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.

Percentage of channel partners offering managed services achieves critical mass

Percentage of channel partners offering managed services achieves critical mass

It’s been a very long time coming, but it looks like there may finally be more channel partners offering managed services than traditional break-fix services. A survey of subscribers published this week by ChannelPro finds the number of partners offering...

/ March 19, 2019
Navigating the great IT sales paradox

Navigating the great IT sales paradox

One of the most frustrating things IT services providers need to contend with these days is that while the sales funnel has collapsed, it’s actually taking longer than ever to close a deal.

/ March 14, 2019 / 1 Comment
Privilege access management emerges as next big cybersecurity opportunity for MSPs

Privilege access management emerges as next big cybersecurity opportunity for MSPs

Privilege access management (PAM) as of late has become a major area of cybersecurity focus because cybercriminals have become more adept at targeting attacks at specific individuals within organizations. The goal of these attacks is to compromise the credentials of...

/ March 12, 2019
CompTIA: SMBs’ IT spending trends cut both ways for MSPs

CompTIA: SMBs’ IT spending trends cut both ways for MSPs

Not too long ago, it would have been safe for managed service providers to assume most small-to-medium business (SMBs) would be considered laggards in adopting new and emerging technologies. But a survey of 650 SMBs conducted by CompTIA, an IT...

/ March 7, 2019 / 1 Comment
IoT starts to emerge as major opportunity for MSPs

IoT starts to emerge as major opportunity for MSPs

The reality surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) may finally be starting to live up to the hype. A global survey of 1,758 businesses conducted by Vodafone finds that more than a third (34 percent) have implemented IoT, with 70...

/ March 5, 2019 / 1 Comment
A need to optimize cloud spending opens the door for MSPs

A need to optimize cloud spending opens the door for MSPs

The more business and IT leaders worry about cloud costs, the more relevant managed service providers become. As far as cloud spending is concerned, the level of financial oversight being applied by organizations is slim to none. In the name...

/ February 28, 2019
Opportunity for MSPs to plug 5G wireless networking gap emerges

Opportunity for MSPs to plug 5G wireless networking gap emerges

At the Mobile World Congress 2019 conference, many attendees are excited about everything related to next-generation 5G wireless networks. Not only do these networks promise to deliver several orders of magnitude of increased network bandwidth, but a wide range of...

/ February 26, 2019
Data center modernization is top issue for IT organizations

Data center modernization is top issue for IT organizations

There’s an old saying that posits the key to success is to discover where a customer’s pain points are and solve that problem. A survey of 218 IT professionals published this week by the research firm Futuriom suggests that the...

/ February 21, 2019
AWS follows Microsoft’s lead in raising the partner bar for MSPs

AWS follows Microsoft’s lead in raising the partner bar for MSPs

Whenever any IT product or service starts to become widely accessible at too low of a price, it’s usually not long before IT vendors look to constrain the number of routes to market to ensure profitability. After nearly a decade...

/ February 19, 2019
How savvy MSPs can overcome internal IT team objections

How savvy MSPs can overcome internal IT team objections

Managed service providers (MSPs) regularly encounter internal IT teams that are firmly convinced they can provide any IT service better and at a lower cost. The cost comparison usually doesn’t include the true fully-loaded cost of hiring a full-time employee...

/ February 14, 2019 / 2 Comments