SPECIAL TECH 2008
REPORT
T2E 0C0H8 MANAGED SERVICES
WHILE TECHNOLOGY ENABLES SMBS to gain effi-ciencies, enhance productivity, and otherwise do more
MEET THE EXPERTS with less, many still deploy IT without dedicated technology professionals. As technology becomes more im-
MICHAEL SPEYER portant to their businesses, the lack of IT resources
Senior Analyst can hinder business operations when problems occur.
Michael Speyer In CDW’s Business Rearview Mirror Survey Re-
covers SMBs and port from July, 47 percent of the 152 small business
IT distribution owners surveyed said they had not hired a full-time IT
for Forrester Re-
search, where he professional when they had 60 employees. By the
advises clients about SMB time these companies had 100 employees, 23 per-
buyer behavior and helps de- cent still had no in-house IT help. Hence, there is a
velop go-to-market strategies. need for SMBs to rely on outside IT help to handle
such important tasks as software updates, patch management, backup, security, and virus protection,
LAURIE McCABE
Laurie “The channel has to have the right
vice pre services and set them up so that they
SMB In
and Bu2and even troubleshooting and help desk support.
McCabe is Tiffani Bova, research director for IT
sident of channel sales, programs, and alliances world-
sights wide at Gartner Inc., says managed services
siness can offer them at attractive price
Solutions at offers channel partners significant opportu- points and yet still make money.”
AMI-Partners, nities in 2008. According to Bova, SMBs are
where she focuses on helping “much more aware of their security exposure LAURIE McCABE, VP, SMB INSIGHTS
clients understand and capi- and they will look to their channel providers AND BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, AMI-PARTNERS INC.
talize on continually shifting for things such as firewalls, appliances, and
market trends. perimeter security.”
For both SMBs and channel providers, Bova says
that managed services can be a win-win proposition.
For SMBs, offloading critical yet noncore IT operations
enables them to focus on their businesses, while
channel partners establish offerings that bring in re-
curring revenues. “By offering remote services that go
beyond traditional break/fix services, channel partners
can service 50 clients with a small staff of around five
people,” Bova says.
McCabe sees a big upside for managed services as well. “Many SMBs have a server, a few
PCs, and a couple of applications, but [they] don’t
have any IT resources,” she says. These organizations are prime targets for managed services such
as backup, storage, security, and VPN deployment
and maintenance. For SMBs with remote employees, McCabe says the need for managed services
in such areas as PC and help desk support,
backup, and maintenance are heightened.
KARL PALACHUK
Karl Palachuk is
president of
KPEnterprises
Business Consulting, a business and technology consulting firm in
Sacramento, Calif., and the
author of four books, including
Service Agreements for SMB
Consultants.
TIFFANI BOVA
As a research director at Gartner,
Tiffani Bova conducts research
and analysis regarding channel
sales, programs, and alliances.
Prior to Gartner, Bova worked in
channel sales and marketing.
THE VIRTUES OF SERVER VIRTUALIZATION have
been known to enterprises for a while now: server consolidation, reduced power and cooling costs, improved
provisioning and management, and better backup and
disaster recovery. Gary Chen, a senior analyst at the
Yankee Group covering small and medium enterprise
IT infrastructure and business applications, contends
that server virtualization will be the hottest trend for
SMBs in 2008.
In essence, server virtualization uses software to divide a physical server into separate, virtual environ-
But channel partners need to do more than just
set up a shingle if they want to make managed services part of their profitable portfolio. “The channel has
to have the right services and set them up so that they
can offer them at attractive price points and yet still
