MSP University Managed Services Blog

I.T. Conferences - So Many Choices!

More and more I.T. Conferences are springing up, all with great content for their particular audiences. We’ve seen some new SMB-focused conferences spring up in recent years and gather steam and acceptance with their attendees, such as the SMBSummit and the ITPro Conference. As more of these conferences spring up, it makes it more difficult for the SMB IT Solution Provider to decide where to spend their time and hard-earned money.

Our good friend Matt Makowicz posted a great blog describing several of the best IT Conferences out, and some tips and tricks on getting the most out of your conference visit. See his post here. Another great post on attending conferences was written by our friend Karl Palachuk – whose post really contains valuable tips on general conference planning and attendance as well – see it here.

One of the “must-go” conferences that we all agree upon (among others) is Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, or WPC. This year it’s in Houston, TX on July 7-10, 2008.

One of the key differentiators for attendees at Microsoft’s WPC’s is their social networking service called WPC Connect. All registered attendees can utilize this online socializing tool to share information about themselves, their organizations or products/services, identify other attendees they'd like to meet, communicate and collaborate with them, and schedule meetings with them in a section set aside specifically for that purpose within WPC. It's an area containing hundreds of tables with numbers, and through WPC Connect you can send a meeting request to any other attendee (and I mean ANY OTHER ATTENDEE, including Microsoft staff - get my meaning?) and book a time and a table. What an awesome way to get focused attention from the folks you would not have the opportunity with anywhere else....

So choose your conferences carefully, using Matt’s and Karl’s blog posts as a guide, and I’ll see you there!

Erick Simpson
MSP University
www.mspu.us 

Goal Setting

How are you coming with your goals for 2008, and do you have a discipline for setting regular goals and striving to achieve them?

Any successful ANYONE will tell you that goal-setting is not only important in your business, but also in your personal life, and a proper goal-setting methodology will yield positive, fulfilling results. Our good friend Stuart Crawford has extended an invitation to join him this Tuesday night, February 5^th at 7 PM Eastern as he discusses Goal Setting for IT Professionals on his monthly Small Business Specialist conference call.  This interactive one hour conference call will teach you some of the key points on setting goals and most importantly achieving them.

As a special benefit, everyone who registers will receive a free eBook ($24.99 value) on goal setting...

Register online today at http://www.freeitmarketingseminar.com

As if that weren’t enough, those who register on Stuart’s blog this weekend to receive his “Inspiration Email” will receive an incredible ½ hour of mentoring with Stuart one on one...this is a great time to get that golden nugget of information that might help your business – I encourage you to take Stuart up on this incredibly charitable offer.  You can register at http://www.stuartcrawford.com.  This offer expires at midnight mountain time on Sunday night, so register now!

Stuart also produces the Small Business IT Radio show on blogtalkradio.com at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/smb.

Upcoming shows include:

Feb 8 with Eric Ligman, with discussion focused on Microsoft’s Open Value Subscription program

Feb 15 with Harry Brelsford of SMBNation fame, with discussion focused on “Inside SMB with Harry B”

Stuart also has a great library of archived shows online - so check it out…

Erick Simpson
MSP University
www.mspu.us

Intel and vPro - Why Aren't You Using It?

Intel in the house.

We recently delivered a Managed Services Boot Camp for some of Intel’s Field Service Reps (FSR’s) to educate them on the challenges Service Providers face when transitioning to a Managed Services delivery model. The objective of this Boot Camp was to develop a training program for Intel FSR’s that will give them the tools and education necessary to help their Partners in the field become more profitable by delivering services to their end-user clients, instead of continuing to try to eke out profits from hardware-only, or project-based deliverables.

We all learned much from this initial Boot Camp, and from our viewpoint, understand much more clearly the challenges faced by product vendors such as Intel and Cisco as they try to alter their Partner’s traditional attitudes toward selling solutions from a transactional perspective to a service, or annuity service-oriented perspective.

One fact that struck me as odd is the reality that many Solution Providers are selling solutions with Intel vPro Technology, but not availing themselves of its benefits by failing to activate its features. Intel vPro is a platform comprised of several specific components: a Core 2 Duo processor, a Q-965 chipset, an Intel vPro Gigabit NIC, Active Management Technology (AMT) and Virtualization Technology (VT) which, when combined allows the Solution Provider to manage desktops and laptops even when Out of Band (powered down). For the most part, this means that as long as they are connected to a network, devices can be powered up remotely, and managed throughout the POST process – providing access to the BIOS, or even allowing re-imaging of the device across the network, in addition to other features – the perfect solution to those service calls when a PC or laptop won’t boot, or is blue-screening, allowing the ability to remotely diagnose the issue, instead of waiting to roll a truck on site to begin more costly troubleshooting.

Although vPro won’t allow us to fix hardware remotely, it adds tremendous value for software-related issues that would normally require an onsite visit. Let’s face it – it’s not that difficult to keep a base image of equipment on a network share somewhere and call it down when needed – vPro now allows us the ability to manage that process much more easily, as well as work outside of the operating system environment without physically sitting at the console. Read more about Intel vPro Technology here.

So if Solution Providers are selling and influencing purchases of vPro-enabled equipment (this typically adds $30 or so to the total cost), why aren’t they activating its features? And for MSP’s whose monitoring tools provide much greater functionality and integration with vPro technology, why aren’t they leveraging the investments they’ve already made in their Remote Monitoring and Management Platforms to increase their utilization and save on truck rolls?

Anybody?

Erick Simpson
MSP University
www.mspu.us

Microsoft Teams with Citrix, Enables new Functionality in Vista to Better Compete with VMWare for Virtualization Market

The Mercury News reports today that Microsoft will unveil a new Virtualization Strategy tomorrow to better compete with VMWare – the current Virtualization Solution market leader. The article goes on to state that Microsoft will announce its alliance with Citrix Systems and its purchase of Calista Software of San Jose, in addition to allowing for the first time the ability for consumer versions of Windows Vista to run in a virtual environment.

According to the article, Microsoft stated that its alliance with Citrix includes a co-marketing agreement, and it will use Calista’s software to speed up the performance of applications running in a virtualized environment.

VMWare of Palo Alto California had the best performing Silicon Valley IPO last year, and is majority owned by EMC. See the entire article here.

This article continues to reinforce the importance and impact that Virtualization and Software as a Service will have as organizations continue to seek out new ways to cut operating costs. For two excellent resources on SaaS and upcoming IT and MSP Trends, visit Jeff Kaplan’s site www.thinkstrategies.com, and Joe Pannettieri’s www.mspmentor.net.

Erick Simpson
MSP University
www.mspu.us 

Join Me For a Live Conference Call Wednesday, 1/16/07

Join me and our good friend Karl Palachuk this Wednesday, January 16, 2007 at 9am PST for a round table on Managed Services, Software as a Service, Hardware as a Service – you name it, anything goes during this live call, where we’ll field all of your questions.

If you didn’t know, Karl is our favorite HaaS Thought Leader, and runs SMB Books – www.smbbooks.com.

Here are the call-in details:

When: Wednesday, January 16^th, 9am PST

To join the conference call:

- Dial (319) 279-1000 (U.S. phone number)

- Your participant passcode is 1024518.

This conference bridge maxes out at 100 lines, so call in early to make sure you get on!

Erick Simpson
MSP University
www.mspu.us