SMB Nation Blog

Okta, a San Francisco company that helps businesses manage employee logins to devices connected to the Internet, comes out with its rankings for most used Web-based business apps.

By Matt Day 

Seattle Times technology reporter

Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity suite remains the most used Web-based business application, according to a report from Okta, a San Francisco startup.

Okta builds software that allows companies to manage employees’ logins to multiple Internet-accessed services. That give Okta a set of data representing how companies — or at least those that have embraced cloud-computing services — use software.

Microsoft’s Office 365 became the most-used app among Okta customers in the middle of last year, and held onto that title at the end of 2015.  

Salesforce.com was second, followed by cloud-storage company Box and Google Apps. Amazon Web Services rounded out the top five, rising from eighth place a year ago. Concur, the Bellevue expense-reporting company sold in 2014 to German software giant SAP, was sixth.

The report comes a day before the kickoff of Microsoft’s annual Build developer show in San Francisco. The company is expected to tout the value of its cloud-computing network, as well as Office and Windows, as building blocks for developers.

Microsoft is among the companies trying to realign its existing software business to the cloud, where it has run into fierce competition from Web natives like Salesforce and Google.

Okta’s report highlighted the state of competition in the market for email and productivity apps.

Office held a near monopoly in the realm of out-of-the-box workplace-productivity software, but Google and others have challenged it in Web-based tools.

Microsoft, according to Okta’s data, maintains a strong grip on companies in the financial, biotech, construction, health-care, and information-technology sectors.

Google’s strongest showings are among Internet companies, marketing and advertising, education and software.

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Members of the PowerSource online community enjoy unparalleled opportunities to buy and sell all kinds of new, used or refurbished IT and telecom parts, including computer parts and related equipment. Our B2B network connects sellers with thousands of buyers worldwide, allowing suppliers and resellers of computer components to greatly expand their sales prospects and develop industry contacts from a single online platform. 

PowerSource Online’s advanced selling and sourcing tools give our members a leg up on the competition by allowing them to advertise up to 30 “Seeking to Sell” postings per day. Members can view and respond directly to requests to buy computer parts, telecom equipment and more. Another advantage of PowerSource is the ability for members to customize who sees their inventory. As well, PowerSource members are able to access government contract opportunities in their region that require the purchase or sale of computer parts and telecom equipment.

PowerSource Online members are experienced dealers, resellers, brokers, distributors and service providers within the IT and Telecom industries. These companies and individuals regularly buy service and sell used computer parts, laptop parts, printers and printer parts, VoIP phones and associated equipment, as well as PBX/Key systems and other Telecom and IT equipment as part of their day-to-day business.

Corporate and government end users also use the Public section of PowerSource Online to buy and sell computer, telephony and IT parts and systems. These end users consist of SMBs, Fortune 500 companies, and government agencies, as well as schools, hospitals, hotels and other businesses that need to buy or sell equipment during a period of growth or transition.

By using our global market place, buyers and sellers can source or dispose of hard-to-find, excess, discontinued, obsolete and end-of-life computer parts and systems.

Increased sales, greater market reach and the opportunity to build new relationships within the industry are just some of the reasons to become a PowerSource Online member.

If your company has not used the service before, simply fill out our Free Trial form to enjoy a free trial of PowerSource. A PowerSource Online Account Manager will contact you within one business day to set up your full trial access and give you a demo of the business tools and features that PowerSource Online can offer your company.

In the final part of his three part series on the changing role of IT in the era of cloud computing, Paul Robichaux explains what it takes to build a career in this new era. Read part one and part two.

With this framework in mind, we can turn our attention to figuring out how to climb the ladder. How can Alice turn her experience as an IT pro into the needed skills to become a cloud pro? 

There are a few obvious answers. The way I typically think of Office 365 is that it doesn’t reduce the amount of work companies have to do to manage it compared to on-premises environments, but it rebalances that work across different skills and disciplines. What does Alice need to know to climb the cloud services skill ladder?

The first relevant area is one of pure technical skills. Knowing how to operate, manage, maintain, and troubleshoot a hybrid Office 365 environment is at the top of the list. Anyone with Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, or Active Directory admin experience is well positioned to learn the other skills needed to manage the complete stack (especially because some of the nastier parts, such as enterprise voice routing for Skype or proper server sizing and scaling for SharePoint, go away). Alice and her fellow specialists can gain this knowledge through hands-on experimentation and learning, or through formal or informal training provided by Microsoft, user groups, books, webinars, etc. Developing these skills gives specialists in one technology a good start on becoming synthesists and thus becoming more valuable and harder to replace.

Being comfortable with PowerShell is a huge requirement for cloud pro status. Azure and Office 365 offer web-based consoles for many management tasks, but those consoles focus on the most commonly performed tasks, and they are painfully inefficient for bulk tasks (such as gathering all your user accounts and enabling a newly introduced service feature such as Office 365 Planner). At an absolute minimum, cloud pros need to be comfortable connecting to both on-premises and cloud-based workloads and issuing commands in an interactive shell, but I’d recommend working to gain the ability to write and debug scripts (including learning to read others’ scripts and understand what they do). For people with prior development experience, PowerShell is fairly easy to learn; for those without, hands-on experimentation is the best way to gain understanding.

What about virtualization? That’s a more subtle answer. Office 365 doesn’t use it, but much of the work you might want to do with Azure involves using virtual machines running in Azure’s IaaS environment. In fact, one key skill that’s in high demand is the ability to move on-premises workloads (whether running on VMs or physical machines) to the Azure cloud. A cloud pro who knows how to effectively deploy, manage, back up, and secure Azure VMs will find tons of market opportunities, especially if that knowledge is coupled with specialist or synthesis knowledge of other applications.

The other major area of cloud pro skill development is that of design and architecture skills—an area where many traditional IT pros have been able to skate by with limited effort. Understanding the concepts that underlie cloud computing (including the notion of elastic computing and the ways that network traffic enters and leaves the Microsoft and Amazon cloud networks) is the obvious starting place, but you’ll also need to have a good understanding of cloud security (including knowing what your responsibilities are for securing cloud-based data or services you maintain), the cost model of your preferred cloud provider, and how to effectively work through the cloud vendor’s support system when problems arise. It is always a good idea to bolster your interpersonal and “soft” skills too—part of what separates a master from the other levels in the pyramid is the ability to clearly (and persuasively) communicate information to people in all levels inside an organization.

With all this in mind, how do you actually climb the ladder? Microsoft and Amazon both offer certifications for their respective cloud services, so Alice could follow the traditional route of studying for and passing certification exams as a way of both gaining knowledge and signaling that knowledge to her current and future employers. One of the best things about this approach is that it’s inexpensive, and may even be free—AWS and Azure both offer free service tiers, and Alice needs nothing more than a web browser (and maybe a Powershell-capable Windows machine for Azure if she wants to be fancy) to work with these services.  Second, any specialist in one product starts out with a great base of knowledge that can be applied to other products and technologies—if Alice is already an experienced Exchange administrator, that almost certainly means that she can learn enough about Active Directory, AD FS, Skype for Business, or other workloads that are likely to remain on-premises at Contoso. Third, keep in mind that in many respects, the cloud is still a great unknown inside many organizations. Starting or joining a pilot to move on-premises services to the cloud is a superb way to gain skills that are immediately relevant to your current job.

A word of warning though: for better or worse, you are ultimately responsible for developing the needed skills. Don’t count on your employer to provide them for you. This is nothing new, of course; a large slice of the current IT pro workforce is there because they took the initiative to learn skills that would allow them to change careers or advance more rapidly, and the cloud doesn’t change that.

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By Pete Engler

It’s a fairly common practice for technology vendors to maintain partner advisory councils. Yet, there are varying opinions - and questions - as to the value these councils provide. Who benefits the most? Is it worth everyone's time and energy to participate? Partner advisory councils are usually made up of a vendor’s select partners and designed as a means to collect insight and feedback on everything relating to products, markets and customers. With the right process in place, partner advisory councils can benefit everyone from the vendor to the end-user customer.

The overarching goal of the group is to help improve all aspects of the product and the selling process for both the vendor and its partners. Typically, it’s the top tier of resellers, or the highest revenue generating partners, who are tapped for a council position. The meetings can range from a recurring conference call several times a year to semi-annual or annual in-person events.

Without such councils, love them or hate them, vendors may steer off course over time to the point where channel frustration and neglect becomes prevalent. When vendors and resellers aren’t engaged and synced with their market and customers, the customers eventually spend their money with someone else.

In reality, partner advisory councils hold significant value for vendors on many levels. Feedback from partners, who are on the front lines of customer interaction, is essential in driving both product and sales activities. If a vendor is out of sync, based on customer needs, losses could mount quickly. Resellers are uniquely tuned into the market and can help a vendor realize a new trend or validate what they are already experiencing while selling into that market. Partners have intimate knowledge on the pain points of varying industries and business types of all sizes. Another extremely valuable aspect is potentially gathering crucial information regarding competitive products and sales methods, which could help a vendor pivot and correct a potentially negative path.

For resellers, advisory councils can have significant benefits - even outside that of strengthening their relationship with a key vendor. One such benefit is receiving advanced information on products and services that a vendor has on its roadmap. Such information could lead to an advantage on how to sell, and possibly open up the opportunity for the reseller to beta test new features or services. With this advanced knowledge a reseller could be more prepared to sell than competitors who have the normal notification window of product releases. In addition, when a reseller participates in an advisory council it serves as validation that the reseller is indeed considered a trusted partner.

Most of all, advisory councils are good for the customer. It starts with the vendor hearing and acknowledging the problems that an end customer needs to solve, as relayed through partner advisory councils. Once the vendor understands that the partner feedback is consistent with its internal market research, then the resulting outcome is likely the improvement of products and services - which is what the customer ultimately wants. Customers are one of the best resources to help a vendor improve their solutions and the selling process, so why not lean heavily on the partners that are speaking to them on a daily basis.

If you are a partner interested in serving on an advisory council with a vendor, there are various ways to get involved. Start by reaching out to your channel account manager (or other vendor point of contact) and ask for guidelines on qualifying and participating on an advisory council, and make known your interest to participate. You may also be able to find guidelines for being nominated to serve on the vendor’s partner portal. Even if you’re not currently eligible, or you’re not ready for the full commitment of serving on the council, reach out to other resellers serving on the advisory council and ask them for the best way to communicate ideas and customer feedback to the council so that your voice is being heard.

Pete Engler is the channel marketing manager at Digium, a business communications company based in Huntsville, Ala., that delivers enterprise-class Unified Communications.

Be prepared to take out the trash with a smile.

I have bad news for anyone looking to get into the startup game for the first time: not everybody can make it. Still, the only way to find out if it's for you is to try. And that takes hard work, dedication, and at least a little strategic foresight.

More than working at a traditional organization, the level of success you reach at a startup is mainly up to you. Whether you're joining a startup after a career at a big company or taking your first job at one, here's what you need to do during your first year in order to succeed.

1. Start Small And Prove Your Chops  

Your earliest experience working at a startup might not be a full-time affair at first. There might not be any open positions at startups you like that exactly fit your skill set, so look for any way you can contribute. Offer to work part-time or on a freelance basis. A certain startup might not have the budget to hire a full-time social media manager, for instance, but if that's your passion, you could still offer to help build the company’s presence on different platforms on nights and weekends, and show how valuable you'd be down the line. The first employee my cofounder and I hired at our own startup was an intern who did just that. Six months later, he was running all of our marketing campaigns.

When you prove you want to be part of the team and can add real value, a space for you will develop organically. But you have to get in on the ground floor and show what you've got.

2. Check Your Entitlement At The Door  

Startups may have an entrepreneurial mystique about them, but you can’t go into this world asking what’s in it for you. A new startup doesn’t owe you anything.

It’s part of the typical startup culture to put the company's needs first—before individual careers and personal ambitions. In fact, in a 2015 survey by the Startup Institute, entrepreneurial leaders listed the top qualities they look for in employees, and willingness to put the company before oneself was one of the most desired traits.

That means working as a team of equals where no task is below anyone’s pay grade. At my startup, The Bouqs Company, one example is trash duty: All of us, from the CEO down to the newest intern, take turns taking out the trash. Another is customer service: Every single employee, from the COO to the CMO to creatives to coders, pitches in on customer service during our busiest holidays. Eighty-four percent of respondents in a 2014 study by Millennial Branding and Beyond.com said the top attribute they look for in employees is a positive attitude.

No matter how impressive your resume, you need to be willing to do what it takes to make the startup—not you—successful, all without complaining. That definitely isn't always easy. But as the company succeeds, so will you.

3. Get it Done  

Startups are often cash-strapped and need to get the biggest bang for their buck. That means you need to prove you have something extra to bring to the table. And that something is almost always worth way more than what they actually pay you.

So think of it as a career investment that will pay off later on, and start by being great at your immediate job. In that first year, take on every task that's thrown at you, do it well, and then ask for another. As you get the hang of that, look for ways to add value, no matter how small, beyond your core role. Organize an event, set up the company’s social media page, bake a tray of mac and cheese for coworkers during that late-night sprint. Any skill or knowledge you bring to the table means one less employee the startup needs to find.

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“A year from now you’ll wish you started today” – Karen Lamb, author

It is amazing that just 5 short years ago I never thought I would have a career in IT as a Recruiter for companies in Telecom, Software as a Service, Healthcare and Banking. Prior to “falling into” my current position I’ll admit, I didn’t think about IT as a viable option for me. But now having seen the stability, the pay and the longevity IT positions offer firsthand, I have become a “personal crusader” urging my friends and family out if their professional rut and into trainings for all ages. 

Below are a few programs I have come across that can bridge the gap between your current professional experience and a career in IT. Please feel free to add ones that you’ve found:

Year Up Bay Area – also has programs nationwide

Year Up Bay Area is a one-year, intensive training program that provides low-income young adults, ages 18-24, with a combination of hands-on skill development, college credits, and corporate internships. Since opening our doors in 2008, we have helped over 500 young adults cross the Opportunity Divide in the San Francisco Bay Area. 88% of our graduates are employed (earning competitive wages) or are attending college within four months of completing the program.

Through Year Up, students are succeeding in the workplace with partners like Dropbox, Facebook, Linkedin and Microsoft.

Classes begin in March and September. Applications are considered on a rolling basis until the class is filled. We encourage you to apply early as space is limited. http://www.yearup.org/about-us/our-locations/bay-area/ 

The Stride Center

The Stride Center prepares students for professional, well-rounded careers in the Information Technology field. Coming from all around the Bay Area, students learn new skills allowing them to achieve their goals of finding well paying, vibrant new careers. The Stride Center’s career training program surrounds participants with a comprehensive array of resources and an award winning curriculum, ensuring that graduates can compete and thrive in their new career.

Offers Certifications: CopmTIA A+ , Network +, Security +, Server +, MCSA Windows 7, MCTS, CCNA .

http://www.stridecenter.org/

GENERAL ASSEMB.LY

General Assembly (GA) is a global educational company on a mission to empower a global community to pursue work they love. Focusing on the most relevant and in-demand skills across data, design, business and technology, GA is confronting a skills gap through best-in-class instruction and providing access to opportunities.

GA works with students online and in person across 15 campuses in 4 continents. GA also works with companies as partners in course development and graduate placement as well as helps companies stay competitive in today's digital landscape.  Offers Full-time Immersive Classes and Part-Time Courses in Web Development, User Experience Design, Data Analytics, Digital Marketing, etc. Tuition is listed at $4,000 with scholarships and finance options available.

https://generalassemb.ly/

Udemy

Udemy.com is a platform or marketplace for online learning. Unlike academic MOOC programs driven by traditional collegiate coursework, Udemy provides a platform for experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered to the public, either at no charge or for a tuition fee. No Udemy courses are currently credentialed for college credit; students take courses largely as a means of improving job-related skills.

 https://www.udemy.com/

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GoDaddy, the web hosting and domain registration company that went public last year, is adding new cloud services to grow the revenues it makes from the 14 million small businesses that make up the majority of its customer base. Today it’s taking the wraps off Cloud Servers and Cloud Applications — Amazon-style features that will let companies build, test and scale cloud solutions on GoDaddy’s infrastructure.

Jeff King, SVP and GM of Hosting and Security, says GoDaddy is entering the market aiming not at high-end app makers but smaller businesses that are making the move to cloud services. Pricing is built around a “pay as you go” model, and it starts at $5/month the 20GB option (working out to $0.01/hour), for 512MB of memory, 1 core processor, 20MB SSD disk and 1TB of transfer, through to the 80GB option, which is capped at $80/month (or $0.12/hour) for 8GB of memory, 4 core processor, 80GB SSD disk and 8TB of transfers.

It’s important to note that while these features are “Amazon-style”, GoDaddy believes it’s filling a niche that AWS is not actually serving that well right now: smaller businesses that need cloud services that complement a wider business that may not be in the cloud.

“It’s a long way to get to that,” King said of the scale and audience that AWS largely addresses. “We’re really about enabling small business to get started and grow. You have a long way to go on GoDaddy’s before you consider bringing your business into a dedicated data center.”

It’s not coming out of the blue for GoDaddy. The company has been building up its holdings in cloud services for a while now, most recently acquiring the public cloud customer division of Apptix for $22.5 million. And last year, it launched GoDaddy Pro — a portal that also gives customers the option of using GoDaddy for various SaaS activities like WordPress hosting, running virtual private services — and now added to that cloud servers and apps.

GoDaddy’s move to launch cloud servers and apps comes at an interesting time of increased competition among Amazon and other providers.

On a high level, Amazon’s AWS business has largely dominated the market for companies that are building and deploying apps in the cloud, nabbing some of the world’s biggest online companies as customers. More recently, there have been some high-profile movements, such as Dropbox taking more control of some of its own services; Spotify teaming with Google, and Apple reportedly also diversifying the third parties it works with in the cloud.

By many estimates, changes like these are unlikely to have a lasting impact on AWS’s bottom line, but they underscore the competitiveness in the market and how a business intent on winning more business in this area can find windows of opportunity.

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there!

We need your support! In order to have a representative data set of the state of SMB compensation and activities, we need more participation. Think of this as Karma Dollars! You contribute your information (confidentially) and you benefit from seeing more rich results (literally). Think of it as crowd sourcing meets the sharing economy.

With respect to viewing this survey from a start-up perspective, I have a story to share. Earlier this month I met a young man at the Channel Partners conference in Las Vegas. He had recently completed college and was all bright eyed and bushy tailed. He sincerely wanted to know what line of work to go into with respect to information technology (IT). He was looking at traditional networking as an MSP. He was looking at telecom as a consultant/sales agent (that is still the predominant audience at Channel Partners). This salary survey can truly benefit our start-up kid! Why? Because he can decide if these professional career paths work for him. The world is his oyster and he can compare our MSP/CSP world to opportunities in Big Data (that conference was upstairs at LeadsCon), online commerce, mobility and even Internet of Things (IoT). That’s that start-up hook to the salary survey.

Discover more and participate in the 2016 Salary Survey here. 

During the month of March 2016, the HPE ProLiant MicroServer (HPE SKU#783959-S01) is on sale at a 19% discount. HPE’s ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 is a super small and quiet “front office” server. This small server has companion stackable options – a switch called the HPE PS1810 (HPE SKU# JL066A) an 8 Port switch, and the HPE PS110 Wireless 802.11n VPN WW Router (HPE SKU# J9833A).  What’s more – for HPE Partners who use Engage and Grow www.hpeengageandgrow.com ; you’ll find award points available that you can’t ignore.

The award winning “little” server1 has a big personality for the home and small business. HPE SKU#783959-S01 is an affordable server that’s loaded with four 1 TB drives and the Intel Xeon E3-1220v2 processor.  This unique SKU also comes loaded with 8GB (1x8GB DDR3 Unbuffered UDIMM) and can be upgraded to 16 GB.  For remote management this server comes Standard with HPE iLO Management Engine.  When pairing it with the HPE Networking “lego” stackable options, HPE iLO consolidates the view of servers and switches in the network so workloads can be prioritized.

The HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 is available with tool-less access to hard drives, memory, and PCI slots for simple installation or upgrade.  And it has two up-front USB ports allow for easy deployment.  It’s quiet and easy to deploy. The server has been certified for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (SP2) and 2012 R2 and tested for Windows Home Server 2011 and Windows Storage Server 2008 R2.

Use cases for this server have been for small businesses with up to 10 users. Home users have utilized this server for media and entertainment hosting.  Several mid-sized companies have deployed this server as a simple Proof of Concept box.  This server has been deployed around the world over 500,0002 times, so feel confident in your choice!   

Learn More by contacting your distributor or by contacting D&H at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or visit these websites: www.dandh.com/hpe  or www.hpe.com/servers/microserver

Footnotes:

1.  http://www.absolutelywindows.com/blog/2014/2/10/the-smallbizwindows-servers-of-the-year-2014-hp-proliant-ser.html

2. HPE Worldwide Sales of the MicroServer and MicroServer Gen8, HPE internal sales.

One year ago, SMB Nation reached the end of a five year commercial lease for office space. And it felt great. Still does. Why? Because in the mid-2000s, when SMB Nation grew out of the garage and dramatically increased its head count, the original office space we leased made sense from a prestige, ego and functional point of view. Much of our computing was still client-server based with Small Business Server 2003 (the gold standard in my opinion). Fast forward the move and two office moves later, letting our lease expire and having everyone work from home starting March 2015 felt like a natural act. We were “starting over” with respect to how we worked. And folks loved it: no commute, no make-up and more time to complete work that matters. We didn’t experience the loneliness highihglighted in the following New York Times article “Telecommuting Can Make the Office a Lonely Place, a Study Says” which start out: Ever since telecommuting became a viable option for a broad spectrum of workers, some companies have offered it as a tempting perk. Why not make workers happier by allowing them to spend more time with their families, avoid long commutes and exert more control over their schedules?

Read more here

My good friends over at GeekWire published a timely piece on setting your clocks forward on March 13, 2016. Always a goog evergreen story, this article highlights the good and bad. And cheers that it doesn’t mention the farming myth about day light savings.

Spring forward in stages
Spring = forward. It’s a simple algorithm, but this weekend’s switch to daylight saving time can get complicated. The bottom line is that timepieces have to be pushed forward an hour in most (but not all) of North America. Traditionally, clocks skip ahead an hour, from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. local time Sunday. Smartphones, computers and other connected devices should pick up the beat automatically. Old-school analog devices as well as standalone electronics such as microwave ovens will have to be set by hand, typically at bedtime on Saturday night.

But maybe there should be another way to think about all this, particularly because of 21st-century social trends.
Read on here.  

Lately a lot of people are asking me about the new Hewlett Packard(s). For the purposes of the SMB Nation community, we live in the world of HPE. I liken it to HP is STARTING OVER as HPE!

And it’s making a splash with its March Madness “Hello World” special offer. We’re glad to help as HP (now HPE) is a long-time friend of the family. It was there at the first SMB Nation conference in 2003 and beyond. The pic attached to this blog is from the video series “In The Trenches” produced by HP promoting SBS 2000 and its mobility features (watch it HERE). 

So with great pleasure – I’d like to invite you to join us the Thursday, March 17th at 12:00pm Noon Pacific (GMT-7). Sign up here. 

With great pleasure, I’m pleased to announce the latest offering from Chip Reaves at Bigger Brains. It was an honor to team with Reaves and Wilson on this effort to produce a “Video Book”( off-the-shelf eLearning content) on the CompTIA Network+ Exam. The new course includes 62 video training modules and over 9 hours of total content. "We wanted to not only cover the exam objectives for people who want to get Network+ certified, but also use real-world examples of how IT consultants and technicians can use these skills in practical situations," said Reaves. The new course is available from top IT service firms who subscribe to Bigger Brains' "BiggerMSP" training portal program at BiggerMSP.com. It's also available individually through OpenSesame.com and other online training marketplaces.

Speaking for myself – I see the release of the CompTIA Network+ Exam eLearning course as a tool to start-up if you are interested in becoming a IT Pro or MSP. For old timers, it’s a chance to be the life learner and revisit the principles that made you successful. I’ve been known to reread past technical books annually to refresh my brain matter. It makes for a bigger brian LOL!

For more information visit www.GetBiggerBrains.com.

Like the primary elections, the Office 365 / Windows 10 workshops are coming fast and furious in March. Last week over 110+attendees enjoyed and applauded Grant Thompson’s amazing independent outside-looking-in view of Office 365 and Windows 10.

“Thank you for putting on the 2016 Road Show. I especially want to thank Grant Thompson for his presentations, both the formal topics and side discussions answered many questions I had about Windows 10 deployments, Azure AD, Office 365 implementation and the CSP program. The AppRiver and Webroot presentations were enlightening also. It was a very worthwhile day.”

Doug Steinschneider, DCS Group, Fairfield, CT

“Harry, I went to this event with Marc Harrison It was one of the best events I"ve attended in a while. Within 90 minutes - I gained enough value to make the trip worth my time…the vendors / speakers were top notch. Thanks.” Joe

Please join us this week in Atlanta and Chicago – followed by Washington DC and Carolette! The workshops are complimentary and all geek, all the time. Discover more here: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/. 

Many conversations with longtime SMB Nation folks lead to side jobs. With the changing of business models and personal interests, I’m seeking you guys engage in weekend warrior businesses to supplement your MSP practices. You have the MSP who remotely supports Boston-based clients from his profitable ski lodge in Mount Snow, New York (been there). You have Ken in Phoenix selling red BBQ gloves (used these). A couple on Bainbridge Island with a gourmet popcorn business (yummy). And now you have Greg Hansen with his Central Coast Oregon-area man cave! Known as the Siletz River Cabin, this getaway is a must do for SBSers looking to catch their breathe, recharge and reboot. What better place to plot your start over strategy then the babbling brook sounds overheard while fishing?

The reason I share this story is too fold.

First – don’t hesitate to put a toe in the water in starting a side business. Maybe you are an expert bicycle mechanic just waiting to serve neighbors. Heck perhaps you’re keen to multi-level-marketing schemes. However you slice it, diversifying your business portfolio is prudent to migrate all the risks as we pivot to cloud!

Second – it’s time to lock down your vacation plans. Some of us have wanderlust and want to do something new. I’d offer some time at Hansen’s man cave is time well spent.

In Hansen’s own words:
“Experience a relaxing and fun weekend (or week day) of Steelhead or Salmon fishing in the Siletz River...while staying at Siletz Valley Lodge (reserved only for small retreats, team building, and strategic planning sessions) or Siletz River Cabin …by the way, river conditions are good according to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. Transportation available anywhere from point A to point B by Siletz River Shuttle Service.”
Learn more here, and tell ‘em Harry sent ya!

If you aren’t familiar with HPE’s ProLiant MicroServer Gen8, it is a super small and unique cube shaped server or Ultra Micro Tower.  Over 500,000 customers1 have adopted this server worldwide for their small business needs.  The server according to Absolutely Windows2 states this is “one serious one-to-ten-user small office/branch office device”. The MicroServer is great for your Point of Sale system, work collaboration, and with 4x1TB hard drives you’ll have plenty of storage!

During the month of March, the HPE SKU#783959-S01 is on sale at a 19% discount.  What’s more – for HPE Partners who use HPE Engage and Grow; you’ll find award points available that you can’t ignore.  Contact your distributor to order HPE SKU#783959-S01. 

Here are the Key Features for HPE SKU#783959-S01

• Processor - Intel® Xeon® E3-1220Lv2
• Memory - 8GB (1x8GB DDR3 Unbuffered UDIMM)
• Hard Drive - Included: 4 x 1TB Entry-Level LFF SATA
• Internal Storage - 4 LFF NHP SATA HDD cage; includes 4 LFF hard drive carriers
• Power Supply - 150W Non-Hot Plug, Non-Redundant Power
• Supply Management - Standard: HPE iLO Management Engine

Additional Options

• 647909-B21  - 8GB (1x8GB DDR3 Unbuffered UDIMM)
• 652241-B21 - HP 9.5mm SATA DVD-RW JackBlack Optical Drive
• 722320-B21 - HP MicroServer Gen8 Front Bezel Faceplate Kit
• J2P86A  - HP T1000 G4 Uninterruptible Power System
• 701586-A21 - Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials Edition
• B7B69B - HP RDX+ 1TB System
• U2EF9E - HPE 3 year Foundation Care Next business day with CDMR MicroServer Service

Compatible Stackable Networking

• JL066A - HP PS110 Wireless 802.11n VPN WW Router.
• J9833A - HP PS1810-8G Switch. An 8-port switch

Learn More by contacting your distributor or by contacting D&H at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or visit these websites: www.dandh.com/hpe or www.hpe.com/servers/microserver

Footnotes:

1.  HPE Worldwide Sales of the MicroServer and MicroServer Gen8, HPE internal sales.

2.  http://www.absolutelywindows.com/blog/2014/2/10/the-smallbizwindows-servers-of-the-year-2014-hp-proliant-ser.html

Many readers enjoy the “Fastest two minutes in sports” as a regular segment on SportsCenter at ESPN. Some of you enjoy the weekly highlights at halftime on Monday Night Football. So fasten your seat belts. In the ten minute video that accompanies this blog, you will discover the most important features of Atera, a spunky start-up that aims to make a splash in the SMB partner community.

Atera’s main asset is that it is based on per technician pricing. This contrasts with the legacy PSA and RMM providers who typically charge on a per device basis. This effectively and dramatically lowers MSPs costs – a critical “thing” as our community pivots from big iron to born-in-the-cloud. Atera’s other value proposition is that it is very good at being an efficient solution that provides the functionality you want and need. It’ll never be confused with bloatware!

In the review, you’ll see that I start with the core functionality of the Atera product. There is a very important reason for this. The set-up process is fairly traditional and would have significantly extended the time of the video. In a YouTube world, less is more.

You can anticipate the following nuggets in this review:

• Dashboard review
• Tickets
• Alerts
• Devices
• Customers
• Plus much more!

Bottom line: View the video and then sign-up for the 30-day Atera trial here. 

This is the all of those starting up – attending our roadshow workshops is a great first step!

Until I sat down to write this update on our Office 365/ Windows 10 Roadshow, I hadn’t truly thought about us behaving similarly to a political campaign in the Spring primary season, but there are some parallels. We launched last Tuesday in our own state (favorite son) in Redmond. The capable audience enjoyed the expert content delivery from our own Grant Thompson was not only well-received but the launch feedback has allowed us to update the curriculum. That’s a common training function – improve the content for each city moving forward.

Attendees enjoying PIZZA UP at our Redmond workshop - February 23rd! 

Another parallel is that we’re road warriors on a roadshow. We’re going from state-to-state over the next few months. The full schedule is here. There is still time to sign-up for New York as it’s Monday, February 28, 2016. So click over and sign-up for the following future dates:

• New York City, February 29th
• Atlanta, March 9th
• Chicago, March 11th
• Washington DC, April 12th
• Charlotte, April 14th
• Phoenix, May 10th 
• Los Angles, May 31st
• San Francisco, June 2nd

So we focus on the technical aspects of Office 365 and Windows 10 in our roadshow workshops. Perhaps the most popular speech was the Office 365 Security speech. Timely, spot on and ready for consumption. 
Join us – the event is complimentary. Discover more and sign up here: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/

I’m continually impressed by the good work coming out of Mitel with respect to community conversations. I think everyone agrees there’s no home for speeds and feeds BS content at SMB Nation. Rather – you want unique insights into matters that interest you. You want the community sponsors to be respectful; they want to be top of mind when you are ready to move forward. I think Mitel’s recent outreach to the SMB Nation community meets this high bar.

Mitel has embarked on a journey to act as your guide by the side when it comes to your communications strategy. In particular, Mitel’s new communications landscape white paper that you can (and should) download here (“Making Smart Communications Decisions – an SMB Buyers Guide”) present the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) concept. Essentially ITC refers to the view that technology is an enabler. We used to call it data + voice but Mitel’s ICT concept is about the premise that today’s IP-based phone systems are gateways to this new world focused on applications.

Other topics in the white paper are:

• Small business IT staff are more and more becoming cloud and applications managers. The assertion is that ICT staff are becoming more strategic and less break-fix.
• Spending growth for a mobile world. Budgets are facilitating smartphones and applications to deliver a flexible work experience to employees who are becoming more mobile and geographically distributed.
• Re-imagining work. The new workspace requires a new communications approach. I previously covered this conversation in my late December 2015 blog titled “I Love Work” that you can read here. 
• Premium on protection. It goes without saying but you need to say it: security is important!
  Incremental, integrated solutions approach. This not only relates to cloud solutions but OPEX vs CAPEX financing.
• Reshaping the customer experience. This is my favorite part of the Mitel white paper. There is a strong marketing conversation currently underway that with search, customers are doing much of their own research before ever speaking to a salesperson. So true. I’ve seen another report that nearly 70% of the decision has been made before customers speak to you. Google calls it the zero moment of truth. True that!

So you’ll have the read the rest of the report to get the good stuff. Highly recommended!

When having conversations with long-time SMB Nation peeps, those steeped in Small Business Server (SBS), the mere mention of Office 365 brings a response focused on security concerns. We got the message and received the memo. So based on popular (and I’d add populist) demand, we’ve added a security lecture to our popular Office 365 and Windows 10 roadshow.

So building a wall to keep the bad guys out isn’t completely realistic (although a firewall is LOL), our expert speaker Grant Thompson does touch on important Office 365 security topics (listed below) that you might not have considered. In fact, I’ll go so far as to assert we are offering content that includes something for everyone and more importantly, something YOU DO NOT KNOW! In fact, if you honestly knew everything in this lecture, we’ll refund your workshop fee. That would be very easy as the workshop is complimentary LOL!

Office 365 security topics:

• Encrypted Data at Rest and in Transit 
•  Automated operations and Just-In-Time Access
• Everything is designed to Fail
• Customer LockBox
• Data Loss Prevention 
•  Information protection using RMS
•  RMS OneDrive for Business Sync 
•  Sync block for non-domain PCS
•  Enteprise Mobility and Security Suite: Discussion and Demo! 
•  Four Layer End-to-End Security 
•  Compliance – CJIS standards 
•  Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics
• Hybrid Identity
• Common Identity and Access Problem 
•  Manage your external identities 
•  Windows Azure Active Directory Premium
• Device and Application Protection via Intune

We take our responsibility as a independent ombudsman seriously representing you. Therefore, we hope we’ve earned your trust and more importantly your desire to attend one of our workshops traveling the US this spring.

You can learn more here: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/.

The world of work is being transformed with the smart phone generation bringing applications into the work place and with employees increasingly working more flexibly.

Employees increasingly expect employers to support a healthy work / life balance and to allow them more control over the communications devices and applications they use.

The research organisation SMB Group say that today 92% of SMBs use at least one cloud solution with 86% using mobile applications.

Stephen Tanner, Founder of OfficePOD Ltd commented “An organization cannot promote the idea of flexible working and merely cover the provision of a desk and a chair in a room. Employers have a duty to provide staff with the tools they need to work effectively and productively, wherever that happens to be.”

All businesses face the challenge of providing workers with flexibility while at the same time ensuring that productivity is maintained, costs are controlled and teams can collaborate effectively.

Rob Charlton, CEO of Space Group said “As a company we are moving towards keeping and managing everything in the cloud…Whatever we need, whenever we need it, accessible from whichever device is most suitable and available at the time.

We’ve converted an unused part of our headquarters into a flexible workspace for local businesses and entrepreneurs, where instead of long-term leases we offer far more flexible facilities, and that goes for everything from individual offices to collaborative spaces. People pay a monthly subscription and can drop in and use our facilities by the hour.”

To discover more about these trends global business communications company Mitel asked users, leaders in innovation, architects, psychologists and H.R. experts for their perspectives.

In a wide-ranging guide key issues covered include:

• How technology trends are setting the agenda • Next generation workplaces • The impact of a global market • Cultural changes and the impact on work.

To discover more insights download the full guide.

“There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop,” said Randall Stephenson, the chief and chairman of AT&T. He is reinventing the company for a cloud-heavy future.  Credit Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times    

DALLAS — Thirty-four years ago, Kevin Stephenson got his younger brother, Randall, a job with the telephone company.

Kevin, then 23, and Randall, 22, had tried selling cattle feed with their father near their home in Moore, Okla., but that didn’t pan out. Kevin was hired to do accounting at a local Southwestern Bell office. Randall, who was in college, needed a bit more help. “He had trouble getting hired,” Kevin said. “I talked to someone I knew in personnel.”

The brothers had different tastes. Kevin liked to be outside, and now, at 57 years old, he works in Norman, Okla., fixing the decades-old copper lines that still connect to landline telephones in most homes as well as to modern Internet conduits like high-speed fiber optics. Randall liked numbers and stayed indoors, rising through the management ranks.

Southwestern Bell became SBC Communications and took on the old AT&T name through an acquisition in 2005. By 2007, Randall was running the place.

Today, Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman and chief executive, is trying to reinvent the company so it can compete more deftly. Not that long ago it had to fight for business with other phone companies and cellular carriers. Then the Internet and cloud computing came along, and AT&T found itself in a tussle with a whole bunch of companies.

AT&T’s competitors are not just Verizon and Sprint, but also tech giants like Amazon and Google. For the company to survive in this environment, Mr. Stephenson needs to retrain its 280,000 employees so they can improve their coding skills, or learn them, and make quick business decisions based on a fire hose of data coming into the company.

In an ambitious corporate education program that started about two years ago, he is offering to pay for classes (at least some of them) to help employees modernize their skills. But there’s a catch: They have to take these classes on their own time and sometimes pay for them with their own money.

To Mr. Stephenson, it should be an easy choice for most workers: Learn new skills or find your career choices are very limited.

“There is a need to retool yourself, and you should not expect to stop,” he said in a recent interview at AT&T’s Dallas headquarters. People who do not spend five to 10 hours a week in online learning, he added, “will obsolete themselves with the technology.”

Kevin? He admires his younger brother, but he is among the many AT&T lifers who are not that keen to participate in this reinvention of old Ma Bell. “I’m riding the copper train all the way down,” he said.

He talks about the changes with obvious affection for both his brother and his longtime employer. In interviews, many veteran AT&T employees around the country showed a surprising amount of emotion toward a company that has been broken up, rebuilt and reinvented several times.

But that doesn’t mean everyone is particularly eager to rebuild and reinvent themselves for a new AT&T. Even if it means, as Randall put it, obsolescence.

Companies’ reinventing themselves to compete with more nimble competitors is hardly a new story. Many have tried, and a handful have even succeeded. Mr. Stephenson wants AT&T to be among those few.

In the last three years, he has spent more than $20 billion annually, primarily on building the digital business. DirecTV was acquired in a $63 billion deal last year, and several billion more was spent to buy wireless businesses in Mexico and the United States. Even for a company with $147 billion in 2015 revenue and over $400 billion in assets built up over more than a century, it’s a lot.

By 2020, Mr. Stephenson hopes AT&T will be well into its transformation into a computing company that manages all sorts of digital things: phones, satellite television and huge volumes of data, all sorted through software managed in the cloud.

Read More

Many of you know that Grant Thompson is our rock star with respect to Windows 10 and Office 365. He’s about to launch our 9-city roadshow starting in Redmond followed by New York City and beyond. You can learn more and sign-up here: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/. 

But did you know that just this last Tuesday, February 9th, Grant was the guest on the popular BizTechTalk radio show on KLAY 1180AM broadcasting in the Seattle-area? Hosted by fellow MSP and radio personality Darrel Bowman and former Microsoft executive Amy Ansel, Grant articulated a comprehensive Windows 10 customer strategy during his 60 minutes of fame.

You can listen to Grant here: http://biztechtalk.net/2016/show-archives/biztechtalk-show-harry-brelsford-grant-thompson/

More importantly, you can see Grant live at our roadshow workshops by signing-up here: http://2016roadshow.smbnation.com/.

Further supporting our basic contention that now is the time to start over as existing MSPs, Jamison West’s Arterian MSP practice announced this week it was acquired by Texas-based Aldridge. But there’s more to this story then a simple acquisition – its more complex. Read on.

Over 21-years, Jamison has built up a successful Seattle technology services company starting organically and then shifting to strategic acquisitions over the past eight years. Jamison is no different than most of us having experienced ups and downs on the journey but seemingly landing right side up at the end of the day. 

When I met with Jamison at his Lower Queen Anne offices just north of downtown Seattle (think Space Needle neighborhood), he shared some context to the secular press release (http://news.yahoo.com/aldridge-bursts-pacific-northwest-pair-110100449.html?soc_src=copy) that positions Aldridge bursting on to the Pacific Northwest scene. His story is really about starting over with a fresh balance sheet and his attention focused on building a nimble and agile Cloud Services Provider (CSP) practice.

The facts are that Aldridge wholly acquired Arterian out right: •Aldridge is consolidating the operations of Arterian and PacketDrivers, retaining most personnel and launching the Seattle office of Aldridge. •Aldridge has appointed PacketDrivers Founder Scott Hamlin to the position of Vice President and General Manager to lead the Seattle operation. • Aldridge has retained the Arterian brand and has established a subsidiary devoted to Microsoft's CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) program. •Aldridge appointed Arterian Founder Jamison West as President of the newly-formed subsidiary.

West shared that an MSP practice and a CSP practice are two different lines of work. I concur. West will now solely focus on further building the CSP practice while Aldridge sticks to the knitting running the MSP practice. West is widely regarded as a Microsoft insider who essentially enjoys a leg up in his quest to both define and master the CSP business model.

So West’s start over via acquisition is a fresh start, allowing him to develop a different revenue and cost model not saddled with legacy assets and big iron payroll. Aldridge enjoys an operational advantage as it simply plugs more technicians into an existing large MSP practice.

Back to the behavioral aspects of the acquisition. West has arrived at the same conclusion that changing times call loud and clear for a start over strategy. Doing the same (aka doing nothing) was unacceptable. And anyone who know West knows he doesn’t sit still for long.

We’ll continue to monitor West’s start over with periodic updates with his success and challenges so you can leverage his learning experiences.

Further supporting our basic contention that now is the time to start over as existing MSPs, Jamison West’s Arterian MSP practice announced this week it was acquired by Texas-based Aldridge. But there’s more to this story then a simple acquisition – its more complex. Read on.

Over 21-years, Jamison has built up a successful Seattle technology services company starting organically and then shifting to strategic acquisitions over the past eight years. Jamison is no different than most of us having experienced ups and downs on the journey but seemingly landing right side up at the end of the day. 

When I met with Jamison at his Lower Queen Anne offices just north of downtown Seattle (think Space Needle neighborhood), he shared some context to the secular press release (http://news.yahoo.com/aldridge-bursts-pacific-northwest-pair-110100449.html?soc_src=copy) that positions Aldridge bursting on to the Pacific Northwest scene. His story is really about starting over with a fresh balance sheet and his attention focused on building a nimble and agile Cloud Services Provider (CSP) practice.

The facts are that Aldridge wholly acquired Arterian out right: •Aldridge is consolidating the operations of Arterian and PacketDrivers, retaining most personnel and launching the Seattle office of Aldridge. •Aldridge has appointed PacketDrivers Founder Scott Hamlin to the position of Vice President and General Manager to lead the Seattle operation. • Aldridge has retained the Arterian brand and has established a subsidiary devoted to Microsoft's CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) program. •Aldridge appointed Arterian Founder Jamison West as President of the newly-formed subsidiary.

West shared that an MSP practice and a CSP practice are two different lines of work. I concur. West will now solely focus on further building the CSP practice while Aldridge sticks to the knitting running the MSP practice. West is widely regarded as a Microsoft insider who essentially enjoys a leg up in his quest to both define and master the CSP business model.

So West’s start over via acquisition is a fresh start, allowing him to develop a different revenue and cost model not saddled with legacy assets and big iron payroll. Aldridge enjoys an operational advantage as it simply plugs more technicians into an existing large MSP practice.

Back to the behavioral aspects of the acquisition. West has arrived at the same conclusion that changing times call loud and clear for a start over strategy. Doing the same (aka doing nothing) was unacceptable. And anyone who know West knows he doesn’t sit still for long.

We’ll continue to monitor West’s start over with periodic updates with his success and challenges so you can leverage his learning experiences.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Clicks, views, posts, shares and visits have taken a back seat to acquisition, retention and revenue growth as core measures of customer experience and engagement success, reports the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council.
  
According to a new study conducted with Microsoft Corp., marketers are de-prioritizing digital campaign metrics in favor of business-focused measurements that more directly tie customer experience to financial performance and business outcomes.
  
Some 40 percent of marketers surveyed believe that because of these new business measures, they are able to better prove the impact of customer experience investments.
  
The new strategic brief entitled, "Making Personalization Possible," also reveals that while 49 percent of marketers are hopefully optimistic about creating lasting relationships with customers through personalized engagements and campaigns, more than one in four are totally confident that personalization is the path to customer gratification and retention.
  
Key findings of the study include:
•Thirty-seven (37) percent of marketers believe that personalization success will hinge on the ability to deliver experiences that are powered by a single view of the customer.
•Thirty-six (36) percent of marketers admit they are currently only able to personalize engagements in select channels but are struggling to properly align the data needed to personalize across the entire relationship in a consistent and meaningful manner.
•Twenty-one (21) percent are able to deliver highly relevant, one-to-one experiences to their customers, both online and offline.
  
"Marketers are moving away from defining customer experience success through moments in time like clicks or views," said Liz Miller, Senior Vice President of Marketing for the CMO Council. "Those have become critical tools for real-time campaign success. But to measure customer experience success and the overall impact of marketing on the business, marketers are turning to financial KPIs: revenue, costs, conversions and impact on the bottom line."
  
As leading executives continue to make personalization possible, they are actively seeking out tools and solutions that will amplify the customer's voice and turn that data into real, actionable intelligence. Among the top strategies for accelerating value in 2016, marketers will look to bolster analytics and lifecycle management strategies and platforms (65 percent), along with implementing personalization platforms (65 percent), engaging in comprehensive journey mapping (56 percent), and getting smarter about predictive analytics (52 percent).
  
"Marketing leaders are increasingly focused on personalization," said Gretchen O'Hara, General Manager of Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft. "In today's data-driven marketplace, personalization is imperative. As innovations like predictive analytics and machine learning technologies become more accessible and easier to manage, they have become an essential part of every marketer's toolbox, driving an organization's competitive edge."
  
The 11-page strategic brief is Read More and includes a summary of key findings, along with insights into the performance of best-practice leading respondents who are already well versed in personalization and engagement. The study includes input from 179 senior marketers, with 34 percent hailing from organizations with $1 billion (USD) in revenue or more, 48 percent from primarily B2B organizations, and 34 percent from hybrid (B2B2C) businesses. Visit www.cmocouncil.org/r/making-personalization-possible to download your copy today.

Read More

Are you looking to buy or sell new, used or refurbished IT and telecom parts and equipment including computers, laptops, printers, VoIP phones, central office systems, PBX/Key systems or network infrastructure?  Whether you are a supplier, reseller, service  provider, corporate buyer or self-maintainer, you can benefit from the PowerSource professional community. PowerSource Online helps our members increase sales, build industry relationships and save time and resources with our best-in-class selling and sourcing tools.

Computer parts suppliers and resellers gain a competitive advantage by easily posting their in-stock inventory of new, used and refurbished IT and telecoms parts to reach thousands of buyers. PowerSource members can view and respond directly to buying requests for computers, telecom equipment, IT infrastructure and more. 

Corporate buyers have the ability to search over 3,000,000 lines of inventory in real-time from hundreds of the most reputable suppliers in the secondary market industry. Our members are able to get the best possible prices on inventory items by sending multiple Requests for Quotes, and receiving answers quickly. In addition to being able to search for up to 100 parts at one time, buyers can also customize their search criteria to include only preferred vendors and trading regions for more efficient sourcing.

By using PowerSource Online, IT, computer and telecom buyers and sellers have access to unparalleled opportunities to expand their customer base and increase their average margins.  Since 1997, PowerSource has helped thousands of computer parts and telecom equipment buyers and sellers efficiently source or dispose of all types of computer parts and equipment, generating substantial cost savings for buyers and improving sales for sellers and service providers.

Take the time to experience PowerSource Online by enjoying a free trial. This way, you can experience for yourself how our B2B exchange helps businesses connect with thousands of buyers and sellers of computer, printer, networking and telecom equipment.

Give us one day and we'll send you home with all the expert sales, marketing, product, and operations advice you need to grow your revenue and boost your bottom line. The perfect event for integrators and managed service professionals looking to grow their business.

Who should attend: I.T. Resellers, MSPs, solution providers, and consultants looking for concrete, practical advice on building a healthier bottom line.

Event Locations: Dallas March 2nd; Anaheim May 4th; D.C. September 15th; Boston November 3rd

What you'll get of it: The ChannelPro 2016 ‘Channel Fitness Tour’ features an all-star cast of top industry experts, a unique interactive format that puts you in direct conversation with them, and a fast-paced, information-packed agenda covering topics you care about: • Pump Up Your Managed Service Revenues: Learn about revenue-boosting services you should be offering but probably aren't from a panel of your peers. • Bottom-Line Finance Strengthening Exercises: Discover the critical metrics experienced managers use to keep their business strong and growing. • Cloud Sales and Marketing Fitness Secrets: Let our panel of sales and marketing specialists show you how to build a high-volume, high-velocity cloud sales pipeline. • Business Process Optimization Lightning Round!: Get proven, actionable suggestions for hiring employees, tracking time, setting prices, and more. • GEAR AND CASH GIVEAWAYS: Lots of chances to win big with gear and cash giveaways throughout the day!

 There's More! Attendees also receive numerous session-related resources, including white papers, analysis tools, and worksheets that add value to their experience. We'll even take care of parking, meals, and more so you can focus on what really matters: Building a stronger, more profitable business.

How to pre-register for free as a VIP>>  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ChPro_Forums-2016_Pre-Reg

Whatever communications and collaboration systems you already have in place; if you can get them working in harmony, you stand to reap tangible bottom line benefits as well as providing users with a far richer and more intuitive user experience.    

That’s the promise of Unified Communications (UC); to combine and enhance communications capabilities via a single platform.

Unified Communications simply describes what business has always needed – communications and collaboration working in harmony to achieve benefits for ROI and the user experience.

Yet if you asked 10 IT Directors for their definition of UC, you’d probably get 10 different answers so let’s simplify it to “An easy way to work together via voice, video, online collaboration and mobile devices”.

Defining the ‘what’ is one thing but why would businesses need Unified Communications?

Here are the five most popular reasons cited by organisations that have deployed and use UC technologies.

Productivity

Enabling better ways for people to get more done together.

Continuity

Ensuring the business is always available to do business.

Mobility

Supporting a connected workforce demanding 24/7 access from anywhere, using any kind of mobile device.

Integration

Leveraging, rather than stranding, existing and potential IT investments.

Future Proofing

Being ready for uncertain future challenges.

To discover more download our guide to Unified Communications which explores the five most popular reasons for committing to a UC future and shares real-life feedback from businesses about the value of UC.

Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella says, “the enterprise cloud opportunity is massive.”

By: Therese Poletti

Microsoft Corp.’s fiscal second quarter showed that its cloud-computing efforts are paying off with major revenue growth and improved profit margins, offsetting declines in its PC businesses.

Investors cheered Microsoft’s MSFT, -0.23%  results in after-hours trading, with shares rising 3.4%, while shares of Seattle neighbor Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.31%   plunged amid disappointment with holiday season profits . The two companies are proving to be fierce rivals in the arena of public cloud, where Microsoft is gaining momentum with its Azure product line, which saw a 140% year-over-year jump in revenue in constant currency.

The software giant did not break out revenue of Azure in particular, only giving the growth rate. Azure is partnered with other cloud-focused products in Microsoft’s “intelligent cloud” business, which reported $6.3 billion in total revenue, up 11% in constant currency.

“The enterprise cloud opportunity is massive, larger than any market we have ever participated in,” Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella told analysts.

Amazon and its fast-growing Amazon Web Services business is a formidable opponent in cloud computing, though. AWS reported $2.4 billion in sales for AWS on Thursday, with $687 million in operating income, for a revenue growth rate just shy of 70% — about half of Azure’s reported rise, though Amazon’s number did not use constant currency.

While Azure is growing faster than AWS, it is likely still far behind in terms of overall size. Ahead of Microsoft’s earnings, Raymond James analyst Michael Turits estimated that Microsoft’s Azure business would hit $501 million in revenue in the December quarter.

“It looks like they are slowly but surely gaining share, that’s the key,” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said.

Microsoft also fared well with its Office 365 cloud product, a major part of the “intelligent cloud” sector, which saw revenue growth of nearly 70% in constant currency.

Read More

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., Jan. 27, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Anticipating strong customer demand for the next waves of digital business technologies, information technology (IT) industry executives view the year ahead with a general sense of optimism, according to the IT Industry Outlook 2016 released today by CompTIA, the industry's nonprofit trade association.
        
Maintaining its momentum, CompTIA's IT Industry Business Confidence Index recorded an uptick of 1.2 points heading into the first quarter of the year. While a range of economic concerns have affected the Index, the rating component covering the IT industry continues to perform well. 
        
"The Index indicates industry executives see far more positives than negatives," said Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence, CompTIA.
        
For 2016, CompTIA's consensus industry forecast projects growth of 4.7 percent for the U.S. market. Industry executives believe this will be a function of incremental growth in the staple categories of hardware, software, services, and telecom, supplemented with new revenue streams from emerging categories.
        
"Businesses of all sizes increasingly recognize the need to remake their workflows and customer engagement practices with an eye towards digital transformation," said Herbert. "If investments in these technologies accelerate, and the economy holds steady, growth could lean towards the upside of the forecast."
        
In its IT Industry Outlook 2016 CompTIA identifies 12 trends that are expected to further make their mark on the IT industry, IT channel, IT workforce, and broader economy in the year ahead.

Read More

Who Dat? Below is a reprint of a blog., based on our SMB Nation State of the Union 2016 Webinar (January 2016) with Anurag from TechAisle. Enjoy the read!

On 7th January, Harry Brelsford, Founder, SMBNation had a Q&A webinar with Techaisle on the challenges of SMB-focused MSPs and cloud channel partners. Given below are his questions and Techaisle’s responses.

Harry: Referring to this blog SMB IT Channel has reached an inflection point can you better define “inflection point?” does that mean a tipping point before collapse or a pivot?

Anurag: It is a pivot not a collapse – “one stop solution shop” is dying as each of cloud, mobility, managed services and CI/virtualization gets too complex for generalists to manage. The IT channel is changing, permanently and in ways that are entirely different from what we have seen in the past. In the same way that “cloud” refers to a very wide range of very different IT models and deployments, “the channel” is becoming a generic phrase 

Click HERE to read the rest of the article!

Once in a great while, disruptive financial models are created. Take derivate trading in the financial markets and how that led to high speed trading an amazing disruption. Atera is out to do the same by essentially offering a futures contract where you lock in your PSA/RMM pricing based on the number of technicians you employ, not the number of device. It’s a brilliant strategy and makes sense with the commoditization of IT at SMB customer sites.

Why the "paying per device" model is killing the growth of your MSP business

If you avoid Atera’s attractive pricing offer, you do so at your own peril. That’s because you subjective you and your family’s financial welfare to the diminishing returns of IT management. Allow me to assert my argument.

1. Penalized for growing – when you grow, your traditional PSA and RMM supplier grows on your expense, since new customer will require you to spend more money on monitoring of new servers & workstations. Loosely translated, there is no upside financial leverage. Your RMM and PSA costs are essentially variable costs and that makes it tough to increase profitability margins.
2. Makes you uncompetitive – you need to charge your customer for every PC, laptop and server added. Remember I made mention of the oft accepted theory of IT commoditization? In such a marketplace, it’s essential you control if not lower your costs. A market that is being commoditized doesn’t support a cost-plus inflationary strategy. You can’t pass on your costs easily and thus you become uncompetitive to more efficient operators.
3. Hurting your customer growth & relationship – when your customer grows (and needs more PC, laptops and servers), you have to charge more, and the customer most likely will not care about the fact that this money isn't going to your pocket at all. It’s going to fat cat PSA ISV owners and RMM executive’s wallets!

Atera to the rescue: per technician pricing

So I’ve saved the best for last. Atera is asserting an optimistic investment approach that reduces risk and increase profitability with maybe a bit of fun thrown in. Atera’s PSA and RMM solution has three pillars.

1. Predictably – you know how much you pay each month. That’s your hedge strategy facilitated by buying Atera’s solution set. By analogy, think of it this way. Each and every day, corn farmers in Iowa sell futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. Big Ag (large agriculture companies and distributors) buy those futures as part of a financial strategy to lock in its corn commodity prices. Right or wrong, Big Ag knows what it’s be paying.
2. Competiveness – You can charge less and provide better service because all devices will be monitored. Smart idea in a cloud world and facilitated by Atera, a born-in-the-cloud ISV.
3. Relationship with customer- you avoid the tension of the whole “I need to charge you more for your growth” conversation. Whereas in the financial community, I’d offer personal friendships are minimized because “they” are not nice people. It’s just the opposite in SMB. MSPs are often personal friends with customers. So expectation management is paramount to a long-term relationship!

Choosing the right business communications solutions is no longer simply a case of choosing which type of system and brand you want.

The mind-boggling array of options available today means that the importance of making the correct choice has never been more critical. 

Communication behaviour is also changing. Today’s users are moving from formal meetings, booking resources and geographic limitations towards real-time collaboration, using diverse communication methods and devices, and regardless of location.

Outside of your employees the customers of SMBs are also changing how they interact and driving an excellent customer experience has become a business critical differentiator.

“When consumers hear about a product today, their first reaction is ‘Let me search online for it.’ And so they go on a journey of discovery: about a product, a service, an issue, an opportunity. Today you are not behind your competition. You are not behind the technology. You are behind your consumer.” Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, VivaKi

This transformation can be seen in seven key trends:

Technology is now an enabler

The rise of communications protocols such as SIP and options such as cloud is opening up a new world of applications and solutions. Today’s IP phone systems are gateways to this new world.

SMB IT staff are increasingly cloud and applications managers

The role of ICT staff is evolving to become more pro-active and strategic with a reduced emphasis on support and break/fix.

Spending growth for a mobile world

IT and telecoms budgets are increasingly focussed around the smartphone, applications and on delivering a more flexible work experience.

Re-imagining work

A new approach is required to an increasingly mobile world of work from remote working to businesses without offices. 

Premium on protection

Many business are re-focussing on protection in areas from network security and remote working to applications and business continuity plans.

Incremental, integrated solutions approach

Without the resources to buy and install everything at once many SMBs are adopting an incremental purchasing strategy and a phased approach to implementing applications and communications.

Reshaping the customer experience

The way customers buy products and services is transitioning towards online. All businesses need to consider how this new form of customer engagement will impact on the technology they need.   

Mitel has produced a free Buyers Guide to explore these issues further and to help you to navigate the business communications market.

•  What are the key trends influencing business communications today? 
•  What questions should you ask? 
•  What features, phones and tools does your business really need? 
•  Is cloud or traditional communications the right choice?
• A glossary to demystify telecoms terms

By Anurag Agrawal

On 7th January, Harry Brelsford, Founder, SMBNation had a Q&A webinar with Techaisle on the challenges of SMB-focused MSPs and cloud channel partners. Given below are his questions and Techaisle’s responses.

Harry: Referring to this blog SMB IT Channel has reached an inflection point can you better define “inflection point?” does that mean a tipping point before collapse or a pivot?

Anurag: It is a pivot not a collapse – “one stop solution shop” is dying as each of cloud, mobility, managed services and CI/virtualization gets too complex for generalists to manage. The IT channel is changing, permanently and in ways that are entirely different from what we have seen in the past. In the same way that “cloud” refers to a very wide range of very different IT models and deployments, “the channel” is becoming a generic phrase that describes a set of business approaches that is increasingly specialized and fragmented. The areas that I just mentioned – cloud, mobility, managed services, virtualization - today, there is substantial overlap across these categories – but it is our belief that over time, success in any one of these areas will require discrete focus and investment, reducing opportunity for equal success in/focus on other competencies.

Harry: I like how you provide historical context – the comment you made regarding a market defined by the adoption of a particular type of technology (e.g. small Business Server (SBS)) is a point well taken by this crowd. But I’m not sure I’m seeing a cult-like community emerge around any particular cloud product (e.g. Office 365). Would you agree?

Anurag: Talking from a channel POV, agreed. If there is a cult growing, it is around Hybrid IT; possible that Cloud Broker business model will get to this level as well. SMB organizations will accept the notion that their focus on cloud needs to evolve into a focus on hybrid IT, as firms realize that their platforms and management scope must encompass on and off-premise systems. Truth of the matter is that Office365 also disintermediates the channel. There is no stopping an organization from going directly to Microsoft and purchasing and installing Office 365 as opposed to using SBS from a channel partner in the past. It is a classic cloud vs. on-premise conundrum. The ecosystem should evolve but it will evolve around integration of data and applications.

Harry: Along those lines, I just had a conversation that I’m not seeing the same ecosystem building up around a cloud product or service. For example, we’d like to take credit that SBS really helped build Trend Micro and today it’s a $1b company. But I’m not seeing these add-ons in the same way with Office 365. The only thing I can point to are a few SharePoint snap-ins and a few tools (migrations, etc.). Do you agree or disagree?

Anurag: Mostly agree. There is a lot of potential around Salesforce, but a lot of cloud software suppliers sell direct, using online trials rather than channel members to educate customers about offerings. This does not mean that there will be no aggregation opportunity in the future, but the cloud broker model is still pretty immature, and the traditional channel has several barriers to surmount before they can adopt this kind of role with respect to cloud.

Harry: You put a lot of emphasis on mobility. While I think mobility is a game changer and you have kids walking around with cranked over necks on city streets, I guess I’ surprised. Please defend your lead-off statement about mobility, sir!

Anurag: Seen on the web recently – “Software is eating the world, and mobility is eating software; therefore, mobility is eating the world.” Everywhere, and especially outside the US, the mobile device is the key to information access and use. Today, the workspace is not defined by windows and walls and common area couches. For millions of SMB employees, the “workspace” is not a physical location – it is a virtual space defined by access from multiple screens which are used from multiple locations. Techaisle data shows that more than one-third of SMB employees today spend at least 20% of their work time away from a central office, and that 80% use mobile devices to access corporate information. If the “office” is defined by devices, so too is “workplace” defined by the ability to work from wherever those devices (and their users) are located. SMBs are investing in mobility because it contributes to both cost savings and increased market reach, with “improved productivity” and related answers connected to establishing “better ways of working” viewed as the greatest benefit of mobility within SMBs. Techaisle’s data shows that small and midsized businesses have different challenges in supporting the mobile workforce: while both cite TCO as their most significant challenge, small businesses struggle with the “on ramps” to mobility (such as finding appropriate suppliers and solutions), while midmarket firms report that they are more concerned with security/data protection and mobile management. Empowering the SMB mobile workforce becomes a huge opportunity for MSPs.

Harry: Let’s go throw the four points of overlap in your first blog installment. For the benefit of the listeners, could you expand on your four bullet points?

Anurag: In our research, Techaisle has divided the SMB channel into four technology-focused groups:
•Mobility, which includes the channel members who are looking to regain relevance in the client market by providing management solutions that address the sprawl of applications (and as a result, complexity and GRC exposure).
•Managed services, which hones in on firms that are successfully pursuing a services-led, recurring revenue-based business model.
Cloud, which represents – at least in our view – the mainstream opportunity of the future, and which will ultimately divide further into segments clustered around delivery models, customer sets and/or technology specialties.
•Virtualization and converged infrastructure, which represents the evolution of the traditional channel focused on sales of back-office technology.

Today, there is a great deal of overlap between the four groups, but we have hit an inflection point, and the (more or less) common starting point is launching multiple distinct paths. At present, though, this diffusion of channel interests and capabilities is the source of a great deal of complexity within the channel, and as a result, within the vendor and buyer ranks as well. All three of the core supply chain communities – buyers, vendors and the channel – need to understand what is required for success so that the channel can make the investments needed to support emerging requirements, vendors can commit to the investments and partners needed to drive success, and buyers can identify the suppliers able to deliver business benefit from advanced technology acquisition

Harry: Is managed services still a valid business model in a cloud service world?

Anurag: Good question! Yes. Think about “cloud service” as “hybrid IT that requires integration between on-prem and cloud-based resources,” and the opportunity for third party management is clear. Also, while developers love the AWS credit-card-and-go approach, business users – and SMBs especially – need more support. MSPs are hardly the only source of managed services: more than 60% of VARs, SPs and SIs sell managed services today, and there has been an increase in managed services activity in all of these channels and Channels generally are gaining comfort with managed services delivery. Same time, the variety and depth of managed services will make it difficult for non-specialists to keep pace with MSP specialists. And SMB Buyer preference for a single source of managed services will have an impact on managed services market and channel development. To put it in context, SMBs are more dependent on technology than ever before. Since 2010, IT staffing has dropped in microbusinesses, and increased in small and midmarket firms. Accordingly, managed services acts as a substitute for IT staff in firms with 1-19 employees, and as a means of augmenting IT management in larger SMBs. SMBs are struggling with IT complexity, and turning to managed services providers for support.

Harry: I want to drill down a layer on the end of your first blog’s conclusion: “Many vendors will struggle with simply understanding this fundamental change in the market, and more will fail to understand the focus and investment required to grow with partners through this transitional period.” I’ve seen three RMM companies reorganize in the past few months. The old GFI marketing team in the UK was let go. AVG had a significant layoff of the old LevelPlatform group and Kaseya just had a shake up letting developers go but hiring a lot of account reps. That’s my evidence. What is your viewpoint?

Anurag: This is not just an RMM problem, it is a channel enablement problem. In the cloud era, established partners need to change: management approach, management metrics, marketing approach, technical service skills, sales approach, and sales comp models. Or they can get displaced…Only yesterday I read somewhere that the HP Inc. channel chief Thomas Jensen had said that Channel partners must grow their business to be more solution-oriented, as a transactional based business may not be enough in five years' time. But at least in the article there was no mention of how this magical transition was going to happen and what is HP Inc. doing to make it happen.

Migration to advanced technologies such as cloud and analytics, which require sophisticated deployment capabilities and often new recurring-revenue-based sales models, has left the traditional channel behind. Vendors are “helping” partners to build the capabilities needed to participate in the growth segments of the IT industry, but their methods are unsurprisingly designed to align the channel with a particular product set. This has the net effect of converting resellers/integrators/consultants into sales agents – which erodes the channel’s basic position as a trusted advisor. There is not a lot of current appetite for vendor-neutral enablement, but there is a great deal of need for it.

Harry: This blog New Wave of SMB Channel conflict in building a cloud practice, I thought the whole idea with cloud was to be more agile. But you make a super tanker reference but call it an inapt comparison. Can you expand in our thinking?

Anurag: Yes, cloud provides agility for the end-customer but for channels it is like turning a super tanker. Building an effective cloud practice within a channel business is a complex undertaking. Using an old metaphor, it has been compared to “turning a supertanker.” This is an inapt comparison, and not just because the vast majority of channel businesses are far smaller than a large ocean vessel. The real problem with the comparison is that turning a supertanker refers to an exercise whose success rests on an anticipation of future change. Certainly, this is part of the problem for the channel – what is the best time to invest in ramping up cloud practice resources? – but the issue has a much greater scope. A successful cloud business practice requires new management metrics, new financial models, new sales processes (and generally, compensation models), new vendor relationships, new marketing activities, new consulting capabilities and new technical support capabilities. To use a nautical analogy, creating a cloud practice within an existing channel business is like building a second boat within your ship, sailing it off in a different direction, and maintaining alignment between the two courses in order to maximize synergies and benefits and reduce expensive discontinuities

Harry: You go on to allude that a cloud practice has to have a new approach and I agree. In my SMB Nation Fall 2015 keynote, I had a slide about firing your staff at your MSP practice. Basically I was saying $100K MCSE on the server-side are irrelevant and expensive on the cloud side. Let’s talk about that. Do we need to fire everyone and use virtual monkeys to do the work?

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By Shannon Mayer, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Continuum

The ninth installment of a monthly blog series offering tips and best practices on various ways MSPs can help their SMB clients work through the most challenging daily business issues.

In the last installment of “Better Call an MSP,” I offered insight on misconceptions regarding outsourcing. Now let’s discuss a new revenue opportunity for the New Year that MSPs should be thinking about: Compliance as a Service or CaaS. If you haven’t spent much time on compliance measures with your clients, then now is as a good a time as any to consider it because there is a growing need for compliance specialists in the market. Perhaps you aren’t sure of the specifics, or you haven’t found the right time to bring it up. One way to start, regardless of your vertical focus, is to check out these tips below for more information.

1.) New Year, New Offerings. It’s January, which means it’s a new year and new quarter. What better time than now to discuss proactive approaches with your clients? Even if they haven’t been asking for new and/or additional services, now is the time to start building awareness by leveraging your “trusted advisor” skills. Make a point to set a meeting sometime in the next month or two to discuss long-term projects and needs. Your clients know, especially if they are involved in verticals such as retail, hospitality and healthcare, that there are compliance measures they must adhere to. Many do not know how to tackle the compliance issues or may not be aware of how to ensure they are up-to-date with compliance measures like PCI (Payment Card Industry) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). While you don’t want to use fear tactics to scare your clients into submission, the reality is that if they do not meet compliance measures, they could inadvertently and (unknowingly) face fines and penalties that could affect their business and revenue.

2.) Getting Vertical Specific: As an MSP, I’m sure that you are familiar with terms like PCI, HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, especially if you have clients in verticals bound by these compliance standards. However, while a client might know of these regulations, it should be part of your job to ensure they are current. So why not position yourself as the thought leader and educate them on what they need to do to stay compliant and offer to help them? For instance, if your focus is on healthcare clients, you want your clients to know that OCR (Office of Civil Rights) confirmed that they will be issuing phase 2 of HIPAA compliance audits early this year. If your clients aren’t aware of this, they might end up getting audited and could face steep non-compliance fines. FYI - OCR has established a comprehensive protocol that contains the requirements to be assessed through audits, which can be found here.

Regarding PCI, if you have customers within the retail or hospitality sector, you know that this can be a tricky vertical, especially with all of the current changes regarding payment cards, such as EMV chips and mobile payments. Organizations such as the PCI Security Standards Council, and the Retail Solution Providers Association (RSPA) are focused on providing information on the various standards and regulations regarding PCI compliance measures. To stay current, start by logging on to these websites and utilizing the resources and forums that they provide. While the RSPA is member-based, you don’t need to have a membership to be part of their resource community.

3.) Prevention = New Revenue Opportunities: Aside from helping clients avoid hefty non-compliance fines, CaaS can also be a new revenue stream for you. There are huge margin potentials that can come from offering services around compliance, especially if you brand yourself as a “compliance specialist.” Aside from the initial assessments, charge for pre- and post-work projects to resolve issues uncovered during the audit. If you aren’t sure where to start, talk to your vendor partners, as some might already have established partnerships with companies that offer PCI and HIPAA network assessments. For example, Continuum works with RapidFire Tools to provide HIPAA and PCI compliance network assessment modules to MSPs. This is a good place to start, as you won’t have to “re-invent” the wheel when adding this service.

If you are going to add CaaS, I would pull this out of your “managed services bundle” or “project work” bucket, and position it on your website as a separate offering. This is better for search engine optimization (SEO) and branding purposes. End-users are online today searching for companies that offer compliance services and you want to be easily found. If these offerings are buried somewhere in your website (or not advertised specifically at all), then it’s more difficult for potential customers to find you.

Remember, the key here is not to shove another “as a service” offering down your client’s throat. It’s more about building awareness that you offer CaaS and letting them know what they need to do to stay compliant and out of legal trouble. The bottom line is that most SMBs don’t have a choice when it comes to compliance, and as an MSP, you can help them get there, while concurrently adding a new revenue stream to your business.

Shannon Mayer is Continuum's Senior Product Marketing Manager and is directly responsible for platform go-to-market strategy and messaging as well as business intelligence. She manages the Continuum Peer Groups program and content for Navigate 2016, Continuum’s annual partner conference. Shannon was named a 2013 Channel Chief by CRN and has also been named to the MSPmentor 250, CRN’s ‘Top 100 People You Don’t Know, But Should’, and CRN’s ‘Women of the Channel: Power 100’ lists. Follow her on Twitter: @shannonjmayer.

DRAPER, Utah – (Jan. 21, 2016) – Global backup and disaster recovery solution provider StorageCraft Technology Corp. today announced that Marvin Blough is the company’s new vice president of worldwide sales. Blough, who comes to StorageCraft from Dell SonicWALL, has more than 30 years of experience of successfully leading global direct and channel go-to-market efforts in IT security and software.

At StorageCraft, Blough’s focus as vice president of worldwide sales is on expanding the company’s global reach by establishing channel partnerships that enhance the profitability for the channel partner. Marvin is also responsible for working closely with international distributors to introduce the StorageCraft product line into new markets.

“Marvin Blough brings to StorageCraft an impressive track record of being one of the top sales executives in the IT channel,” said StorageCraft Chairman and CEO Matt Medeiros. “His addition enhances StorageCraft’s ability to strengthen our presence in existing markets, as well as accelerate our ability, to not only enter into new markets around the world, but to also quickly establish strong footholds in them.”  

Prior to joining StorageCraft, Blough served as a vice president of worldwide sales at SonicWALL for nine years. During his tenure at SonicWALL, Blough was recognized for his success with eight consecutive CRN Channel Chief awards.

“No matter which part of the world an IT professional is located, it is critical that his or her data and systems are protected. StorageCraft has award-winning products that IT professionals trust for backup and disaster recovery in more than a million systems,” Blough said. “As StorageCraft expands, we will develop new partnerships that allow IT professionals around the world to more easily access the StorageCraft Recovery Solution. Also, StorageCraft will soon announce a new partner program that enhances the ability of our existing and new partners to be as profitable as possible in protecting data and systems.” StorageCraft has sales on six continents. The company’s corporate headquarters is located in Draper and has its international headquarters in Cork, Ireland, as well as regional offices in Tokyo and Sydney. Throughout the years, StorageCraft products have been recognized by analysts, leading IT publications, and most importantly, IT professionals for their speed and reliability. In October, StorageCraft won the ASCII Cup Vendor of the Year award, which was the result of 26 cumulative award category wins at the eight regional ASCII Success Summits attended by IT professionals in 2015. Earlier this month, StorageCraft was named Best Channel Vendor in the Business Continuity and Backup and Disaster Recovery category in the annual Business Solutions magazine’s annual survey of IT service providers and MSPs.

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About StorageCraft Technology Corporation

The StorageCraft family of companies, founded in 2003, provides best-in-class backup, disaster recovery, system migration and data protection solutions for servers, desktops and laptops. StorageCraft delivers software products that reduce downtime, improve security and stability for systems and data, and lower the total cost of ownership. For more information, visit www.storagecraft.com.

StorageCraft and ShadowProtect are trademarks of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.