The magical power of labelling for MSPs
IT Professionals – imagine this scenario. A client reports to your Helpdesk that their PC has died. Your engineer visits the site to confirm the issue. Bringing the PC back to your workshop, the engineer concludes the Hard Disk Drive...
Traditional Trojans meet cryptos
Students at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia were caught off guard recently as they logged online to check their grades and work on projects as they headed towards semester finals. To their surprise, the school’s network was shut-down...
MSPs: Before adding new solutions, consider asking your current vendors for advice
The MSP ecosystem is a relatively small and collegial space – and I’ve long believed that the most successful companies within the MSP ecosystem are typically among the most collegial. Many of us know one another from the industry events...
AWS unfurls global managed networking service
Amazon Web Services (AWS) made it abundantly clear this week that the cloud service provider intends to aggressively compete as a provider of managed networking services. This follows the launch of AWS Global Accelerator, a managed service based on the...
Sales & Marketing
Ask An MSP Expert: What are some MSP marketing musts for 2019?
Q: We recently hired a new marketing team member starting in the New Year. While we’ve done marketing for our IT service business in the past, it’s always been in fits and starts. I want to make sure our new...
In 2019, make your MSP’s website a lead generator, NOT just an IT services brochure
Years ago, I worked as an independent computer consultant — back when that was still a pretty novel idea. Computers weren’t ingrained into every small business the way they are now. Not every organization, large and small, was connected to...
How easily are you FOOLED by a rookie in an expert’s costume?
John Edwards, the psychic medium known for talking to people’s dead relatives, makes millions selling tickets to two-hour events all over the world. At these events, he performs (key word: PERFORMS) his psychic feat to people wanting to believe in...
Security
8 MSP security trends that emerged in 2018
For MSPs, 2018 was anything but a dull year. Change is constant in the world of cybersecurity and the year delivered on that truism in spades. Before 2018 slips into the rearview mirror, let’s look back at some of the...
Preparing clients to be resilient in the face of ongoing security threats
Most companies understand that at some point they are going to be the victim of a hack or data breach. Just days ago, we saw that even Amazon isn’t immune, when Amazon admitted it had lost names and emails in...
MSPs warned that they are becoming targets
MSPs are accustomed to safeguarding systems from breaches and attack. But in a recent brief, the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) warned that MSPs themselves have been targeted and will continue to be targeted by bad actors....
Better Business
Email? That’s free, surely?
The task of hosting and selling email is often regarded as a thankless one. With the likes of Google mail offered as a free service and many hosting companies providing free (or massively discounted) email accounts with the hosted domain...
Ask an MSP Expert: How can we be more efficient with our time?
Q: As we continue to grow our business, it seems like we have less time in the day to accomplish everything we need to get done. What can we do to save more time? No matter what type of business...
Ask an MSP Expert: How do I create service level agreements as an MSP?
Q: We recently transitioned to the managed services model, and want to make sure we’ve covered our bases when it comes to monthly contracts. Are there any best practices you can offer for creating a Service Level Agreement (SLA)? Service...
Tech Insight
Tech Time Warp: The modern-day Robin Hoods of the Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club, Europe’s self-described “largest association of hackers,” has always taken an unorthodox approach to saving the world. Founded in 1981 by activist Wau Holland, the club — also known as the CCC — boasts 5,500 members and works to...
This scale model car from AWS could help teach you machine learning
When AWS announced a new scale model autonomous car last week, it was easy to dismiss it as a publicity stunt for the benefit of attendees at the company’s annual AWS re:Invent customer conference.
MSPs should plan now for a better IoT tomorrow
While it’s still early days as far as the Internet of Things (IoT) market opportunity is concerned, a new survey suggests the opportunity surrounding IoT could be massive. A global survey of 700 organizations conducted by ReRez Research on behalf...