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.

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
Document sharing chaos creates opportunity for MSPs

Document sharing chaos creates opportunity for MSPs

There’s no doubt that document sharing in the cloud has been a boon to productivity, but as it turns out, there can be too much of a good thing. A recent survey of 150 professionals working in enterprise organizations conducted...

/ September 5, 2019
Greater reliance on security metrics is driving increased spending on cybersecurity

Greater reliance on security metrics is driving increased spending on cybersecurity

Despite the increasing number of cyberattacks making headlines, convincing organizations to invest more in cybersecurity technologies remains a major challenge. Too many organizations are still relying on just a firewall and often anti-virus (AV) software that typically has not been...

/ September 3, 2019
This Labor Day, MSPs should rethink their IT staffing strategy

This Labor Day, MSPs should rethink their IT staffing strategy

During the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend, most leaders of managed service providers (MSPs) will turn their thoughts to IT staffing issues. After all, the success of any MSP basically comes down to how they manage their IT talent. The...

/ August 29, 2019
Cybersecurity attacks aimed at MSPs are taking a toll

Cybersecurity attacks aimed at MSPs are taking a toll

For the better part of a year now, managed service providers (MSPs) have been the focal point of a series of attacks that are starting to erode customer confidence. A survey of 476 attendees at the recent Black Hat USA...

/ August 27, 2019 / 2 Comments
VMware Cloud on AWS momentum starts to swell

VMware Cloud on AWS momentum starts to swell

Following a few early VMware missteps, it would appear that cloud momentum surrounding VMware, on the eve of the annual VMworld conference next week, is finally starting to increase. A survey of 1,156 IT and business professionals published today by...

/ August 22, 2019 / 1 Comment