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.

IT services providers need to fill the digital business transformation void

IT services providers need to fill the digital business transformation void

The rise of digital business transformation initiative has the potential to be a major boon for IT services providers. Organizations of all sizes are starting to recognize they need to not only employ IT to become more efficient, they also...

/ October 10, 2019
Bots with conversational interfaces come to Managed Services

Bots with conversational interfaces come to Managed Services

Managed service providers (MSPs) should start moving now toward incorporating conversational interfaces into their customer service applications. Chat bots that rely on natural language interfaces are already employed on the Web. The next wave of these bots, however, will support...

/ October 8, 2019 / 1 Comment
What it really takes to become a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP)

What it really takes to become a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP)

If an IT solution provider wants to become a managed security services provider (MSSP), they will need the ability to remediate a cybersecurity breach in well under two hours, based on how long it currently takes the average IT organization...

/ October 3, 2019
Spending survey indicates MSPs are holding, but not gaining, ground

Spending survey indicates MSPs are holding, but not gaining, ground

One of the first IT spending forecasts for 2020 contains both good and somewhat disappointing news for managed service providers (MSPs). Based on a Spiceworks survey of 1,105 IT leaders in the U.S. and Europe, spending driven by the need...

/ October 1, 2019
Survey finds increased appreciation for external IT service provider expertise

Survey finds increased appreciation for external IT service provider expertise

Far too many leaders of small to medium businesses (SMBs) still don’t appreciate the strategic role IT can play in the success of their organizations. However, a survey of 250 business executives at organizations with $5 to $50 million in...

/ September 26, 2019
Brownouts make organizations just as blue as outages

Brownouts make organizations just as blue as outages

Typically, when managed service providers (MSPs) make the initial case for their services much of their focus tends to be trying to determine the number of outages any organization has experienced. The theory is that organizations that have experienced the...

/ September 24, 2019
Gartner analyst lifts veil on IT solution purchasing processes

Gartner analyst lifts veil on IT solution purchasing processes

At the 2019 UK London Managed Services & Hosting Summit this week, a Gartner analyst delivered some “good news.” Gartner research director Mark Paine told conference attendees it’s now only taking customers 50 percent longer to buy an IT solution,...

/ September 19, 2019
Long road to achieving GDPR compliance still lies ahead

Long road to achieving GDPR compliance still lies ahead

A survey of 1,263 IT professionals conducted by the Ponemon Institute, on behalf of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP, suggests that even some of the best laid plans to comply with the General Data Protection Rule (GDPR)...

/ September 17, 2019
MSPs need to embrace Kubernetes to drive hybrid cloud computing

MSPs need to embrace Kubernetes to drive hybrid cloud computing

Hybrid cloud computing seems to be one of those goals everyone wants to achieve, but no one is quite sure how to accomplish. Most cloud computing platforms are managed today in isolation from one another. If a managed service provider...

/ September 12, 2019
Survey highlights growing shift in IT attitude among customers

Survey highlights growing shift in IT attitude among customers

When it comes to prospective customers, managed service providers (MSPs) often find themselves trying to navigate between two extremes. On one hand, there are organizations with highly competent IT teams that feel they are the equal with MSPs in terms...

/ September 10, 2019