Category: Tech Insight
Tech Time Warp: 20 years later, IoT devices add to cybersecurity risk
As you check your FitBit for your daily step count and ask Alexa to order your groceries and control your “smart” home, it’s hard to imagine life without the ease of the “Internet of Things.” All of these devices —...
Help your clients responsibly navigate open source
More and more companies are developing software using open source pieces, or using open source tools. As that happens, MSPs need to help clients use it responsibly and so they can comply with licensing rules. You can’t just throw in...
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...
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...
Customization can help your clients overcome software limitations
When the Model T Fords came out, Henry Ford used to say, “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black.” Ford, who was among the first to mass produce cars on an assembly line, was apparently...
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...
Oracle’s autonomous cloud tools should get you thinking about automation
Even with the shift to the cloud, it’s still up to IT to make sure that Linux is being patched and updated on a regular basis — which is often a tedious job. Oracle announced a product this week to help: a...
Tech Time Warp: NeXTSTEP introduced, paving the way for OS X and iOS
Steve Jobs’ story has many fascinating chapters, including the story of NeXTSTEP, the operating system that proved to be the first step toward OS X and iOS.
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,...
Ask an MSP Expert: Should I outsource NOC and Help Desk services?
Q: My managed service business is at a stage where we need more technicians to focus on resolving support tickets and provide help desk support. I am debating between hiring a Level 1 help desk agent or outsource to a...