Category: Tech Insight
Tech Time Warp: The history of WYSIWYG
This week marks the 70th birthday of Charles Simonyi, the Hungarian-born software executive behind Microsoft Office and Excel. Born on September 10, 1948, Simonyi is also responsible for an innovation the modern computer user might take for granted: WYSIWYG word...
IT spending forecast for 2019 predicts stronger headwinds for MSPs
According to a survey of 780 IT decision makers in North America and Europe conducted by Spiceworks, a provider of IT management tools, IT headwinds appear to be growing stronger. The survey data suggests that MSPs may need to focus...
BYOD: The good and the bad
“As long as a smartphone is allowed into an organization, there is no way of controlling how an employee uses the technology.” – Dr. Matthew Warren Smarter MSP recently looked at some of the security concerns inherent with BYOD (Bring...
MSPs have much at stake as SD-WAN wars heat up
Software-defined wide area networking has emerged as one of the fastest growing and hotly contested segments in all of IT. In fact, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger at the recent VMworld 2018 conference noted that NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud is the...
MSPs need to look to the future of managed services now more than ever
The rate at which routine functions are automated, such as delivering patch updates is about to accelerate considerably. While that may sound like an advance that will benefit managed service providers (MSPs), it turns out that the automation of those functions...
Tech Time Warp: Miss Manners Tackles Computer Etiquette
You know that writing in all caps equates to shouting online, and that emoticons in professional emails are a no-no, but did you know that Miss Manners has been doling out computer etiquette for almost 40 years? On Aug. 26,...
Report details scope of network management challenges faced by MSPs
A report published this week by Auvik Networks finds more than three-quarters of managed service providers (MSPs) manage four or more network vendors across their client base. A third of MSPs are managing equipment from six to ten networking and...
VMware NSX emerges as network management platform
At the VMworld 2018 conference this week, VMware firmly established the role network virtualization overlays will play in managing disparate physical networks from here on in. In addition to revealing that VMware now has 7,500 customers for its NSX network virtualization...
Tech Time Warp: Meet AROK the Robot
Remember Rosie the Robot, George Jetson’s trusty maid? Well, Rosie had nothing on AROK, the robotic assistant created by Chicagoan Ben Skora in the late 1970s. Weighing in at 275 pounds and standing 6 feet, 8 inches, tall, AROK (that’s...
Extended lifecycle of IT equipment starts to force the managed services issue
Most solution providers have added managed services to their portfolio to one degree or another. But, arguably far too many of them are still dependent on reselling products as their primary source of revenue. A new survey of 1,372 IT...
