Ransomware driving backup and recovery conversations for MSPs
Backup and recovery may not have always been the sexiest of IT topics, but thanks to the rise of ransomware it is now one of the hottest. The single most effective defense against ransomware is an ability to recover an...
CompTIA study: MSPs gearing up to add more services
Managed service providers are ready to expand. A full 59 percent of the 400 U.S.-based MSPs surveyed by CompTIA plan to increase the number of managed services they provide. Managed print services (32 percent), help desks (31 percent), virtual desktops, and database...
Changes in attack patterns create demand for managed security services
While managed security services providers (MSSPs) have been remotely managing firewalls and anti-virus software deployments for years, it’s become clear over the past 12 months that new classes of threats are doing an end run around those core security technologies. For...
Technology policy becomes mainstream campaign issue
Regardless of what side of the political aisle anyone hails from, there is some general agreement that more needs to be done by the next President of the United States to make sure the U.S. remains competitive from a technology...
Time to focus on customer renewal rates in age of the cloud
When it comes to selling IT solutions in the age of the cloud, the biggest change for IT service providers is the emphasis that needs to be placed on customer renewal rates for services that are sold as a subscription....
The growing importance of security breach incident management
How an IT organization handles a breach is now arguably more important to the business affected than all the time and effort they put into preventing one from happening. In this day and age, some kind of breach is now...
Geoffrey Moore shares advice on how to cross the IT selling chasm
When it comes to selling an IT project, many IT vendors and their partners have come to appreciate that the part of the budget controlled by the internal IT organization only represents a few percentage points of the total operational...
Ransomware exposes poor data management hygiene
As ransomware attacks continue to proliferate, the soft underbelly of IT — how organizations often manage their data in a cavalier manner — is finally being exposed. Ransomware combines social engineering techniques, malware, and encryption to take an organization’s data hostage. As...
The FBI wants to see your malware
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would like IT services providers and their customers to share their malware with them. As part of its ongoing efforts to combat cybercriminals, the FBI has developed a massive database of malware that it...
Are you a victim of service catalog sprawl?
The number of catalogs the average organization is able to provision services through is starting to spin out of control. A new survey of 766 technical support professionals conducted by HDI Research finds that 85 percent of IT professionals now identify...