Comments for IT channel & Managed Services blog for IT Resellers and Managed Service Providers

Comment on IT Channel Insight Welcomes New Authors by Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:23:00 +0000

2 of Robin Robins’ Genius League members. Great!

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Comment on Should I Partner with a Backup and Disaster Recovery Provider or Build My Own? by Steve Shelby

Steve Shelby — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 23:24:00 +0000

Kaseya/Acronis BUDR works really well. The new AppAssure tie-in is pure magic.

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Comment on Remote Monitoring Software: N-central Review by Chris Reid

Chris Reid — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:59:00 +0000

Bob – I should have mentioned this in my last post. As they say, the proof is in the pudding – if you’re game, please do sign up for our free trial at http://www.n-able.com/products/n-central/

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Comment on Remote Monitoring Software: N-central Review by Chris Reid

Chris Reid — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Hey Bob!
We find WSUS to be a powerful, scalable patching solution that is easy (and free) to deploy. As all of the patch approval/monitoring is done through N-central, you don’t ever actually need to go into the WSUS console – you can instead do everything through our super user-friendly UI.

Thanks!

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Comment on Remote Monitoring Software: N-central Review by Bob Lawson100

Bob Lawson100 — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 10:04:00 +0000

WSUS for Patch Management…. thats not very impressive, and reason alone to use another RMM tool.

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Comment on Selling Software Is Now A Losing Game? by Frank J. Ohlhorst

Frank J. Ohlhorst — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:04:05 +0000

Mike makes some good points – however, most of the VARs I talk to today have said that software is a hard sell and is getting more difficult – however, I should preface that statement with the term “Small and Medium Enterprise”.

What seems to be happening out in the SME world is that many businesses have switched to a model where they are buying desktops and associated software directly from large wholesalers or direct, cutting the traditional VAR out of the process.

What’s more, if a business buys from Dell, HP or direct from a large vendor, they have the option of purchasing software bundles at the time of order – the price points are almost impossible to compete against.

For example, a visit to Lenovo’s website revealed that you could purchase business class PCs (and notebooks), equip them with everything from Office to QuickBooks to Security software and have it shipped at a price that very few VARs could ever hope to beat – There is just simply no margin there for a VAR – so the question is, should VARs put all of the effort into pricing and configuring systems and software packages, just to have that information used to buy the products direct from a large vendor?

Now, for solution providers, it is clear that alternatives are to try and sell licenses or find a different avenue to build a profitable relationship – SaaS / Cloud Services have proven to be a viable path – examples abound, take salesforce.com for example – The booming MSP market is another example – the list goes on and the bandoleer of cloud services is only growing.

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Comment on Selling Software Is Now A Losing Game? by Mike Maryo

Mike Maryo — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:46:54 +0000

Hi,

Software Licensing is far from a losing game. Cloud Computing is still in its relative infancy and many companies are never going to dump their entire infrastructure into the Cloud for various reasons. Amazon, Google, Sony, and other Cloud infrastructures have been attacked and taken offline by hackers recently. There are many reasons not to jump head-first into the Cloud.

Software licensing is an important part of a solution providers business. Even if they don’t resell the licenses directly, they need to partner closely with companies that do. How else do you compare what the Cloud costs compared to their current licensing model if you aren’t familiar with it? How else do you know if you should talk about Exchange upgrades if you don’t know if they own Software Assurance or the right CALs?

Since when is software ever bundled with hardware other than the Windows OS? OEM licenses have huge drawbacks and problems, since they live and die with that machine and can’t be transferred. The days of OEM Win Server licenses are now over with virtualization. You must know software licensing to keep your customers in compliance and from overspending! Virtualization (server and desktop) has complicated software licensing even more! Companies need a qualified, unbiased software licensing expert even more today.

I’m a little concerned that the author has been drinking too much #Cloud #Kool-Aid and missing the big picture.

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Comment on It’s Not Easy Selling Managed Services by Frank J. Ohlhorst

Frank J. Ohlhorst — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:49:38 +0000

There is still an air of mystery around managed services and the talk about the cloud just makes things worse – the challenge for MSPs has become how to explain services that reflect a tangible benefit – not just as a service that has a nameless / faceless technology keeping things working – Ideally, an MSP will be able to present their services in a fashion that aligns with a businesses pain points, attributing something tangible to a service that actually lives out in the ether

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Comment on It’s Not Easy Selling Managed Services by Craig Sharp

Craig Sharp — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:07:18 +0000

I totally agree. Most end users find it hard to understand what Managed Services are and still refer to it as IT Support. Moreover, the added confusion (to them) of Cloud Services really makes little sense and the result is they just do nothing, fearful of any decision.

A good IT provider should work with end users and become a true consultant, getting to know the clients business and business needs as well as offering IT services that are ‘fit for purpose’

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Comment on Symantec Survey shows Virtualization has disappointed by Mark McGinn

Mark McGinn — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:13:45 +0000

This isn’t surprising. There’s a lot of hype about how cloud or virtualisation will help business today but I don’t think many are ready to handle the change in business practice this would normally entail. This is especially true in desktop virtualisation where pure VDI offering remove the flexibility from the end user rather than expand upon it. A hybrid model is often more effective with pure VDI for those areas that can use it, and Distributed Desktop Virtualisation such as that from to give virtualisation benefits but without the data centre costs and loss of mobility that pure VDI usually entails.

In short, look at what the business needs and can truly benefit from and match up the solutions. Virtualisation is not some magic bullet and at this stage is often being mis-sold as such.

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