Mike Vizard

All posts by Mike Vizard

Mike Vizard has covered IT for more than 25 years, and has edited or contributed to a number of tech publications including InfoWorld, eWeek, CRN, Baseline, ComputerWorld, TMCNet, and Digital Review. He currently blogs for IT Business Edge and contributes to CIOinsight, The Channel Insider, Programmableweb and Slashdot. Mike blogs about emerging cloud technology for Smarter MSP.

Multi-cloud is here to stay

Multi-cloud is here to stay

A survey of 360 CIOs and IT leaders in the US and the United Kingdom finds 82 percent of respondents have adopted multiple clouds, with more than three-quarters (78 percent) deploying workloads in more than three public clouds. Conducted by...

/ May 30, 2022
New security guidance will raise cost of delivering managed service

New security guidance will raise cost of delivering managed service

The cybersecurity authorities of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have issued an alert to notify managed service providers (MSPs) of an increase in malicious cyber activity and provide best practice security guidance for how...

/ May 23, 2022 / 6 Comments
Tips for MSPs to weather the economic storm

Tips for MSPs to weather the economic storm

A major downturn in the global economic outlook is causing business and IT executives to reevaluate their IT spending priorities. In the wake of spiraling inflation driven by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and rising oil prices, many of the...

/ May 17, 2022 / 6 Comments
Lack of confidence in network operations creates MSP opportunity

Lack of confidence in network operations creates MSP opportunity

A survey of more than 400 network infrastructure and operations professionals from Fortune 500 companies suggests a growing lack of confidence in internal network operations teams may be creating an opportunity for managed service providers (MSPs). Conducted by Enterprise Management...

/ May 5, 2022
Patch management continues to be an MSP opportunity

Patch management continues to be an MSP opportunity

One of the dirty secrets of IT is that even when organizations are aware of a critical vulnerability, they are often unable to do much about it. In some cases, they are unaware if they are using a software component...

/ April 28, 2022
Survey finds SMBs that lack incident management may not survive ransomware

Survey finds SMBs that lack incident management may not survive ransomware

A survey of 1,200 small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) finds nearly half would not survive a ransomware attack that caused their data to become inaccessible for three days, while 75 percent said they expect they might survive anywhere from three...

/ April 20, 2022
MSPs have a vested security interest in driving infrastructure upgrades

MSPs have a vested security interest in driving infrastructure upgrades

A survey of 1,406 individuals in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, who influence their organization’s information technology (IT) decision-making regarding investment in security technologies and infrastructure, finds nearly two-thirds (64 percent) are more likely to purchase...

/ April 13, 2022
SMB cybersecurity confidence creates a challenge for MSPs

SMB cybersecurity confidence creates a challenge for MSPs

A survey of 600 SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) with revenue between $1 to $40 million, conducted by Provident Bank, finds that about half of the respondents believe their organization is fully prepared for a cyberattack. An equal percentage of respondents, however,...

/ April 8, 2022
IT spending patterns are starting to shift back to normal

IT spending patterns are starting to shift back to normal

It appears that more organizations are looking for some relief as a spate of IT spending growth from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic begins to kick in. A survey of 1,000 IT decision-makers in the U.S. and UK conducted...

/ March 31, 2022
Cloud skills crisis creates major opportunity for MSPs

Cloud skills crisis creates major opportunity for MSPs

A survey of 610 IT business leaders in North America and Europe conducted by IDC on behalf of Cloudreach, an arm of Atos that focuses on cloud services and Amazon Web Services (AWS), finds 70 percent of respondents view their...

/ March 25, 2022