Best Business

Office 365™ service module offers MSPs the best of both worlds

Submitted by on

Life for a managed services provider (MSP) is seldom straightforward. Support staff in the service center have long had to juggle between screens as they log in and out of numerous applications from different vendors in the course of their day-to-day remote management operations.

Entech Reaches For Next Level With Dedicated Strategy Manager

Submitted by on

Kyle Cebull of Entech

As managed service providers try to differentiate themselves and their offerings, they need to think strategically. One MSP has taken the unusual step of hiring a full-time strategy manager.

Fort Meyers, Fla.-based Entech created the position to be the company's entire strategy arm, and the effort has been a huge success.

N-Able On Making The Transition To Managed Services

Submitted by on

Derik Belair

Only about a quarter of solution providers have completed the transition to the managed services model, according to an N-Able by Solarwinds eBook out this week. 

While that number may seem low, Derik Belair, N-Able vice president of marketing and business development, says the transition is a difficult one, and solution providers may be better off, and ultimately more successful if they take the transition one step at a time rather than trying to "eat the elephant as a whole."

GAP Consultants To MSPs: Start Planning Now For Acquisition Later

Submitted by on

Mitch Morgan

Nearly every person in a room of about 50 MSP business owners raised their hand when asked if they planned to sell their business at some point, indicating a strong and eager market for mergers and acquisitions across the industry.

In a conversation with business consultants Mitch Morgan and Chris Ryne of the Kansas firm Growth Achievement Partners at Continuum’s Navigate conference in Boston, MSPs chatted about how to plan for an acquisition, or what to do if an offer is already on the table.

Steve Forbes Talks Growth, Disruption At Ingram Micro ONE

Submitted by on

Steve Forbes

Steve Forbes urged solution providers to ready themselves for vigorous economic growth nationwide over the next two or three years.

"We're not a declining power," Forbes told 1,700 attendees Monday of the Ingram Micro ONE event in Las Vegas. "We're about to be a major rising power once again."

Forbes, CEO of Forbes Inc. and editor-in-chief of Forbes magazine, said the internet has allowed all but the most complex or unusual tasks to be automated, outsourced or completed online.

Winning With Wearables In The Workplace

Submitted by on

Apple's introduction of a smart watch in early September may have been the highest profile launch in this category (yet), but the partnerships Salesforce is building with its Wear initiative are a far better indicator of the innovative business solutions being made possible by the emerging wearables product category.

Sometimes, Two CEOs Are Better Than One

Submitted by on

There are a number of high-profile examples of companies run by co-CEOs, including technology powerhouses like Google and LinkedIn, as well as examples from outside the high-tech world such as Whole Foods and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

Now, we can count software giant Oracle among them. The company's founder and CEO, Larry Ellison, gave up the chief executive position last week. The company's two co-presidents, Safra Catz and Mark Hurd, are now its co-CEOs.

What we know and don’t know about the Home Depot breach

Submitted by on

The massive data breach of payment card numbers and other customer details at Target last year raised serious doubts about security of point-of-sale (POS) systems. And more and more retailers are owning up to breaches involving POS compromises, including the Home Depot, which has amplified those concerns.

Windows Server 2003 end of support: July 2015

Submitted by on

There might be many reasons why your customers are still be using Windows Server 2003. It could be working quite well or there may be no business drivers for customers to migrate to newer versions over the years. Or, customers may just be waiting until all their critical third-party applications are certified to run properly on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Pages