company’s networking infrastructure by adding data center ccapacity, integration facilities and a 24/7 network operations center for cloud and hosting services and remote network monitoring and management. The acquisition positions Computex to deliver large, national projects including the design, deployment and management of end-to-end enterprise IT environments that mix on-premise, off-premise and hosted solutions and a wide range of cloud computing consulting and professional services.

Barcoding and AeroScout team up to deliver hybrid RFID

Barcoding, Inc. and AeroScout Industrial have partnered to deliver hybrid RFID solutions that combine passive and active RFID. By merging the best features of both AeroScout’s active RFID and Barcoding’s passive RFID, this hybrid system approach creates one, unified visibility solution for tracking assets. According to Barcoding Director of RFID Tom O’Boyle, the hybrid approach will deliver a complete, integrated solution that will provide “an accurate, efficient, and connected data capture system that completely meets our clients’ unique and complex needs.”

GFI Software unveils MSP tool for Google apps, Office 365

Durham, NC-based GFI Software has unveiled a new tool that will improve the ability of MSPs to manage their customers’ Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps accounts. App Control, part of GFI Max, provides a single dashboard for the management of Office 365 and Google Apps user accounts, mailboxes and licenses saving MSPs the hassle of having to log in to multiple vendors' consoles to manage customers.

Eagle Eye Networks launches new channel program

Austin, Tex.-based Eagle Eye Networks – founded in January – has made connecting with the channel a priority and wasted no time launching a channel programto help deliver its cloud-managed video surveillance system to the market. Through the program, the company promises to generate leads on behalf of partners, provide access to system management dashboards that simplify installation and provide 24/7 support. Additionally partners will be able to deploy Eagle Eye Security Camera VMS under their own brand. According to company founder and CEO Dean Drako, Eagle Eye Security Camera VMS is built on four data centers that customers pay for on a monthly basis. This means partners can convert their customers to a recurring revenue model. Unlike previous generations of video surveillance systems which suffered from recording capacity limited by storage capacity, the Eagle Eye system allows solution providers to continuously monitor video surveillance systems and locally store files they want while the rest are archived in the cloud.

NetApp to slash 600 jobs Amid Slower Than Expected Sales, Heightened Competition

Cloud storage vendor NetApp has announced plans to cut 600 people, citing slow sales and heightened competition. According to the company’s SEC filing, the realignment will allow it "focus its resources on key strategic initiatives and streamline its business in light of the constrained IT spending environment." The move is expected to result in a $35 million to $45 million charge, most of which will be realized in its fiscal Q4.

Exablox adds channel program for MSPs

Cloud-based storage provider Exablox has rolled out its first channel partner program for MSPs that will provide access to the company's storage appliance and cloud-based management service. According to the company, the new program will support 100 partners focussed on mid-market customers across vertical industries with a marketing development fund for MSPs and is offering up to 30 points of additional margin. The company’s primary offering is OneSystem, a multi-tenant cloud-based management service, that provides remote management of its OneBlox storage solution through a single account.

Cisco leads market for security appliances

According to industry analyst firm IDC, Cisco claimed 18.1 percent of the security appliance market in Q4, 2013 – a measure worth $434 million in revenue. The report went on to credit Cisco’s strong position in the market to its October acquisition of Sourcefire, a specialist in cybersecurity. With 12.7 percent of the market and $303 million in revenues, Check Point was second while Fortinet and Juniper was ranked third and fourth respectively. Overall, the market grew 10 percent from Q3 and seven percent year-on-year. For the full year, security appliance revenue grew 5.4 percent to $8.6 billion. "With high profile security incidents, such as the Target breach, becoming more common, organizations are continuing to prioritize security spending," said John Grady, IDC Security Products Program Manager.

Earlier today, D&H Distributing announced an expansion of its cloud-enabled product portfolio. To be specific, this expansion came in three areas: Cloud Security, Cloud Software and Infrastructure, and Cloud Storage. This announcement is designed to allow D&H resellers to better leverage the increasingly popular cloud-based protocol in their sales departments.

D&H representatives explained that the company’s cloud-based SMB products have grown steadily through the years with the emergence of the “Security-as-a-Service” model. Here are a few examples of the cloud product portfolio:

Late last week, the SMB Nation Team went International to present the Emerging Technology Tour stop in Toronto, ON. We had 80 registrations for this event, which took place on the Toronto Microsoft Campus.

Pictured: Toronto Attendees follow along during a PowerShell session. Photo Credit: Karl Palachuk

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Today, Seattle-based SkyKick announced that it has entered into a partnership with Ingram Micro. Through this agreement, Ingram Micro can offer the SkyKick Migration Suite to its cloud solution provider community via the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace.

So what does SkyKick do? The SkyKick Migration Suite is designed for MSPs, VARs, System Integrators and IT Consultants, and will automate a full Office 365 migration from start to finish. In fact, SkyKick states that this solution reduces up to 90% of the effort from traditional migration tools and can take the migration time from 40 hours to less than 4 hours per project. Check out the image pictured for a look at the Migration Automation dashboard.

By Brian Ferguson, Digium

A recent CNBC study found that this season’s winter weather cost the U.S. economy more than $50 billion in lost productivity. There are few business roadblocks more glaring and expensive than the loss of productivity due to employees not being able to get to the office. This is especially true for small businesses that naturally tend to run very lean on staffing and budgets.

How can your company prepare for the operational disruptions of winter weather? For that matter, how do you combat any of Mother Nature’s possible weather events that could potentially throw a monkey wrench into profits?

There are a few fairly obvious (and somewhat expensive) actions you can take, such as developing a disaster recovery plan, buying back-up power equipment, and investing in redundant equipment and services. There is, however, another change that can have benefits well beyond those of disaster planning and that can actually save your business money: providing flexible workplace options.

Good morning, all and welcome back to Daylight Savings Time. I recently covered the latest news out of Acronis, a Massachusetts-based security company. I wanted to know more about their Acronis Access solution, as well as their place in the Channel, and I was able to meet with Acronis VP of Product Marketing, Mobility Business Unit, Anders Lofgren, late last week.

Lofgren started our call with a very interesting point around the phenomenon that is BYOD. According to Lofgren, BYOD is changing to BYOApps. This means that, although users are still bringing their own devices into the workspace, organizations are focusing more on protecting the applications on these devices, as opposed to the devices themselves.

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/163308113

Date: Thursday, March 13, 2014

Time: 10:00 – 11:00 am PDT

Presented by: Chris Bangs, VP, Business Development, SMB Nation and Karl Palachuk, President, Great Little Book Publishing

Join SMB author and coach Karl Palachuk for look at best practices for the modern managed service provider. Most MSPs built their business model around per-device pricing, Small Business Server, and on-site services. Now we’re seeing an explosion of devices, the end of SBS, and large migrations to the Cloud. Does your business look the same as it did five years ago? Join us and learn some of today’s best practices from a consultant who has worked with thousands of MSPs.

Learn how Retrospect’s features and EDU discount make it the perfect fit. Attend our webinar Protecting EDU Environments with Retrospect. Participants receive a free Retrospect NFR!

The unique circumstances and constraints of the EDU market means that requirements other than the need for a specific feature set carry much more weight in the decision to purchase than they typically do. For EDU customers, resources are scarce, but data loss risk is higher than normal; staff and administrative equipment is often older, making it more prone to failure, and schools are typically charged with protecting computers used by students, which can have an above-average problem rate.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

There’s always something or another that goes whacky with my laptop… and the cause is usually not obvious.

I remember one time that my email stopped accepting html content, but only from selected senders. I spent weeks going through my spam settings, Outlook configurations, talking to my ISP, talking to my IT security guy, looking on the internet for other cases.

Finally, a smart IT guy I know ran a little program to compare the registry settings deep-down – like eight layers into the Office app settings – where one value was changed. He put it back to where it was before, and the problem was solved, even though he couldn’t actually explain what the setting was for or why it was behaving like that.

That’s probably why so many IT pros swear by Network Detective. It works like that, except on steroids.

Harrybbb was recently forwarded a very interesting article from Spiceworks on the effect Daylight Savings Time has on business, particularly, the IT business.

As many of you know, certain parts of the world will be “Springing Forward” this Sunday AM. Most may think of this as a lost hour of blissful slumber, but Spiceworks’ IT Content Guru, Peter Tsai, has another take. Here are some of his key points:

Our weekly round-up of the news you don’t want to miss.

Datto upgrades BDR and BC solutions

Datto upgraded its entire line of backup and disaster recovery (BDR) and business continuity (BC) solutions and bolstered its portfolio with the addition of a new cloud-enabled network-attached storage (NAS) appliance in what CEO Austin McChord says is the largest launch of new solutions in company history. The new appliance, Snap NAS, allows users to use snapshot technology to track older versions and view data changes. Snap NAS will be offered in a recurring revenue model The company also released SIRIS 2, a redesign of its SIRIS product line which delivers field upgrade capabilities and eleven hardware models providing partners with meaningful deployment flexibility. DATTO’s ALTO product line for SMB’s also got an upgrade, with faster processing speeds and expanded capacity.

Good afternoon, SMB Nation Community! I was recently able to meet with Kaseya’s Chief Marketing Officer, Loren Jarrett (pictured). Loren took the time to discuss Kaseya’s strong 2013 growth, as well as plans for 2014 with me.

Loren started our call by introducing me to the “new Kaseya.” As many of you are aware, this company announced the appointment of Yogesh Gupta as CEO in June, 2013. With this appointment came an updating of the executive team; Loren herself was recently appointed as the company’s CMO. Additional appointments included: Prakash Khot as CTO (recently of Salesforce), Mark Combs as COO and Brian Murphy as CSO. All of these team members bring years of experience in the IT industry.

Earlier this week, Acronis announced the release of Acronis Access, an on-premise solution aimed at allowing IT departments to provide secure mobile content management and file sync/sharing. In particular, this new solution keeps control of content in the hands of the IT department.

Last week, StorageCraft announced a special offer for Zenith Infotech customers who want to continue using StorageCraft ShadowProtect.

With this announcement, StorageCraft said that they are offering significant discounts to current Zenith Infotech customers with StorageCraft ShadowProtect licences can do a smooth transition from ZI to StorageCraft, to keep their customers backup consistent and current.

Welcome to the third installment in our series on online IT workforce solutions.

SMB Nation has been exploring the rise of Workforce-as-a-Service (WaaS) staffing models and how vendors meet the unique temporary or freelance staffing needs of the IT industry.

In Part One of this series we talked to OnForce President and CEO Peter Cannone. In Part Two we talked to Field Nation CEO Mynul Khan and CMO Billy Cripe. In this installment we have input from Work Market founder and CEO Jeffery Leventhal.

eVoice, a virtual phone service provider and division of j2Global, announced the results of a recent study on the use of apps by SMBs. The main finding was that SMBs across the board are becoming more particular about the apps they use, with many saying that they will delete/uninstall an app that either glitches, or doesn’t what it’s supposed to.

Microsoft blogger, Diane Golshan, recently posted news that company partner, Nimbo, worked with New York-based online printing services provider, Mimeo, to increase that company’s revenues by $8 million.

GoDaddy recently announced the results of a survey of 600 SMB owners to determine how small businesses manage finances throughout the year and how they prepare for tax time. I was able to speak with the company’s SVP of Business Applications, Steven Aldrich about the survey findings, as well as GoDaddy’s answer for its SMB customers.

Steven told me their study found that 40% of SMBs take 6 or more hours (and some, days) to complete their taxes, and that 86% do not know exactly how much they will owe at tax time (12% not at all, 74% “ballpark amount”). In addition, 52% of respondents said that they manage their finances with either spreadsheets or pencil and paper. As you can imagine, this opens the door for standard data entry errors. In fact, 25% of respondents said that they actually lost track of whether or not a client paid for their services.

Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/142995360

Date: Thursday, March 6, 2014

Time: 8-9am PST/11am-12pm EST

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

Join us for an interactive hour of freeform brainstorming about what the next SBS would look like in a pure world. Be prepared to participate in a positive manner about features, functions, licensing, and economics. Bring your “invest forward” thoughts (sorry – backward complaining now not allowed) and help Harry make a business case for the next generation SBS that includes an on-premises server-side solution. No guarantees this will get funded but the crowd sourcing exercise is worth the price of admission alone!

A few weeks ago I reported that the Cloud Essentials title was being rolled into the Microsoft Action Pack (MAPS). It was an odd fit coming on the heels of Microsoft announcing a huge gain in cloud-based Office 365 earnings.

This past week, I received some additional insights into that roll-up strategy. Turns out that Microsoft is “cloud,” with its devices and services strategy and, ergo, MAPS is now more “cloudy” so that Cloud Essentials didn’t need to be an outlier. In other words, anything and everything cloud is mainstream at Microsoft. Thus the consolidation.

Photo credit: Microsoft Action Pack

By Raymond Vrabel, Director, Technical Account Management, Continuum

First part 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.

As we are about to close out the second month of 2014, most of us in the IT industry have likely come across a print magazine article or an online blog discussing and providing tips on how to make money and/or improve your business operations in 2014.

However, I’d like to take a different approach with this blog series. Rather than provide tips on how MSPs can improve their business from a general revenue standpoint, I instead would like to explore how they can change their business by perhaps starting with themselves, instead, taking a deep-dive into how they can possibly break the cycle of (though not intentional) “bad behavior” traps. In fact, I recently spoke to a Continuum partner who is presenting on this exact topic at our Navigate Partner Conference this September.

As many of you remember, we announced the formation of the Triad NC IT Pros for SMB and the Cloud User Group earlier this year. We received an update from Dexter Southerland letting us know that this group will have its first meeting next Tuesday, March 4, 2014 from 6:00-8:30pm.

The meeting will be at the following address:

Wednesday marked the final day of the Parallels summit, and I wanted to take some time to not only give a quick summary of that morning’s keynote from Arconis CEO, Serguei Beloussov, but to also cover Parallels’ company announcements.

I’ll begin with the news Parallels released earlier this week in the form of a press release. Parallels announced that it has completely redesigned its Parallels Cloud University, an online (browser-based) training program for business and technical roles in service providers’ companies. According to Parallels, this training allows service provider partners to quickly onboard new employees.

Our weekly round-up of the news you don’t want to miss.

Cogent launches its first channel program

Washington, D.C.-based Cogent Communications launched its first formal partner program. The move marks a strategic shift for the provider of IP networking, Ethernet transport and co-location services, which wants to see more of its enterprise sales going through the channel – ultimately as much as 50 percent of said enterprise sales. The company plans to roll out the program gradually, and plans to sign at least four or five master agent partners by the end of the year. The program launched with two such master agents in place: AB&T Telecom and WTG.

AVG introduces new Android administration console for AVG CloudCare

AVG Technologies expanded its CloudCare mobile management capabilities with an Android administration console that enhances the ability of MSPs/VARs to remotely manage security services on their customers’ IT systems. The new AVG CloudCare app for Android allows partners to carry out some of the most common admin tasks from their mobile device, including:View and acknowledge all or individual customer alerts as well as manage individual services, acknowledge/view the detailed data of alerts to find out more information and remotely deploy services such as antivirus, content filtering and online backup to customer devices via email.

Ingram Micro announces plans to lay off another 180 North American employees

The bad news cycle is continuing at Ingram Micro with the company announcing it will lay off another 180 North American staffers – and probably more globally. The move, which was previewed on its Q4 earnings call earlier this month, comes just a few months after the company announced its last corporate restructuring – something it calls the 2014 Global Organizational Effectiveness Initiative. The company claims the moves will cut $80 to $100 million and allow Ingram Micro to focus on new opportunities and growth areas. On the chopping block are the Specialty Solutions Division, AVAD, data capture/point-of-sale, mobility and consumer electronics. According to the company, those growth areas include healthcare, SMB, and the public sector, along with specific verticals where Ingram Micro wants to strengthen its position, like financial services. In fairness to Ingram Micro, the company claims to be recruiting as many as 300 people to focus on these areas.

NetSuite and Dell partner

Dell and NetSuite have entered into an alliance that will see Dell’s services organization resell and deploy NetSuite's ERP and e-commerce cloud applications for midsize customers. Through the deal NetSuite will gain access to Dell's customer base and while it could create opportunities for some NetSuite partners, the emphasis for NetSuite is getting access to Dell’s sales channel and professional services. The majority of NetSuite's existing partners sell NetSuite's standard ERP, CRM and e-commerce applications to SMB customers, but this deal could create competition for those few that are working with NetSuite's OneWorld cloud application suite, which is designed for larger organizations.

“NSA spying scandal will hurt U.S. businesses”

According to Richard Clarke, president of Good Harbor Security Risk Management and one of the members of President Barack Obama's surveillance review panel, US tech companies are feeling the guilt-by-association-fallout from the NSA spying scandal. Speaking at the Cloud Security Alliance Summit – essentially a one-day preconference attached to RSA 2014 – Clarke blamed the NSA leak scandal for the falling market shares of US tech companies in Europe, Latin America and Asia and said the full extent of that fallout is yet to manifest itself. According to Clarke, who served as special adviser to the president for cybersecurity, and national coordinator for security and counterterrorism for the last three U.S. administrations, the NSA leaks have given some countries propaganda fodder which they are using to boost the prospects of domestic companies. Clarke went on to say that trust in encryption needs to be re-established before the effects of the scandal can be overcome.

IBM acquires Cloudant, plans major cloud services push

IBM continued to add technology to its steadily expanding cloud portfolio by picking up Boston-based database-as-a-service firm Cloudant for an undisclosed sum. The news broke on the same day Big Blue said it would invest $1 billion over the next two years in cloud-software development as it tries to morph from a hardware, software and services company to a cloud-services company and compete with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft. Cloudant gained specific recognition for its ability to manage complex databases and big data processing.

ForeScout plans BYOD monitoring and policy enforcement

ForeScout Technologies Inc., will release a monitoring solution that will provide customers of its network access control solution, CounterACT, with the ability to monitor mobile devices and enforce security policies. According to the network security specialist, the CounterACT RemoteControl capability will be available by the middle of the year as a downloadable software upgrade at no cost for customers under active maintenance agreements.

Anturis updates its IT monitoring and troubleshooting solution

Anturis has added numerous features to its website monitoring and troubleshooting platform. Anturis Version 1.4, which provides organizations that don’t have advanced IT departments or a large IT budgets with enterprise-class IT infrastructure monitoring and troubleshooting cloud services, includes all the features an SMB needs – but is affordable and simple to set up and use. The updated solution introduces Parallels Plesk integration, dashboards and other features designed to help SMBs and web hosting companies manage their online presences.

I was able to meet with Open-Xchange CEO, Rafael Laguna (pictured) this afternoon at the OX booth in the Parallels Summit Exhibit Hall, and it was a rather eye-opening experience. First of all, Laguna spoke to me about the history of his organization.

Laguna is one of the founding members of OX, which began as a company in its own right in 2005, but that it started as a smaller organization. He explained that their story was a little backwards, as they got the customer first, noted hosting company, 1&1, Inc., and then launched their new venture. Having 1&1 as the launch customer gave OX an edge, as they had to scale with 1&1’s well-known growth.
Open-Xchange was originally started as a US Inc., but has most of its operations in Germany. Laguna then explained he and his fellow co-founders started with the idea that email is a major asset. He compared email to phone numbers, in that you can take your number with you to any carrier, but email is stuck. OX was also ahead of its time, in that all solutions were browser-based to begin with.

A couple weeks ago, Harry, Jenny and I met with Microsoft’s Director of Windows SMB Commercial, Jay Paulus, for a full tour of the new Windows 8.1 Pro systems.

Jay began his presentation by showing us the Miracast feature of Windows 8.1 devices, which allows users to wirelessly display their Windows 8.1 PC or tablet via compatible Miracast devices. Once paired, you can wirelessly project your entire Windows experience, including audio and video, just like being connected by a wire. For Windows 8.1 devices, this connection is quick and seamless. Jay also walked through some of the usability and management features, such as Open MDM and Workplace join, which make it easier for employees to bridge their personal and professional lives by bringing personal devices into the workplace.

Good day again, and welcome to today’s coverage of the goings-on at the Parallels Summit 2014! I was up bright and early again to attend today’s keynotes, which spoke directly to the Service Provider (IT Pro) role in the changing cloud industry.

I have already discussed the growing presence of the Cloud, not only on the tech side, but also for Main Street SMBs, like florists, plumbers, manufacturers, etc., so let’s dig into the good stuff! I attended three keynote presentations this morning, the first of which was another check-in from Parallels CEO, Birger Steen (pictured), with new software version announcements, as well as the announcement of the company’s top partners (I’ll cover this news in a separate article).

We received news from SMB Nation Community Member, and Windows analyst, Onuora Amobi, that he is releasing his fourth ebook, titled “Inside Windows 8.1.” Onuora told us that this book will feature the latest tips and tricks for navigating, connecting and making the most use out of the newest Windows Operating System.

Onuora is offering SMB Nation Community Members a 25% discount on his ebooks! To view these deals, you can visit the links below:

Do you value the potential influence of online customer reviews? According to the new SMB Sentiment Survey released by Yodle this morning, only half of SMBs answer that question in the affirmative. Put another way, half of you think that having a customer write something nice about you online is of no value to you.

Interestingly, another survey – published in April of last year – found that 90 percent of buyers reported being influenced by positive online reviews.

“There’s an enormous disconnect between the marketing value of a review and the businesses perception of the review,” says Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, a New York, NY-based local online marketing company (pictured). According to Cunningham, only 13 percent of small business owners are actively trying to solicit reviews from their customers and 23 percent have come out and said they aren’t important at all.

Good day, SMB Nation Community. I am writing to you live from the Parallels Summit 2014 in New Orleans, LA this week, and I am pleased to share the Day One news with you all. I will begin by covering the Parallels SMB Cloud Insights Report findings for 2014, then I’ll move on to highlights from the two panels I was able to attend today, one of which was on SMB Cloud Computing trends, and the other was the Future of Cloud.

The big story out of the Parallels Summit today is of course the release of the company’s SMB Cloud Insights report findings for 2014. This study, which has just completed its fourth year, is the result of over 12,000 SMB interviews across 14 countries. This year’s report showed a significant increase in the cloud opportunity for SMBs. The SMB market is expected to continue this growth, with a predicted 26% CAGR increase up to $125 billion by 2016.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

If you talk to Dan Johnson, president of Denver-based MSP Machine Logic IT, he’ll tell you that Network Detective is his “Swiss Army Knife.”

“We use it on every single prospective new MSP engagement ... we use it for paid Network Assessments … we use it as part of our PCI and HIPAA audits … and we use it as part of our MSP quarterly review process,” he said.

Not only that, Dan will tell you that all it takes is one paid project or recurring service engagement, and you’ve paid for the entire suite of Network Detective IT Assessment Tools. “From a financial perspective,” he observed, “it’s a no-brainer.”

Click here now to hear Dan explain all of this in his own words. He does a much better job of it than I can do, and probably with a lot more credibility.

Our weekly round-up of the news you don’t want to miss:

AVG Reports Q4 Earnings: Level Platforms Acquisition Performing Well

AVG Technologies, reported positive growth in revenues and net income for Q4 2013. According to CEO Gary Kovacs the company made significant progress selling its CloudCare and AVG Managed Workplace (formerly Level Platforms Managed Workplace) solutions into the channel. The company said its Q4 2013 revenue rose seven percent from $95.2 million in Q4 2012 to $101.9 million. Net income almost tripled to $12.8 million from $4.9 million in the same period last year.

McAfee Offers Pay-as-You-Go and additional solutions to MSP program

McAfee, the security tech division of Intel, has heard the voice of its channel partners and will finally offer MSPs a pay-as-you-go option for its network security and security management solutions. The idea is that the new model will help MSPs reduce upfront costs, and therefore risk. McAfee will also add additional solutions to its MSP Program, including: McAfee Next Generation Firewall, McAfee Enterprise Security Manager, McAfee Network Security Platform and McAfee Advanced Threat Defense.

Symantec opening the curtains on Global Channel Strategy

Symantec has unveiled Symantec Competencies, part of its Global Channel Strategy, which was announced in November. The plan will reward channel partners that have proven their ability to implement complex projects and use a broader selection of the company’s product portfolio, while cutting those who are deemed to underperform. According to the company, partners must meet minimum performance standards and demonstrate commitment to Symantec to gain access to channel rewards and incentives.

Total Defense adds new services for MSPs

Total Defense has added a couple of new cloud-based security services to its Total Defense Business platform for MSPs – email archiving and data leakage prevention (DLP). Cloud-based email archiving lets users automatically store all email communications and then access them in real time. This is particularly useful for business with regulatory compliance requirements. The DLP solution is designed for deployment in the cloud across all of the end user’s devices, regardless of their location and replaces the pot luck of individual security tool commonly used today with a single solution.

Microsoft Corp. and DocuSign recently announced that they have entered into a long-term strategic alliance through which DocuSign would be able to make its e-signature apps accessible to users on the Microsoft Office 365 platform. As of this week’s release, DocuSign apps will shortly be available for Microsoft Word, Outlook and SharePoint (Server and Online).

By Susan Mehta                             

With business ventures going mobile, organizations have observed a massive boost in employee productivity. Smart phones, PDAs, laptops and tablets are now being connected to business networks so that employees can work from anywhere, anytime. BOYD, or Bring Your Own Device, is a phenomenon fast catching up across various multi-national organizations because of the flexibility it offers employees in working from different client locations. However, BYOD as a practice does come with its share of pitfalls, the biggest being confidentiality and security of company data.

Previously, organizations that required employees to work from remote locations issued smart phones or laptops with security clearance. Case in point is the Blackberry range adopted by companies as something of a de facto standard across the software and finance industry. Blackberry, then associated purely with the white collar workforce, designed mobile devices with powerful capabilities that were utilized by companies to harness employee time on-the-go without compromising security. It enabled the organization to be in control not only of the data accessed by the employee but also of the device configuration. Data integrity and confidentiality was assured as the employee had to return the phone to the organization on employment termination.

That is not the case today. With more and more employees purchasing smart phones, tablets, phablets, and laptops with superior capabilities over the Blackberry, data security has become a major concern in organizations. Having expended a considerable sum on an expensive phone and already being comfortable with the device, the owner may be more inclined to use the same device at the workplace rather than managing two smart devices. While this works in favor of the organization in many ways, with reduced expenditure on official phones and the fact that individuals are much more comfortable with their own phones over company-issued devices, there remains the question of security. What mechanism is there to stop an employee leaking sensitive information to rival organizations? Or worse, a theft of a device means that the thief will be privy to confidential details of a new product in the pipeline.

The argument in favor of BYOD entails that the new generation of smart devices come fully equipped with anti-theft and security software. Whether this is enough to ensure that company data is safe in the hands of an employee remains to be seen. With mounting pressure on employers to embrace BYOD, the viability of the concept on a large scale is still a gray area.

For the present, organizations would do well to safeguard their data on company phones with the following tips.

1. Restrict Company Network Access

The network administrator in-charge of personnel access must review security measures frequently and thoroughly. For data protection, it is vital that active email accounts, VPN tokens, intranet applications and databases be monitored closely to detect unauthorized access and suspicious activity like a high number of login attempts. No confidential data should be available to employees without secure authentication. There must be robust security measures in place to detect any breach from a mobile device. All network openings must be covered and monitored often.

2. Ensure Secure Access to Corporate Data from Remote Locations

Corporate organizations must review their servers and data regularly to ensure that confidential information be accessed only after authentication. It is a good idea to prioritize the relative risk of exposing data accessed from various external portals. Sensitive data requires more than one layer of authentication, while low-risk data should be easier to access from remote channels for quick turnaround times.

3. Be Aware of Device Configuration

Mobile devices are a liability from a corporate standpoint owing to theft and potential loss. As a result, corporate data stored on mobile phones is highly susceptible to espionage. There is additional risk of data loss through electronic channels. Viruses and worms are also being developed on various mobile platforms to access confidential data.

An organization's first line of defense against smart devices is to ensure that each device is properly configured to secure any data. Software available online advises users about the possibility of applications accessing personal information and data being visible over a network. Companies can add their own theft and anti-espionage settings requiring users to access certain information only after being authenticated. Thirdly, employees must be advised about the possibility of data theft and the seriousness of the loss of vital information impressed upon them. Administrators aware of the configuration of smart devices are in a better position to detect unauthorized access and security breaches from individual devices.

4. Utilize Device Management and/or Audit tools

Often, the first step to ascertain that employees configure their portable devices as per company policy is by circulating written instructions either by email or putting them up on the notice board; and reinforcing the same by verbal instructions. While this may seem simple, employees may often read the directions yet not follow them. Over time, they may also fail to maintain the prescribed configurations.

To tackle this problem, there are tools that monitor and report the configuration of a device; and automatically channel any non- compliant device to align with the desired security configuration. While Mobile Devices Management (MDM) are the tools of choice, they are better suited for large organizations rather than a small company. An alternative to MDM is Mobile Device Auditing solutions. Unlike MDM, which is more stringent, these tools do not take over control of the device but keep track of non- compliant devices; making it an employee- friendly option as well.

5. Be Clear and Accurate when Communicating with Employees

To maintain transparency, it is preferable that the management informs all employees about the type of monitoring and control policies that are in place for BYOD like:

•              The kinds of data being monitored.

•              The configuration settings which can be modified.

•              The manner in which the device information will be used by the company.

•              The time period for which such data will be retained and so on.

Keeping communication lines open also promotes a level of trust and confidence between the company and its staff. It is important to note that organizations, by law, require a written agreement regarding the audit and control of employee devices. Such agreements enumerate the information that can be viewed and modified on employee devices by the organization.

Create awareness among employees about factors like reporting suspicious activity, loss of device or data, configuring devices as per security policies and the like; this will go a long way in securing sensitive information as employees will certainly be more cautious about where and how they keep their devices.

6. No Compromises on Employee Privacy

Even though BYOD allows external devices to access company data, the device is, at the end of the day, the property of the employee. They should be able to use their device for personal tasks too. A fine balance has to be maintained to see that the privacy of the employee is preserved along with securing company information. The staff too, will be at ease knowing that their personal data like bank accounts, non- business emails and texts; in short, all their private information which need not be accessed by any monitoring mechanism is out of bounds for the organization as well.

7. Have an Action Plan in place for Data Breach

It is important to identify the places where chances of data breaches are high and focusing on securing those areas. While steps to protect data are a must for any organization, they ideally serve to reduce the risks of losing sensitive data rather than completely eliminating it. Hence, it is always better to be prepared in case of loss or theft of data. The first point of contact in case a data breach is detected, the immediate configuration settings that will kick in to prevent further loss of data, investigative activities to identify the person or device responsible and such other factors have to be put in place to efficiently deal with such an prospect.

8. Keep Pace with Technological Advances

Technology is changing at the speed of light, and every organization should keep its IT systems, device monitoring and auditing tools updated to suit the latest scenario. Regular revision of policies regarding data protection too, goes hand in hand with system changes. When such processes are up- to- date, they complement each other’s working and support organizations in keeping their sensitive data secure, in a more efficient manner.

9. Practice what you Preach

IT systems have to not only comply with a variety of external regulatory bodies like Sarbanes, Oxley, HIPAA, PCI and so on but also with company security policies and internal audits. Whether surprise checks or routine ones, ensuring the systems and processes are secure and in compliance with external and internal policies at any time are always beneficial. Any deviations must be recorded and attended to in a timely manner. It reduces the chances of data breaches to a large extent.

10. Win-win situation for the Management and the Workforce

Putting mechanisms in place for BYOD policies do require considerable planning and proper execution from start to end. However, at the end of it all when all systems are in force, the Management is satisfied knowing that company data is safe to the maximum extent possible; and the employees are assured that they can exercise their choices as much as their responsibilities at the workplace.

BYOD is certainly a game-changer in data security policies for almost every company. A well-planned balance between freedom and safety measures will help create a working environment that is secure as well as flexible to work in.

Welcome to the second installment in our series on online IT workforce solutions.

Like everything else, the temp agency business model has felt the seismic impact of the Internet and the new technologies it has spawned, such as the cloud and social networking. This has opened the door to completely new models – models that deliver different services in different ways; models that even open up completely new corporate structures. Workforce-as-a-Service is one such model being touted by numerous vendors, but the standard Elance and oDesk-type crowd models that have dominated freelance work like writing and software development don’t work for the delivery of IT services. So how do they work? What kind of IT expertise can you get and how do you get it?

In Part One of this series, we talked to OnForce President and CEO Peter Cannone. In this installment, we have the insights of Field Nation CEO Mynul Khan (pictured) and CMO Billy Cripe.

ThreatTrack Security recently announced the release of its ThreatSecure solution, an advanced malware program designed to provide users with real-time detection of non-traditional threats. In particular, this solution is able to detect threats that evade signature-based defenses.

tw telecom inc. announced that it is accepting applications for its paid summer internship program, running between June and August 2014. Applicants for this internship must be currently enrolled full-time in an accredited university, and may be in either a graduate or undergraduate program.

Earlier today, the NEC Corporation of America (NEC) announced the latest release of its UC for Business software application. The company explained that version 7.0 has been updated to include TouchPoint, a customer interface program with support for global multilingual contact centers.

How to build a successful Internet presence that reflects the professionalism you bring to your work.

You’ve heard how important an online presence is these days, but you know it takes a lot of time and focus to bring the elements together. And as a small business owner, your time is precious and needs to be dedicated to growing your business.

With the Internet playing a crucial role in finding any sort of information, it’s your website that will make the first impression on any prospective client or partner. A first-rate website not only tells people where you are located and what time your office is open, but also builds trust, inspires confidence and establishes you as an expert in your field.

Is your website mobile-friendly, with its design optimized for smartphones and tablets? How about online forms - are they capturing all the important information and in sync with your database? The better your website is, the easier your job will be. You can concentrate on serving the needs of your clients and focus on the day-to-day management of your office, while Pronto Marketing makes your brand shine online. Pronto's enthusiastic team of professionals are versed in every online discipline, driven to boost SMB brands with a dynamic and coordinated, tailor-made Internet Presence that will empower your business.

But Pronto offers a lot more that just advanced website maintenance. From strategic marketing planning and unique content creation to link building and AdWords management, Pronto's new line of marketing services is designed to not only help your company maintain an awesome Internet Presence, but to also have a direct impact on growing your business by driving more traffic to your website and improving conversions. It’s everything you need to market your business online!

View all services and pricing here.

We recently received news that Laura DiDio and Stu Sjouwerman of ITIC have opened their 2014-2015 State of Security Survey. Laura explained to us that this survey would take between 5-10 minutes to complete, and that all responses are confidential (no sales calls). ITIC is looking to see if our Channel is proactive or reactive when it comes to security, a hot topic in the age of BYOD and Cloud.

By Ravi Rishy-Maharaj, GigSky CEO

If your company is like most, 80 percent of your employees shut off mobile data when they’re traveling abroad. The reason is to avoid the “bill shock” of the usurious international roaming charges that come with traditional mobile service. But what’s really shocking is that small and medium businesses (SMBs) are willing to undermine their productivity and responsiveness when they don’t have to.  

By asking three simple questions, SMBs can minimize bill shock and maximize productivity:

1) Are my employees’ devices unlocked?

This question applies regardless of whether you provide your employees with smartphones and/or tablets or whether your company has a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy. Either way, if those devices were purchased from a mobile operator’s store or from an operator’s authorized reseller, such as Best Buy or Staples, they’re almost certainly locked to that operator. That means they can get mobile data service only from that operator and its roaming partners – a design that virtually guarantees bill shock.

Wi-Fi provides a way around that limitation because the lock applies only to cellular connections. There’s an ample selection of handheld Wi-Fi routers – often marketed as “personal hotspots” – that use 3G and 4G cellular for backhaul. Your employee’s locked smartphone or tablet uses Wi-Fi to connect to the router, which then uses cellular to pass that data back and forth.

Like smartphones and tablets, these handheld routers are available in locked and unlocked versions. Be sure to purchase an unlocked version, which enables the router to use a universal SIM.

Short for Subscriber Identity Module, the SIM is a fingernail-sized microchip found in all smartphones and tablets that use the GSM family of cellular technologies, which includes HSPA and LTE. A universal SIM is a type that enables the device to connect to more networks rather than just a single operator and its international roaming partners.

Universal SIMs are available from companies, such as GigSky, that resell mobile operators’ broadband services at lower prices than SMBs can get if they buy direct. Universal SIMs also eliminate the hassle and expense of buying and swapping SIMs every time an employee arrives in a new country. Instead, the universal SIM automatically chooses the right operator in each country, so the employee can focus on work instead of figuring out which SIM and network to use.

Could you simply provide your employees with new, unlocked smartphones and tablets? Sure, but an unlocked Wi-Fi router typically is a fraction of the cost of an enterprise-grade smartphone or tablet. And if your employees’ smartphones and tablets are already unlocked, then they can accept a universal SIM, eliminating the need to use a Wi-Fi router.

Why not just skip the router and have the locked smartphone or tablet connect to a public Wi-Fi hostpot, such as in a café, hotel room or airport? There are at least three major drawbacks:

•          Wi-Fi coverage is unavailable in many places, which means your employees often won’t be able to communicate with colleagues and customers. That can cost you sales and productivity.

•          Public Wi-Fi often isn’t free. Companies often underestimate how much they really spend on public Wi-Fi service because employees put that on the travel and entertainment section of their expense report, so it’s lumped in with other travel expenses.

•          Public Wi-Fi is a back door for hackers. One common attack is to put an access point in a public place and give it an SSID that sounds innocuous, such as “Starbucks Wi-Fi.” The access point provides Internet access, but it also harvests passwords and other confidential information in the process.

A personal hotspot with a universal SIM avoids all three drawbacks. So does an unlocked smartphone or tablet that uses a universal SIM.

2) How much data will employees use on their trip?

This is an important question because it enables you or them to buy the right amount of prepaid data for use with the universal SIM. As a result, employees aren’t left incommunicado by a plan that runs out of megabytes or gigabytes before their trip ends, and you’re not wasting money by buying more than they’ll use.

One way to calculate the right amount is to look at your mobile bills over the past few months. Another option is to use the tool built into the smartphone or tablet, or an app, that tracks usage. Those tools and apps often break out usage by application, which in the case of BYOD is useful for distinguishing between work-related data and personal data such as Facebook.

Keep in mind that doing business on the road is typically more data-intensive compared to being in the office. For example, when calculating how much data they’ll need, employees should consider how often they’ll be checking email from a cab or in a client’s office.

Being out of the office also can mean employees will need to use their smartphone or tablet for videoconferences because they can’t attend meetings in person. If that’s likely, then do a quick videoconference in the office beforehand so the aforementioned usage-tracking tool or app can show how many megabytes are consumed per minute.

Of course, business often takes unexpected turns, such as an opportunity that pops up while someone is on the road and has to be addressed immediately. That’s why it’s important to look for universal SIM solutions that make it easy – such as through an app or Web portal – for employees to buy additional megabytes or gigabytes from the road.

3) How much will that usage cost?

Not all universal SIM solutions are created alike, including when it comes to the type of network your employees can use. Focus on solutions that feature at least 3G and ideally 4G networks because only those technologies can provide the broadband speeds necessary to maximize productivity and support bandwidth-intensive applications such as videoconferencing and file sharing.

Next, look for solutions with low rates in the countries where your employees travel. That can be as low as $.04/MB in some countries and $.10/MB in many others. A typical mobile operator’s add-on international mobile data plan costs about $60 for 300 MB, while a plan that uses a universal SIM – with or without a personal Wi-Fi router – costs about $35 for 300 MB.

Another way to appreciate that savings is to go back through your employees roaming charges over the past six months or year, add them up and then subtract about 80 percent. That total is how much you could have saved if you’d switched to universal SIM solution earlier. Why wait any longer? 

Temp agencies have long been a part of the professional landscape. Like everything else, the temp agency model is evolving to take advantage of new technologies. However, while online freelance meat market platforms like oDesk and Elance might be okay for outsourcing knowledge work like writing, software development and graphic design projects, they are not necessarily a great fit for the service-oriented IT market.

The answer: the rise of IT-specific online workforce platforms that offer more than a reverse auction experience delivering the lowest cost workers possible. Many MSPs and VARs – and even direct end users – are already embracing the new workforce platforms to provide Just-in-Time IT resources when and where they are needed. But what does that new model look like? How does it work?

We’ve talked to the CEOs of two of the leading vendors delivering this new, so called Workforce-as-a-Service (WaaS) model, Pete Cannone of OnForce and Mynul Khan of Field Nation, to find out. We’ll highlight OnForce today and follow up with a Field Nation profile in a few days.

snom technology recently announced that it has partnered with Secusmart GmbH to add an anti-tapping feature to its phones. Secusmart GmbH is the company that is currently responsible for securing the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel’s phone, and the two organizations have entered into numerous partnerships since 2012.

Our weekly round-up of the news you don’t want to miss:

Cisco sales and profit slide in Q2

The San Jose-based networking giant warned everyone in November that Q2 would be ugly, so it was no surprise when the numbers hit The Street this week that revenue was down 7.8 percent YoY to $11.2 billion. The company blamed weakness in emerging markets where the NSA spying scandal is still making waves, however not all was gloom. Net income for the quarter was still very positive at $1.4 billion. There’s a lot going on in this space right now with Alcatel-Lucent making noise about divesting enterprise communications, but Cisco is not about to make like Nortel and implode.

Comcast to acquire Time Warner in $45.2 billion blockbuster

Comcast has announced its intention to acquire Time Warner, creating a “new channel powerhouse” and potentially reshaping the IT and telecom landscape. The all stock deal is expected to close by the end of the year, with Comcast already stating it is willing to drop as many as 3 million existing Time Warner service subscribers to avoid regulatory hurdles. According to both companies, the combined portfolios will enable higher broadband speeds, faster Wi-Fi, and other new consumer and business offerings. It will also better position Comcast to compete against Verizon and AT&T.

Axcient unveils new virtual data protection appliance

Mountain View, Calif.-based Axcient has introduced the Axcient Virtual Appliance, expanding its cloud-based recovery-as-a-service offering. The new product allows partners and customers to select their own hardware platforms or – at some point down the road – move their service to the cloud. This is a major move for Axcient as it is no longer necessary for users to buy HP servers as was the case in the past. According to the company, the virtual appliance delivers all the same capabilities as the physical appliance.

Earthlink takes monitoring and management on premise

Cloud-based monitoring and management vendor Earthlink has announced an on-prem version of its solution making it possible for clients to manage their on-prem infrastructure in addition to their cloud assets. The company says the new service will include all routine maintenance tasks and resolve related issues, providing mid-sides companies with enterprise class management and monitoring capabilities.

Extreme Networks introduces Purview

Extreme Networks has made its first major product move since acquiring fellow networking vendor Enterasys last September. Purview is a network analytics solution that features technology from both Enterasys and Extreme and will be sold through both Enterasys and Extreme distribution channels. Purview uses Enterays’ CoreFlow2 ASIC tech to monitor users, applications and devices as they access the network. That information is aggregated and analyzed before being turned into visual reports, dashboards and business analytics that provide solution providers and IT administrators with actionable network activity data – such as what applications are being used the most and how much bandwidth they are drawing.

DDoS attacks are getting more sophisticated

The Internet is a battleground every single day with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks flying around. This isn’t news to IT professionals, but what might be new is the way these attacks are evolving. DDoS attack toolkits are becoming more available and provide even low level cyber criminals with the ability to launch a sophisticated attack. The largest DDoS attack ever seen was launched Monday against one of Internet security vendor CloudFlare’s clients, a US bank. At its peak the Network Time Protocol server amplification attack reached 400 Gbps and involved more than 4,500 servers. Various reports this week reported that the cost of such attacks start at $100,000 and go up every hour that passes before the attack resolves.

RMM to blame for security breaches in retail?

In a leaked report obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the FBI has suggested that remote monitoring and management software may have provided the vector for attacks that stole the personal data of millions of Target and Neiman Marcus customers over the holiday season. The two-page report warns that the software was exploited through a series of payment card hacks.

Valentine’s Day is a perfect chance to show those most important to you how much you appreciate them. The day wouldn’t be complete, of course, without paying special attention to the one group that makes everyone’s jobs possible: the IT Department. Adam Stewart, Vice President of Engineering at Autotask, shares seven ways to prevent breaking up with your IT Department this holiday by showing them a little extra love.

Earlier this week, Parallels announced the release of its Parallels Cloud Server, a virtualization solution for use with the HP Moonshot server. According to Parallels, this is the first workload-optimized solution of its kind in the industry.

Lenovo recently announced the results of its third fiscal quarter, which ended December 31, 2013. Harry and I were actually able to speak to Lenovo’s ‎Vice President North America Commercial Channels and SMB, Chris Frey, bright and early this morning, and he gave us the rundown on the record-setting quarter for the company and what it meant for the SMB Channel.

By Brian Ferguson, Digium

The business phone system industry is no stranger to massive technology changes. Consider the move from the traditional key or analog systems to the digital PBX; and then the introduction and adoption of Voice over IP (VoIP) occurred, the telephony world has continued to evolve and value added resellers (VARs) have had to adopt their business model and sales strategies to keep up. The most recent shift forcing telephony resellers to reevaluate their revenue models and business processes is Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). The rapid adoption of cloud-based solutions by small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) brings with it both benefits and challenges for telephony resellers. And it is forcing resellers to evaluate new products and cloud vendors a little differently. As a VAR, you not only need to better understand the opportunities that UCaaS offers your business, but also how to choose the most appropriate vendor solution to offer your SMB customers.

We recently received news from our community members, Charles and Doña Keating that their organization, the West Sound Technology Association (WSTA), has funded two new scholarships for Olympic College, located in Bremerton, WA.

These two new scholarships are as follows:

The IT assessment is arguably the most important and versatile service that you, as an IT service provider, can offer. And there are inexpensive tools available that allow you to perform this highly valuable service very quickly, and at little cost to you.

There are at least five primary ways – and dozens of secondary ways -- that an IT assessment should be used within the context of your current service portfolio: New Business Generation, Pre-Service Benchmarking, Client Network Audits, Internal and External Vulnerability Scans, and Network Change Management. All five of these areas will lead to both improved client service and growth of your business.

Yesterday, eGuard Technology Services, a Washington, DC-based MSP, reported that it has seen significant year-over-year growth 2013. In fact, this marks the company’s fourth consecutive year of revenue growth. eGuard Technology representatives attributed the 2013 results to the addition of new clients, employees and services.

Earlier today, snom technology announced that its PA1 solution has been named the 2014 Internet Telephony Product of the year by integrated media company, TMC. The snom PA1, a public address system, was selected for its ability to work with existing hardware and VoIP/PA infrastructure.

Veeam today announced that it has appointed Chris Moore as the new Channel Chief for North America. Moore has been with Veeam for over two years, and has helped develop the company’s ProPartners program, which currently has 23,000 members.

By Mervin Pearce

When it comes to cyber-attack, Small and Medium Businesses are at a significant disadvantage. Lacking the resources and expertise of their Enterprise counterparts, SMBs often rely on free or lightweight tools that leave their organizations exposed to attack.   Instead of shoring up their cyber-defenses, many SMBs wait for a breach to occur. In some cases this can be too late.  

Hacking has never been as easy as it is today. The significant information sharing between hackers has created a publicly-available knowledgebase that is easily accessible to cyber-criminals.   Sites such as hackthissite.org serve as a training ground for cyber criminals, hacktivists and even government entities to gain up-to-date information on new attack vectors.  

Earlier today, IDC released its latest Government Insight findings in a report titled: “Business Strategy: Government Mobility Forecast, 2014-2017.” In this report, IDC predicts that mobility will start to see growth in state and local govermnents, with the highest rate falling between 2013 and 2015. In addition, this growth is expected to come primarily from citizen demand, followed by employee requests for convenience.

Last week, ShoreTel announced the expansion of its Champion Partner Program to include three tiers for cloud communications. This program, the first of its kind in the industry, according to ShoreTel, enables existing and future partners to develop a best-practice motion for cloud sales.

By Michael Ward, COO, Directnic

It’s the revolution you may not have heard of—but Google, Amazon and startups like Donuts.co have. These companies have applied to manage a whole host of new top level domains (TLDs)—the part of the web address after the dot—that ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) made available to companies starting February 4^th of this year. These won’t just affect the way we think about web addresses; they’ll change the way we search and do business. Below, five things you should know about TLDs and how they affect your company.

1. Shorter and Sweeter

We’re all familiar with those long, hard-to remember URLs on many company websites. Thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com anyone? The new TLD extensions will allow increased access to domains that are easier for potential customers to remember. With only about 22 TLDs out there until recently—the most popular being .com, .net, .org and .edu—companies have until now had to lengthen their URLs to near absurdity to find a name that isn’t already taken by another entity. With a wider array of choices, they will now be able to select a more succinct domain that better reflects their brand.

2. Less Costly, More Accurate

Premium domain names (domain names that have been registered previously and are now back on the market for resale) are often beyond the budget of a small business. So whether it’s too costly or that perfect URL is already taken, the new TLD extensions will increase access to prized domains with memorable words and keyword search terms. In 2014 extensions for everything from .shop to .website will be available for registration, vastly widening the array of choices for precious web real estate. According to eConsultancy, using a domain that says what you do or where you are may increase SEO. What’s more, these TLDs will in some cases be significantly lower priced than their premium .com counterparts, with the potential for significant cost-savings.

3. Acting Local

If a business has a brick and mortar store location, using a new TLD that’s location-specific will save consumers time and also help drive foot traffic. For example, a retailer located in New York City might opt to use the new .nyc extension. Local shoppers will have automatic awareness of the location without having to dig through the website.

4. Going Global

Some of the first TLDs to be made available for purchase will be those expanded into more languages, opening up significant opportunity for non-U.S. or Anglo companies. For the first time ever, TLDS in scripts such as Arabic, Chinese and Russian will be available for purchase, making it possible for businesses to have entire web addresses in the native language of non-US customers.

5. Join a Community

New community-based extensions like .ngo, .eco or .ski can drive awareness for people looking for a specific product or service. In addition, it can help put you in touch with like businesses and open the door to increased communication and visibility within your industry.

As the saying goes, the early bird gets the worm. Being an early adopter in today’s digital age can define a brand as smart, relevant, and savvy. Making strides into the new world of TLD extensions can help customers take notice. And, as TLDs take off, you will be thankful for having had the foresight to seize the opportunity when you had the chance.

Our weekly round-up of the news you don’t want to miss:

While Microsoft’s announcement of Satya Nadella as its new CEO dominated IT-oriented news cycles this week it certainly wasn’t the only thing that happened.

Sony is getting out of the PC business.

Sony announced on Thursday that it’s going to sell off its VAIO line of PCs and get out of the PC market. The Japanese consumer electronics giant has been struggling in both the PC and TV markets and has rolled out "various reform measures" to try to make them profitable over the past two years but doesn’t expect that to happen before the current fiscal year ends in March. The VAIO brand and business will be sold to investment group Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), although Sony says it will continue to provide customer aftercare services. From now on, Sony will focus on smartphones and tablets.

Tech Data Unveils Global Mobile Division

Tech Data Corporationintroduced Tech Data Mobile Solutions – which really amounts to the company's “new again” global mobile business that was previously known as TDMobility. Tech Data’s initial foray in mobility was formed as a U.S. joint venture between Tech Data and Brightstar Corp. in April 2011 with Tech Data buying out Brightstar last November. Tech Data vet Rod Millar will lead the division as Senior Vice President, Tech Data Mobile Solutions. "Mobile products and solutions continue to be a strategic focus for Tech Data throughout our worldwide operations," said Bob Dutkowsky, chief executive officer at Tech Data. "Over the past seven years, Rod has been instrumental in the growth and development of Tech Data Mobile, our European mobile business. This new organizational structure further solidifies our commitment to the growing mobile space and better aligns our resources to this important component of our company strategy."

SDN Group recruits Startups

The Open Networking Foundation, one of several organizations promoting the adoption of software-defined networking, has dropped its membership free from $30,000 to $1,000 for startups (you have to be two years old or less to qualify), which will get the same membership bennies as their more established colleagues – which include the likes of Cisco Systems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Google, Facebook and Oracle.

SolarWinds Earnings: Recurring Revenue jumps for N-able Parent

SolarWinds, parent of RMM vendor N-able Technologies, reported strong Q4 2013 results and says it will focus on driving new business through both subscriptions and licenses in the new year. For its Q4 2013, revenues increased 32 percent to $97.1 million YoY and net income dropped slightly to $21.9 million. In an earnings call with Wall Street analysts, SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson said the N-able team -- led by GM JP Jauvin -- continues to perform well and has seen increased demand across the entire portfolio. In addition to the acquiring N-able, SolarWinds also invested in application performance management (APM) vendor AppNeta and acquired database performance management specialist Confio.

Roaring Penguin announces integration with Autotask for MSPs

Roaring Penguin Software, Inc.is rolling out an integration with Autotask, along with a new messaging product, for MSPs in the latest version of its email filtering software. With the release of CanIt 9.1.0, Hosted CanIt and CanIt-Domain-PRO can now integrate with Autotask to automate monthly billing for anti-spam services. This is the first PSA integration for Roaring Penguin and the company is open to connecting with other products.

Report: Cellular M2M Tech will continue to see strong growth

According to a new report byBerg Insightthe retail industry experienced 18.4 million cellular M2M connection in 2013 and that number is expected to grow to hit 33.3 million by 2018. Cellular M2M technology frees retailers from the constraints of fixed line connectivity for their POS terminals and ATMs making them far more flexible. Berg Insight is equally bullish on the shipment forecasts for Cellular M2M device shipments, which it predicts will grow at a CAGR of 6.5 percent from 6.6 million units in 2013 to 9.1 million units in 2018.

NRF wants a collaborative approach to fighting cyber fraud

The National Retail Federation(NRF) is urging Congress to take a comprehensive approach to criminal cyberattacks in which millions of consumers’ credit and debit card numbers are stolen. NRF said retailers are willing to do their part to improve security, but that banks and card companies must also take major steps to shore up the current fraud-prone payments system.NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan testified before a subcommittee of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee where he said the banking industry needs to start with the replacement of current cards that store consumer data on 1960s-era magnetic strips with modern cards that encrypt data on an embedded microchip and can only be used with a secret Personal Identification Number. Duncan also encouraged Congress to pass the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which will make it easier for banks and retailers to share information about cyber threats.

Earlier today, VAR Dynamics, a Clearwater, FL-based SaaS and Cloud applications company, announced the release of real-time pricing integration with QuoteWerks, an Aspire Technologies solution. VAR Dynamics explained that this integration is the first release of many for the company in the coming year.

GFI Max announced general availability of its GFI Max Backup 13.6 in a blog yesterday. Eric Harless, Senior Product Manager, GFI, explained that this latest version includes new platform support for increased protection of Microsoft Hyper-V Cluster Shared Volumes environments.

Dell Software today announced a new development in its existing collaboration with Google. Dell is working on the Dell Chromebox, a full-featured collaboration solution designed to provide an in-room experience to employees separated by geographical distances.

Winter is research season in the IT industry with several reports hitting the streets, full of insights and information on what’s happening now and what’s expected for the near future. The goal of all these reports is to deliver insights that IT business owners/managers can use to plan the coming year.

Spiceworks released its third annual State of IT Budget Report promising a “microscopic view of North American IT spending” for the coming year, while CompTIA pushed out its IT Industry Outlook 2014.

StorageCraft Technology Corporation recently announced that the addition of the StorageCraft Cloud Services solution has exceeded company expectations. The company designed this solution in December 2012 to be a stable and reliable platform for MSPs and VARs, and it is available to IT Pros in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In fact, the company explained that the Cloud Services solution has seen a 200% growth in data stored and a 99.99% uptime in cloud operations in its run to date.

Yesterday, D&H Distributing announced a new “Enablement Training Series” for VARs to pass the required Cisco SMB certification exam. This training series will include modules for two types of Cisco VARs, Engineers and Account Managers, and will feature complimentary on-demand training and live Q&A sessions with Cisco System Engineers. In addition, D&H will give up to two free vouchers to its resellers, which will cover the cost of the exam.

It wasn’t the 1^st social network, but it is definitely the biggest and it has provided a lot of business for IT professionals over the years through increased network traffic, security issues and various other side effects to people sharing pictures of grumpy cats so we’d like to take a moment to wish Facebook a happy 10^th Birthday.

The only constant is change, and that change arrived today when Microsoft announced long-time employee Satya Nadella as its third CEO. Bringing enterprise and cloud wins to the corner office unleashed a wave of SMB partner feedback synthesized below. At the request of one community member, I won’t speculate on the positive or negative nature of the comments and just present as is. I will tell you, though, that this is an important story because it will impact your paycheck, one way or another, as an SMB partner.

As many of you remember, SMB Nation’s own Harrybbb held a short survey to gather predictions on the outcome of the NFL Super Bowl XLVIII.

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the survey is Russ Grover, Founder, SBITS.Biz. Although he didn’t guess the exact score (no one did), his point spread was the widest. Needless to say, it was a rather unexpected outcome all around.

Congratulations, Russ! We will be in touch shortly to get a card for your steak dinner over soon!

Earlier this year, we reported that Robert Danese, CEO of the ICN Group, was hosting a Channel Reseller Survey as part of his company’s yearly report. This survey is still open to responses from qualified Channel Resellers for any distributor. Robert Danese will be giving away ten (10) $50 American Express Gift Cards and ten (10) $25 American Express Gift Cards to randomly selected respondents.

To take this survey, visit the site at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KWTQJ3P

Zultys, a Sunnyvale, CA-based VoIP/UC solutions company, announced the debut of its MX Release 9.0, the latest version of its MX UC platform. In particular, this latest release comes with the addition of a cloud-based UC platform in the MXvirtual solution, and other features that allow the user to have a similar communications experience to a system admin.

Last week, IBM released news that it has seen a strong push for its SaaS-based social business solutions. The company cited an October 2013 study of 800 decision makers to support this claim.

In fact, IBM found that respondents who deployed cloud solutions saw 2.5 times higher profit than their peers. This was especially true of organizations that deployed analytics and collaboration services to gain better insight into their companies.

By Bob Vogel, B2 Marketing

Spoiler alert: there are more than five. But I’ve interviewed literally hundreds of IT service pros over the years, and I keep seeing and hearing recurring themes among the successful ones.

Ironically, even knowing whether or not you are successful is one of the top ingredients. So many IT service companies are living from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, even year-to-year, without any clearly defined goals. Without goals, there’s no way to measure success.

SMB Nation’s own Harrybbb was recently onsite at the South Lake Union Microsoft offices, where he has a great view of the Space Needle displaying the 12^th Man flag (pictured).

Photo Credit: Harry Brelsford

Linksys recently announced the addition of four new IP surveillance cameras, and a new network video recorder to its number of solutions for SMB customers. The company explained that the cameras and network recorder are designed to work in synch and are priced to fit an SMB budget.

Lenovo recently announced the addition of four new solutions to its ThinkServer Line. These additions include the 1U ThinkServer RD340 two-processor rack server, the 2U ThinkServer RD440 two-processor rack server, the ThinkServer TD340, and the ThinkServer SA120, a rack-mount, direct-attached storage enclosure. Lenovo explaine that the RD 340 and RD 440 are now generally available, while the TD340 and SA120 are expected to be available in February, 2014.