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.

MSPs must address their IT talent management

MSPs must address their IT talent management

The single biggest gating factor when it comes to enabling managed service providers (MSPs) to expand their business is almost always the available technology expertise they can hire. MSPs are locked in a perennial war for IT talent not only...

/ August 26, 2021
IT leaders start to move past COVID-19 era

IT leaders start to move past COVID-19 era

As organizations of all sizes continue to wait and see how the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic might evolve, a survey of 400 IT leaders at organizations with more than 500 employees suggests IT leaders, in terms of setting...

/ August 19, 2021
DataOps opportunity for MSPs reaches a zenith

DataOps opportunity for MSPs reaches a zenith

A pair of recent reports highlight the growing need for data management or DataOps expertise that many managed service providers (MSPs) are in a better position to provide than an internal IT team. A survey of 150 executives at companies...

/ August 12, 2021
Cloud war accelerates as cloud providers battle for share

Cloud war accelerates as cloud providers battle for share

Cloud infrastructure services spending increased 36 percent to $47 billion in the second quarter with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) now accounting for 61 percent of total spend among all cloud providers, according to a...

/ August 5, 2021 / 1 Comment
Difficult cloud migration experiences create demand for MSPs

Difficult cloud migration experiences create demand for MSPs

A survey of 1000 IT decision makers suggests there is a much greater appreciation of just how challenging it is to manage a successful cloud migration of application workloads. Published by Next Pathway, a provider of a platform for automating...

/ July 29, 2021 / 1 Comment
Next wave of COVID-19 fallout for MSPs starts to arrive

Next wave of COVID-19 fallout for MSPs starts to arrive

The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another classic example of an ill-wind that ultimately threw a lot of good in the general direction of managed service providers (MSPs). Naturally, the MSP community as a whole wishes it never happened, but like...

/ July 22, 2021 / 1 Comment
MSPs celebrate growth as IT spending questions remain

MSPs celebrate growth as IT spending questions remain

Questions on the levels of IT spending from SMBs and other organizations will exercise in the future continue, even amongst recent significant MSP growth. Managed services generated nearly $8 billion in annual contract value in the second quarter of 2021,...

/ July 20, 2021 / 1 Comment
Ransomware attacks drive increased DRaaS opportunities for MSPs

Ransomware attacks drive increased DRaaS opportunities for MSPs

Disaster recovery (DR) is the only real defense against ransomware attacks. However, a recent survey of 150 technical and business decision makers from organizations with more than 150 employees, conducted by cloud hosting services provider iland, suggests most organizations are...

/ July 8, 2021
MSPs must watch where the cloud pendulum is swinging

MSPs must watch where the cloud pendulum is swinging

It should come as no surprise to managed service providers (MSPs) that consumption of cloud infrastructure increased considerably in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, a 41 percent increase in spending on a base of $45.7 billion...

/ July 1, 2021
Organizations need MSPs to become cloud security heroes

Organizations need MSPs to become cloud security heroes

When not done right, cloud security can become a bit of a mess. Misconfigurations of cloud services are more widespread than ever at a time when cybercriminals have tools that enable them to discover vulnerabilities in a matter of minutes....

/ June 24, 2021