tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80141776108323133882024-03-17T20:03:05.558-07:00Navigate the Changing Roadmap in ITPointivity BlogEric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-50798885123774811892009-11-19T16:08:00.000-08:002009-12-14T16:58:16.169-08:00Why Businesses Need to Change to Meet 'Consumerization'Yesterday at the Interop New York's keynote presentation, many spoke about how consumerization will have the most impact on how business enterprises transform their technology infrastructures. <a href="http://www.crn.com/networking/221900145;jsessionid=LQB30UHAV2NHVQE1GHPSKHWATMY32JVN" target="blank">Accordingly to Citrix President and CEO Mark Templeton (from ChannelWeb)</a>, "<span style="font-style: italic;">At present, people can have a richer and more productive technology experience with their personal devices than they can at the office. The reason is that most enterprises are tied to legacy infrastructure that's slow to evolve -- and in a decade that's seen an explosion of consumercentric, endlessly customizable technologies, that's now a problem</span>."<br /><br />We couldn't agree more.<br /><br />From the past decade, we've seen a gradual shift of businesses owning and managing IT infrastructure to today's popular IT outsourcing on a pay-per-use basis. In addition, companies are now demanding a more robust and dynamic infrastructure with high level of security, reliability and the ability for customization. <br /><br />This is where VARs and service providers needs to focus on IT trends and key business transformation initiatives. It's indicative that businesses are now in control and they want cost-effective IT services on-demand. More and more hosted solutions have demonstrated solid ROI and now it all boils down to the decision makers' mindset to swap out the legacy infrastructure piece by piece to the "cloud" model. <br /><br />This is why we continue to support our client with solutions such as <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners" target="blank">Hosted Services</a></span> and <span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/it_solutions_outsource.shtm" target="blank">iTOS</a></span> because we see this trend continue as more businesses realize that it is about the business not the IT.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-18319007203525970152009-11-10T15:08:00.000-08:002009-12-07T15:42:50.894-08:00Federal CTO: IT Is Part Of 'Federal Government Fabric'Aneesh Chopra, the nation's first CTO last August, spoke at the National Association of State CIOs conference in Austin, Texas, to challenge state CIOs to work more innovatively and collaboratively in an effort to create a more standards-based data reporting structure. The idea is to rethink the traditional processes used to solve problems, integrate technology and to help develop new ways of interaction.<br /><br />Accordingly to <a href="http://www.crn.com/government/221100055;jsessionid=IJK01IG5OKILZQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN" target="blank">ChannelWeb</a>, "<span style="font-style: italic;">The president has elevated IT into the fabric of how we run federal government. We want to collaborate with state and local governments</span>," Chopra said.<br /><br />President Barack Obama has challenged Chopra and his staff to <a href="http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/white-house-wants-it-results-90-days/2009-10-31" target="blank">solve IT problems in 90-day turnarounds</a>.<br /><br />Clearly, there is a sense of urgency from the government to embrace open communities in a time like this<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> to thoughtfully stake out ambitious agendas for access, openness and transparency.</span> And even for government, the message remains the same: IT is now a business strategy to help deliver solutions more quickly and less expensively.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-5702960755857229732009-11-02T14:55:00.000-08:002009-12-07T15:08:36.967-08:00Microsoft Strikes Back at Apple: Opens Second Retail StoreLast Friday, Microsoft opened its second retail store in Mission Viejo, California (first one in Scottsdale, Ariz). Nearly a thousand people showed up at the grand opening making it official to Apple that the war is on. There is no doubt that Microsoft is looking to built a stronger relationship with its retail customers from the success of Apple's retail strategy. Now Microsoft can showcase all of its relatively unknown products while looking to build buzz around Windows 7 PCs. Will the younger, mall-roaming audiences take interest in Microsoft? 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With consumers hesitant to buy and enterprise slashing IT budgets, how will companies position themselves in 2010? <a href="http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1209913" target="_blank">Accordingly to the last report from Gartner</a>, “<span style="font-style: italic;">global IT spending is on track to mark its worst year ever, but global tech spending will climb 3.3% to $3.3 trillion in 2010.</span>”<br /><br />“<span style="font-style: italic;">2010 is about balancing the focus on cost, risk, and growth. For more than 50% of CIOs the IT budget will be 0% or less in growth terms. It will only slowly improve in 2011,</span>” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner.<br /><br />While this is not exactly the kind of news we like to hear, the research firm also offers 3 budgeting advice:<br /><br /><ol><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Shift from Capital Expenditure to Operational Expenditure in the IT Budget</span> — Concepts such as cloud services will accelerate this shift. IT costs become scalable and elastic. CIOs need to model the economic impact of IT on the overall financial performance of an organization.<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Impact of the Increased Age of IT Hardware </span>— With delayed purchases of servers, PCs and printers likely to continue into 2010, organizations must start to assess the impact of increased equipment failure rates, and if current financial write-off periods are still appropriate. Approximately 1 million servers have had their replacement delayed by a year. That is 3% of the global installed base. In 2010, it will be at least 2 million.<br /><br />“<span style="font-style: italic;">If replacement cycles do not change, almost 10% of the server installed base will be beyond scheduled replacement be 2011</span>,” Mr. Sondergaard said. “<span style="font-style: italic;">That will impact enterprise risk. CFOs need to understand this dynamic, and it’s the responsibility of the CIO to convey this in a way the CFO understands.</span>”<br /><br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">IT Must Learn to Build Compelling Business Cases </span>— 2010 marks the year in which IT needs to demonstrate true line of sight to business objectives for every investment decision. IT leaders can no longer look at IT as a percentage of revenue. CIOs must benchmark IT according to business impact.</li></ol><br />Sounds familiar? We're no research firm but we're glad we're heading towards the right direction. Here is why:<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Number 1</span>.Everything that Pointivity offers requires no up-front capital, just pay-as-you-go making it operational expense in nature. From our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/apphosting.shtm" target="_blank">Hosted Application</a> to total <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/it_solutions_outsource.shtm" target="_blank">IT outsource with iTOS</a>, our pricing model allows the contract to fluctuate monthly without costly changes or renegotiation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Number 2.</span> All of our hosted solutions includes upgrades and updates so our customers never have to worry about patches, new versions or licensing renewal fees. Everything is included when we deliver your IT solution. We take the risk out of building and managing your own IT so you can focus on your core business. Let our experts handle keeping up with IT.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Number 3</span>. We’ve been delivering custom IT solution to our customer via iTOS for years, just checkout some of the <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/resources_casestudies.shtm" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: bold;">case studies</span></a> to see how our customers have benefited.<br /><br />The bottom line: iTOS is a business strategy because we do business with your bottom line in mind.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-25386042681397783172009-10-02T11:05:00.000-07:002009-11-18T14:08:39.890-08:00Should You Be Concern About SaaS Security?At Pointivity we offer many IT services to our clients and one in particular is gaining popularity - our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/apphosting.shtm" target="_blank">SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)</a> solution. The IT industry is currently moving quickly to adopt SaaS to help customers control costs and take advantage of a shift towards the increasing availability of data and applications away from a traditional office setting. As the SaaS trend continues, there is also the growing concern over the security of SaaS delivery model versus on-premise solutions.<br /><br />According to a recently article published on <a href="http://www.messagingwire.com/aev-416.aspx" target="_blank">MessagingWire</a> by Michael Osterman of <a href="http://ostermanresearch.com/" target="_blank">Osterman Research</a>, there are some misconception that the SaaS delivery model is less secure.<br /><br />He points out the specific fears that decision makers have with regard to hosted/SaaS solution and went on to provide two key takeaways from his research findings:<br /><br /><ul><li>Education should be priority to help decision makers understand how their on-premise infrastructure and data transmission stacks up against SaaS solutions.<br /><br /></li><li>Realize internal security procedures may be giving them a false sense of security. In many organizations, any employee can gain access to a server room or a backup tape quite easily, leaving the organization vulnerable to serious data loss.</li></ul>For Pointivity we’re able to offer better security because we have access to more resources than most organizations do with their on-premise implementations. All our hosted/SaaS solutions are housed at a state-of-the-art <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statement_on_Auditing_Standards_No._70:_Service_Organizations" target="_blank">SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standards No.70) Type II</a> compliance data center, reflecting a consistent, reliable and secure operating environment to support customers worldwide. In addition, our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/support.shtm" target="_blank">24x7 help desk</a> is staffed by certified engineers that can provide both remote and onsite technical support for desktops, servers, network, routers, firewalls and other IT infrastructure.<br /><br />Unlike traditional hosting providers, we bring process-specific and industry focused experience that help our clients integrate and manage their applications. Hosted in the cloud or onsite, we can assess and quantify the costs of your current technology platform then provide a complete ROI analysis using our infrastructure.<br /><br />Osterman goes on to suggest that "<span style="font-style: italic;">on average, SaaS providers offer better security than most of their prospective customers because they have a) the resources to do so and b) they have much more to lose if they don’t.</span>"<br /><br />We couldn’t agree more, supporting our client’s infrastructure is what we do, it’s our business and our core focus.<br /><br />Do you have questions about SaaS? Are you interested to learn more about how Pointivity can transition your business into the hosted model? <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/contact.shtm" target="_blank">Contact us</a>.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-83157148864235658912009-09-24T09:46:00.000-07:002009-11-18T11:02:56.891-08:00Shift In Focus: Economic Downturn Requires Companies to InnovateLast week at the <a href="http://www.everythingchannelevents.com/mesw09" target="_blank">Mid-Size Enterprise Summit </a>(hosted by Everything Channel), Geoffrey Moore touched upon the subject of "innovate to take market share away from competitors."<br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.crn.com/it-channel/220000492;jsessionid=DJAEEUPDP34TXQE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN" target="_blank">ChannelWeb’s article</a>, Moore said, “<span style="font-style: italic;">a down economy compels companies to cut costs and focus on maintenance and other mission-critical functions rather than spend money on innovation and projects that come with a possible degree of failure attached…However, many of those mission-critical functions -- tasks that are necessary but provide <span style="font-weight: bold;">little overall value</span> to the organization -- can and <span style="font-weight: bold;">should be outsourced</span> so businesses can further invest in their core, and innovate in a way that propels the company forward.</span>”<br /><br />That’s the philosophy that we've been educating our clients on. The down economy is actually the time for businesses to start investing in new technologies -- such as <span style="font-weight: bold;">cloud and hosted infrastructure</span> -- which would ultimately free up staff and resources that could be allocated to innovation budgets.<br /><br />Specifically with Pointivity’s <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/it_solutions_outsource.shtm" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: bold;">iTOS (Integrated Outsourced Solution)</span></a>, it’s an investment into IT centralization, standardization, and resource virtualization. iTOS is now widely perceived by our clients as a <span style="font-style: italic;">business strategy </span>that helps to simplify IT and streamlines their business process enabling more designate resources and time to stay ahead instead of trying to catch up to competitors.<br /><br />Moving forward, IT’s focus should not be so much on transactional systems, but enablement capabilities, from “computing” to “communications and collaboration.”<br /><br />Is iTOS right for you? <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/contact.shtm" target="_blank">Talk to us</a>.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-2201573344460687642009-09-16T09:36:00.000-07:002009-11-18T09:45:55.917-08:00Hosted Application Gaining Trust Amongst SMBsEarly this week, Mint.com was acquired by Intuit (two years after launching) for about $170 million. Intuit, a $10 billion dollar company is perhaps best known as the maker of Quicken, QuickBooks, and TurboTax.<br /><br />The significance of this acquisition goes beyond the typical business strategy of eliminating a potential competitor for Intuit but a validation of hosted applications gaining traction in the market. Unlike your mainstream applications such as Word, Excel and email, Mint is a vertical application completely hosted in the cloud. With over 1.5 million users, Mint.com is a free financial online services that lets users create budgets, pay bills, manage credit card accounts, among other features.<br /><br />This means more small businesses are adopting and leverage the hosted model to run their financial systems offsite. The packaged software business will continue to flow applications into the cloud as online services becomes widely adopted.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-56680143965369173832009-09-07T10:54:00.000-07:002009-09-21T08:50:08.296-07:00The Truth About The Cloud HypeDo you want your cloud to be internal, external, private, public, hybrid, virtual, blue or green? How about all the "as a service" taxonomy: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-service (PaaS), Software-as-a-service (SaaS)or IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS). Are you confused yet?<br /><br />The truth is cloud computing, as <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/print/34031">InfoWorld defines it</a>, is "<span style="font-style: italic;">a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.</span>"<br /><br />While all the concerns around cloud is interesting, none of the end-user benefits are directly related to whether it’s a private, public, internal, or external cloud. The main reason why companies will use cloud is to gain business advantage by reducing costs and improve productivity. Why would your customer care what cloud it is if it addresses their specific needs?<br /><br />Furthermore, as technology continues to converge, business owners are looking to partner with IT solution providers that competes on the basis of overall solution value NOT just price. Leading IT companies are focusing on the core issues of cloud computing: Integration. It's a constant evaluation between the trade-off of features versus portability, scale versus control and ultimately profitable concept versus reality.<br /><br />Which integration approach is right for you? Talk to us.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-72808082478312381632009-09-01T10:09:00.000-07:002009-09-16T10:52:17.377-07:00Meeting SMB IT PrioritiesAs more economic signs point to the bottoming of this recession, companies are starting to reposition themselves by aligning IT strategy with business goals. According to the latest survey by <a href="http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/News/Small-Business-IT-Budgets-Drop-But-Some-Spending-Remains-762698/">Forrester Research</a>, top priorities for small and midmarket businesses are "<span style="font-style: italic;">improving IT efficiency and streamlining business processes. 15% say that this is a critical priority while 45% of SMBs say they are working on initiatives around this.</span>"<br /><br />The key take away is that IT strategy is now business strategy. Smart companies are serious about leverage IT to improve all facets of operations. It's about doing more with less by investing in IT to reduce costs and improve performance. Looking ahead, IT solution providers, VARs and MSPs will need to transition into more of a strategic role that focuses on solving business problems instead of technology challenges.<br /><br />Here are some highlights from the survey:<br /><ul><li>Top goals within IT organizations are improving end-user work force productivity, managing customer relationships, and acquiring and retaining customers. </li><li>Hardware spending, led by server and networking equipment is facing more cuts than software spending. </li><li>Software spending is being led by security technologies – 25% of SMBs say they plan to increase spending here while 29% say they plan to decrease it. </li></ul>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-31880319112620767582009-08-24T13:46:00.000-07:002009-08-24T15:37:03.920-07:00SMBs Wants to Outsource: Remote Managed Services Fastest GrowingA recent study by <a href="http://www.techaisle.com/" target="_blank">Techaisle</a> revealed that overall managed services spending for worldwide small and mid-market business is expected to reach $14.3 billion in 2009.<br /><br />Some quick facts from the study:<br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;">- Over 36% of managed services spending by SMBs in 2009 will be made by 10 to 49 employee size categories. These results make it the most lucrative target segment but also most difficult to reach.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">- SMB managed services spend represents a 46% share of the total managed services spend of US$31.1 billion by businesses that include large enterprises with 1000-plus employees.</span></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">- SMB network and server managed services account for highest level of spending at $3.5 billion while PC managed services is expected to reach $2.7 billion in 2009.</span></li></ul>It's indicative that SMBs are now looking beyond infrastructure investments as the economy slowly emerge from the recession. As we continue to see a shift from <span style="font-weight: bold;">on-premises self managed IT infrastructure to pay-per-user outsourced IT infrastructure</span>, there is no doubt that the idea of "<span style="font-style: italic;">managed</span>" services is now mainstream and will likely to <span style="font-style: italic;">grow the fastest </span>at 9.2% in 2009 to reach $3.6 billion, according to the study.<br /><br />What's encouraging is that companies worldwide are embracing the concept of managed services especially the SMBs as most are getting ready to refresh their IT infrastructure and move into a complete outsourced IT model. The truth is that there are many costs involved in running your own IT infrastructure that go beyond just buying servers, networking equipment and software licenses. Subscription IT model not only reduces financial burden from the customer, it often does NOT involve large capital expenditures. As a result budgetary approvals can usually be made at much lower levels which contributes to the increasing trend of bottom-up sales.<br /><br />This is why Pointivity is always looking to add more offering to our basket of cloud services allowing businesses to integrate their IT infrastructure into our cloud.<br /><br />Our customers will tell you that there are many economic benefits to using our cloud that arise from issues other than direct costs savings on infrastructure acquisition. Benefits such as increased agility, the ability to scale on-demand, minimize the risk of owning IT and more.<br /><br />We're now offering qualified VARs an unique opportunity to do exactly what we do to succeed in this market - <span style="font-weight: bold;">sell a complete solution on a recurring revenue model with our iTOS</span>.<br /><br /><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SpMLu8NbQ8I/AAAAAAAAAFE/LcAQ0m_STaE/s400/itos-simple01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5373651681447461826" border="0" /><br /><br />Pointivity's iTOS is an <span style="font-weight: bold;">integrated service delivery solution </span>that provides immediate access to a complete computing environment without the costs and risk of building and maintaining it yourself. The solution provides an <span style="font-weight: bold;">all-inclusive</span>, fully managed and supported IT infrastructure that requires minimum upfront capital investment.<br /><br />Whether you need infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service or software-as-a-service, iTOS has the solution to empower your organization to grow!<br /><br />Interested in iTOS? Call today to get a quote! 858-777-6980.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-869572352220859642009-08-13T16:16:00.000-07:002009-08-24T16:55:03.072-07:00iTOS - Complete Solutions Designed to Improve Business OutcomesWe've been getting a lot of inquiries on iTOS, our all-inclusive solution that's completely different than what's been offered in the market. <br /><br />There seems to be a lot of confusion on what iTOS really is and many VARs and service providers have mistakenly compare us with Rackspace and Navisite! We don't mind comparing but please compare apples to apples!<br /><br />Simply put, we don't just rack up the server, turn it on, walk away and gave IT administrator access to it, we go beyond that. In fact, our clients get direct access to a team of experts from engineers to CTO on deployment options while our management (with over 18+ years of enterprise hosting and IT experience) identifies the best solution to help companies with their bottom line. We take clients' existing IT infrastructure and turn it into flexible utility pricing that adjusts to their business needs.<br /><br />We packaged everything and that's iTOS.<br /><br />iTOS (Integrated Outsourcing Solution) is a <span style="font-weight:bold;">strategic business solution </span>that includes the products, services and expertise needed to implement major positive changes such as modifying a client's infrastructure architecture, implementing pro-active managed services, or automating major processes and tasks. But iTOS is not just a platform or infrastructure, it's a customizable end-to-end technology solution delivered in a flexible and cost effective model. <br /><br />Our clients are aware that technology doesn't support the business, it actually powers the business. It's no longer a peripheral part of the operation but a core element. As a result, <span style="font-weight:bold;">IT risks are now business risks </span>and <span style="font-weight:bold;">IT opportunities<br />are now business opportunities</span>. <br /><br />Many clients we deal with are now with us for 10+ years. They have determined exactly what they need, are fully aware of what can be done, and have defined what they expect from Pointivity.<br /><br />The bottom line is that the better IT performs, the better the business performs. It is our unique combination of expertise and experience, combined with the proven ability to leverage our state-of-the-art infrastructure that makes iTOS special!<br /><br />Contact us today to see how you can shift the risks of IT to deliver your desirable business outcome.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-47779294074825596462009-07-10T14:28:00.000-07:002009-07-13T15:04:26.579-07:00Proactive Managed Services Still In Demand: Remote Monitoring is KeyKaseya just released its <a href="http://www.kaseya.com/download/en-us/files/kaseyasurveyreport.pdf" target="blank">2009 IT services Trend and Practice Survey Result</a> which consists of 2,256 VARs, solution providers and IT consultants combined or "fully outsourced IT" described by the report.<br /><br />The most interesting part is that most IT companies (80% or more) are still doing the "break-fix" reactive approach rather than the "automated" pro-active model in their managed services practice. This shows the challenges that many IT shops still have in moving to a pro-active model and is one of the many topics covered during our Zenith training by our CEO Kent Erickson. <br /><br />Accordign to the survey, the biggest challenge is "monitoring" followed by "security." Remote system monitoring is definitely the trend for the growing proactive IT management model that businesses will adopt in the future. <br /><br />Interested in learning more about how to be pro-active in your Managed Services practice? <strong><a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/contact.shtm">Contact us </a></strong>to get information on how to sign up for Pointivity's training course.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-51307705751316122582009-06-30T15:34:00.000-07:002009-07-13T14:23:28.926-07:00Survive and Recover: Why You Need to Expand Your OfferingThe numbers are in: consumers are saving more than they're spending, and that spells trouble for businesses. This means the recovery will likely to be slow because businesses will continue to be cautious on IT spending due to consumer cut backs.<br /><br /><blockquote><em>Unlike the March period, when no customer segment was spared, SMB and public sectors improved somewhat while large accounts continued to deteriorate,</em> </blockquote>according to the latest <a href="http://www.crn.com/nl/it-channel/218101342" target="blank">report from Raymond James</a>.<br /><br />However, instead of focusing on the bad news, service provider should take into consideration that small businesses will continue to embrace the hosted service model, or the "cloud." The days of large capital expenses (CAPEX) are gone and the new way of doing business is the monthly pay-as-you-go (OPEX) SaaS model.<br /><br />If you're a VAR or a MSP, ask yourself this: How are you staying competitive with enhanced services or new product offerings? What are you doing to lower the cost of your customers' IT costs?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/contact.shtm">Contact us </a>if you're interested to learn more about our Total Outsource Solution or our private label hosted services will help you expand your offering.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-22841861142119400502009-06-10T16:40:00.000-07:002009-06-18T17:24:51.594-07:00Strong Growth for Consumer and Business Hosted Email Services<a href="http://www.radicati.com/?p=3350" target="blank">Radicati </a>released a new study on hosted email projecting the hosted email market to grow to 564 million mailboxes by 2013.<br /><br /><img style="float:center; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 326px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SjrZnyMV45I/AAAAAAAAAEY/xv4rVOsjWqg/s400/emea-email.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348826784967549842" /><br />Driven by increased broadband internet availability, lower prices and better bundling of premium services, this is the perfect time for VARs and MSPs to add hosted enterprise email like <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners" target="blank">our <span style="font-weight:bold;">Hosted Microsoft Exchange</span></a>.<br /><br />More importantly, businesses are taking renewed interest in hosted business email solutions as a way to reduce costs in a tight economy. This is reinforced by the increased availability of low-cost, full-featured messaging and collaboration suites from Microsoft, Google and others.<br /><br />If you're a VAR, MSP or a IT service firm, offering hosted email is a great way to add immediate value to your core professional services. It allows you to create a wider breath of products and services without any upfront costs. Plus we have an unique private label program and a powerful control panel to make it simple and easy.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-52631821223088805312009-05-05T10:41:00.000-07:002009-05-05T16:26:07.740-07:00BlackBerry Curve Outselling iPhone 3G in Q1 2009<a href="http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2009/05/04/2775002-npd-group-blackberry-curve-outsold-iphone-in-1q" target="blank">NPD Group on Monday</a> reported that Research In Motion's BlackBerry Curve outsold Apple's iPhone to become the top-selling consumer smartphone in the US in first quarter of 2009.<br /><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 0px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 188px; height: 187px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SgDI1I_PeZI/AAAAAAAAADo/tORQi2Rghvc/s400/bbiphone.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332482774078028178" /><br />According to CNET:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">NPD attributed the recent BlackBerry sales surge to an aggressive "buy one, get one free" promotion for the phone by carrier Verizon Wireless. It helped boost RIM's share of the consumer smartphone market 15 percent to capture nearly 50 percent of the market in the first quarter, NPD said in a statement.</span><br /><br />We offer hosted BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) for partners as part of our hosted services. BlackBerry hosting from Pointivity frees partners from all hardware, software and maintenance costs, plus the expense and time of setting up service.<br /><br />If you want to sell a solution that's high in demand with great customer retention rate, BlackBerry email is the prefect complimentary add-on to hosted Exchange in addition to the archiving solution we offer.<br /><br />By the way, we still offer ActiveSync for free, so partners can sell wireless email on iPhone and BlackBerry with our hosted Exchange offering.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-87697875162670276332009-04-27T15:07:00.000-07:002009-05-05T16:24:48.761-07:00One in Five Enterprise to use Hosted Email in 3 Years<img style="float:right; margin:0 0 0 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 246px; height: 194px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SgDKVDFVNfI/AAAAAAAAADw/0iJjP-bCGl8/s400/saasemail.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332484421760398834" />According <a href="http://www.cbronline.com/news/gartner_sends_message_on_enterprise_saas_email_080409" target="blank">Gartner,</a> surge in hosted email will likely to represent 20% of the commercial email market by 2012 even though it was only at 1% in 2007.<br /><br />The report stated that: <br />"<span style="font-style:italic;">Gartner's E-Mail SaaS Threatens Third-Party Vendors report warned that traditional third-party product vendors will suffer in four key areas.<br /><br />Applications core to the running of on-premise email, such as disaster recovery, and spam and virus filtering tools, will be significantly affected by the move to SaaS email solutions, as will applications that extend the email platform, such as encryption and archiving.<br /><br />Client-side applications, meanwhile, may not be affected initially, but are likely to decline as the prevalent storage model moves from client to server side, and users access emails via a browser rather than a client.</span>"<br /><br />We have been helping partners to deliver IT smarter with a wide range of products in our hosted model starting with hosted Exchange, SharePoint (collaboration), archiving & compliance and wireless email.<br /><br />Simply put, on-premise is not looking good as the cloud (hosted) model gains adoption and accelerates in this economy.Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-34275982724750194562009-04-02T13:11:00.000-07:002009-04-02T17:42:22.440-07:00Gartner and Forrester: 2009 IT Spending will DeclineU.S. jobless claims surged to a 26-1/2-year high last week, delivering yet another bad news to the economic downturn. Many experts believe that economy will get worse before it gets better. <br /><br />"<span style="font-style:italic;">Market research firms Gartner and Forrester have both revised their IT spending forecasts for 2009 and now say IT spending will decline this year due to a deeper-than-expected recession. Gartner says the drop will be deeper than after the dot-com bust.</span>" according to <a href="http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/News/Gartner-and-Forrester-Now-Forecast-2009-Decline-in-IT-Spending-204121" target="blank">Channel Insider</a>. <br /><br />The credit crunch has impacted IT capital purchases very hard and the only area Forrester projects as set for growth is outsourcing.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style:italic;">Forrester’s forecast calls for computers and peripheral equipment sales to decline by 6.7 percent in 2009, communications equipment sales to fall by 7.7 percent, software sales to fall by 0.4 percent, IT consulting services sales to fall by 1.9 percent and <span style="font-weight:bold;">IT outsourcing sales to grow by 2.1 percent in 2009</span></span>"<br /><br />Many technology providers have already experienced the decline in business for a while now and the forecast simply confirms the fact that businesses are not willing to spend the big capital investments (CAPEX is dead!) and is looking to cut IT budgets with the combination of moving to lower-cost alternatives, extending the lifecycle of existing products and laying off inefficient resources. <br /><br />When economy is bad there is a rush to quality, a shift in spending and a higher expectation to do more with less. This is why technology providers must deliver a competitive offering to retain existing customers and to find new business opportunities utilizing the outsourcing IT model. From Pay-as-you-go <a href="http://www.deliveritsmarter.com" target="blank">hosted services </a>to the all-inclusive per user/per month <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/it_solutions_outsource.shtm" target="blank">Total Outsourced Solution</a>, Pointivity has been delivering the OPEX IT subscription model for years and we have the go-to-market strategies for our partners to deliver the same successful solution.<br /><br />Do you have the right strategies to navigate through this perfect storm? Can you deliver more value than your competitors? <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/contact.shtm">Contact Pointivity </a>to learn more on how we can help.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=925314" target="blank">Link to Gartner Press Release</a>.<br /><a href="http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,46675,00.html" target="blank">Link to Forrester report</a>.<br /><p>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-32868001013540512182009-03-23T09:44:00.000-07:002009-04-02T17:46:15.649-07:00Outsource IT: The Trend ContinuesTraditionally, outsourcing has been seen as a way to rapidly and dramatically cut costs especially with technology. As outsourcing IT matures, companies are also realizing that the technology they outsource still must be woven into larger, end-to-end processes that's cost efficient and cost effective. For example, sales people still must roll up into an organization's CRM system, share sales report with other team members, then dispatch emails to customers efficiently and on-demand regardless of location.<br /><br />As we move into the ubiquitous adoption of Software-as-a-Server (SaaS 2.0) evolution, one thing is for sure - technology must optimize business to transform how we work in a meaningful way.<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SdUXtRLNSEI/AAAAAAAAADg/vWKDIPA1TR0/s1600-h/1953445928_a1503dddb8.jpg" target="blank"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 354px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SdUXtRLNSEI/AAAAAAAAADg/vWKDIPA1TR0/s400/1953445928_a1503dddb8.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320184601280071746" /></a>From a business perspective, organizations must integrate various in-house and outsourced technology to enable seamless, reliable business process ready to scale (up or down) with minimum complexities while delivering real ROI.<br /><br />This, in turn, require a whole slew of processes that includes:<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">- identify infrastructure, software, growth needs<br />- define IT goals and policies<br />- purchase hardware and software<br />- hire and/or train staff to implement infrastructure<br />- maintain the IT environment<br />- support internal and external users</span><br /><br />Pointivity has unified all the processes above with the best-practices outsourcing resulting in a Total Outsourced Solution from <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/managedservices.shtm">Managed Services </a>to <a href="http://www.deliveritsmarter.com">Hosted Services </a>delivered on a simple per user per month OPEX model. The solution enables businesses to maintain control and focus on their core competencies while shifting all IT risks and responsibilities to Pointivity.<br /><br />Outsourcing can also reduce operating costs, help companies to make efficient use of technology, save on investment in hardware and software, streamline reporting to management and regulators, provide access to additional functionality, improve data security, and the list goes on!<br /><br />How we do it, click to enlarge<br><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SdUQ61ZKLiI/AAAAAAAAADY/4tduyw98P1o/s1600-h/tos01.jpg"target="blank"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 226px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SdUQ61ZKLiI/AAAAAAAAADY/4tduyw98P1o/s400/tos01.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320177137759170082" /></a>We're now offering "<span style="font-weight:bold;">Total Outsourced Solution</span>" to selected partners who qualify to private label the entire solution to their customers. <br /><p>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-55040304612947994702009-03-10T10:53:00.000-07:002009-04-02T09:43:40.148-07:00Business Continuity and Compliance Solution from PointivityWith business becoming more complex and interconnected, the risk and cost of disruption extends well beyond IT, to every aspect of business processes. Business continuity is vital to business success. <br /><br />In addition there are many regulations that cover Business Continuity and the overall category of Electronic Media. Some of these are industry specific such as Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), SOX, SEC, FINRA and HIPAA. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/dc-colo.shtm" target="blank"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 121px; height: 47px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/Sb_qLqPscHI/AAAAAAAAADI/noWWbF5vqzs/s400/SAS70.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314223571360051314" /></a>Pointivity manages all client infrastructures through a <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/dc-colo.shtm" target="blank">state-of-the-art SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standards No.70) Type II compliance data center</a>, reflecting a consistent, reliable and secure operating environment to support customers worldwide. Keep in mind that all hardware are owned, maintained, and managed completely by Pointivity.<br /><br />That's the foundation of our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/apphosting.shtm" target="blank">Hosted Services </a>and IT Outsourced Solution. We then add our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/bdr.shtm" target="blank">Backup & Disaster Recovery Solution (BDR)</a> and <a href="http://www.pointivityconnect.com/hosted-exchange_features-globalrelay.shtm" target="blank">Messaging Archiving Solutions</a> to deliver a comprehensive business continuity and compliance solution. <br /><br />This cost effective solution can be tailored to individual business needs on a pay-as-you-go per user per month model while support is available via our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/customers/managedservices.shtm" target="blank">Managed Services </a>to provide a complete continuity program.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">About the SAS 70 Type II: </span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">SAS 70 is an internationally recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). SAS 70 is an acronym for ‘Statement of Auditing Standards.'<br /><br />SAS 70 demonstrates that service providers have adequate controls and safeguards when they host or process data related to their customer base.<br /><br />The audit includes on-boarding policies for new hires, disaster recovery and business continuity planning, IT and physical security policies, data backup and recovery procedures, provisioning of services, asset tracking and inventory management, separation of client infrastructures, decommissioning of servers and services, and other business practices.</span><br /><p>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-34796419063823284702009-03-02T13:27:00.000-08:002009-03-03T09:58:03.680-08:00High SaaS Adoption + SEC Mandates = Hosted Email Archiving<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SaxY-eECI-I/AAAAAAAAACw/4YxW8wPdnTQ/s1600-h/sec.gif"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 100px; height: 100px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SaxY-eECI-I/AAAAAAAAACw/4YxW8wPdnTQ/s400/sec.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308715891008087010" /></a>Email archiving continues to grow in market demand despite the downturn, in December the United States Securities and Exchange Commission <a href="http://www.sec.gov/about/offices/ocie/ceoletter.htm" target="blank">sent an open letter </a>to CEOs of SEC-registered firms imploring them to not ignore or cut short of their compliance responsibilities because of the economic downturn. Some of the SEC mandates for these firms includes proper email archiving and email compliance. The message is simple: do not cut corners just because things are getting tough, cut cost elsewhere but not email archiving.<br /><br />Interesting enough, according to <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=13301&tag=nl.e539" target="blank">ZDnet</a> last week, Forrester disclosed their Q4 SaaS research report which indicated an accelerated growth with SaaS adoption amongst companies looking to seek cost cutting alternatives.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SaxagvAJN7I/AAAAAAAAAC4/kHa42E3UH_o/s1600-h/saas1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SaxagvAJN7I/AAAAAAAAAC4/kHa42E3UH_o/s400/saas1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308717579182356402" /></a><br />Combine the two and you get a growing market demand for "<span style="font-weight:bold;">Hosted Email Archiving</span>" in a shrinking economy. There is no doubt that customers want the benefits of email archiving but this time they want it on a SaaS (pay-as-you-go) model. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners/partners.shtm" target="blank">Pointivity partners </a>can now offers email archiving (Global Relay) along with enterprise communication (Microsoft Exchange), collaboration (SharePoint), and wireless email (BlackBerry, ActiveSync) as part of a complete hosted solution with private label capabilities. Our partner program is designed to enable partners to be more competitive and flexible while building a strong recurring revenue stream.<br /><br>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-71146381772325359232009-02-27T10:01:00.000-08:002009-03-02T10:57:17.305-08:00ASCII Success Summit - Los Angeles 2009<div align="left">Last week I attended the ASCII Success Summit in Los Angeles.<br /><br /></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">There were about 100 VARs who attended the show. I didn't get to see all the presentations as they divided the group in half in order to fit in all the presentations that day. In the future ASCII should either let members determine which presentation they want to attend or allow speakers to talk to all attending members. </div><div align="left"></div><br /><div align="left">The two best presentations at the event were Kent Erickson (ASCII member) from Pointivity and Ron Gavlick from Zenith Infotech.<br /></div><p align="center"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a-DOB0gM7G4/SagvRseDvQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/LelD_rywOZc/s1600-h/ascii2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307544141897645314" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_a-DOB0gM7G4/SagvRseDvQI/AAAAAAAAAEk/LelD_rywOZc/s320/ascii2.jpg" border="0" /></a></p><div align="left"></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br /><br />Kent Erickson's presentation focused on the shift in the IT industry from traditional hardware sales and break/fix services to hosted services and cloud computing.<br /><br />To view Kent's presentation online, click here:<br /><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/secret/EKSs1rVyDP1xYb">http://www.slideshare.net/secret/EKSs1rVyDP1xYb</a></p><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Ron's presentation focused on Zenith's Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) device and the advantages of the BDR over traditional backup systems. </div><br /><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Other speakers at the ASCII Success Summit included:</div><ul><li><div align="left">Evolve Partners on Microsoft BPOS</div></li><li><div align="left">ASCII Member, John Endter for Microsoft Response Point </div></li><li><div align="left">ASCII Member, Dave Seibert for StorageCraft </div></li><li><div align="left">ASCII Member, David Lawrence for Efolder </div></li><li><div align="left">Autotask </div></li><li><div align="left">Storage Guardian </div></li><li><div align="left">Matt Makowicz – Managed Services Books</div></li><li><div align="left">ARRC – HaaS Strategy</div></li><li><div align="left">Reflexion </div></li></ul>In talking with the attendees and ASCII members you can still see there's a big divide and difference in the IT market between traditional VARs (break/fix) and the MSP industry. Many of the smaller VARs are just getting into MSP or only entered into the MSP market with the last 6 months. Even fewer VARs are offering hosted services, they are still providing on-premise solutions with large hardware capital expenses which involve labor intensive support and ongoing maintenaince.<br /><br />I had great conversations with many of the VARs about the value of adding hosted solutions as another sales tool. A handful mentioned they are reselling Google Apps and Google Email to their customers, but when questioned about revenue all them said they are not making any revenue off the sale of Google Apps/Gmail but provided the service to the customer to maintain the relationship and desktop support and desktop sales. The same goes for SalesForce.com and other online applications. The traditional VAR is being squeezed out of the market and companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are providing cloud based hosting services direct to customers with little or no revenue opportunities to the VARs.<br /><br />It will be interesting to see how VARs move forward and what solutions they adopt, especially cloud or hosted solutions over the next year.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-1318905393511227472009-02-25T15:11:00.000-08:002009-02-27T09:19:09.162-08:00Email Archiving Now Available for Partners<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners/events/webinar_GR/" target="blank"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 143px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/Sagd8S4Pd4I/AAAAAAAAACo/S97y-gPC9iQ/s400/emailarchiving.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307525082553218946" /></a>Thanks to all the attendees for our <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners/events/webinar_GR/" target="blank">email archiving solution webinar </a>today. This new addition will greatly benefit partners who target the various vertical by bundling it up with other products and services to create a valuable package offering. With the explosion of laws and compliance regulations, partners can use Pointivity's email archiving and compliance solution to help their customers with SOX, SEC, FINRA and other guidelines all on a pay-as-you-go model. <br /><br />We also appreciate the insightful information on archiving and compliance from the <a href="http://www.globalrelay.com/" target="blank">Global Relay </a>team. <br /><br />If you miss out on the webinar, you can <a href="https://www.pointivity.net" target="blank">login to our partner portal </a>to get the latest updates on this new addition but you must be a Pointivity partner. If you're interested in becoming a Pointivity partner you can easily <a href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners/partners-signup-now.asp" target="blank">sign up here</a> and start offering your customer your own cloud of hosted services.<br /><br>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-71211662716849732012009-02-18T09:58:00.000-08:002009-02-27T12:20:36.919-08:00A Walk in the Clouds<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pointivity.com/partners/news/2009-2-19-%20Pointivity-GlobalRelay%20Partnership.pdf" target="blank"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 100px; height: 133px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SagWvw6U36I/AAAAAAAAACg/8AeZMTwRp-Y/s400/cover_0309.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307517170695331746" /></a>In the February issue of the VSR (Vertical Systems Reseller) magazine, VSR sorted through the cloud hype and asked Kent Erickson, President and CEO, Pointivity, as well as several other VARs and vendors to ferret out these seven facts that VARs should know before breaking into cloud computing. <a href="http://www.verticalsystemsreseller.com/cloudcomputing" target="blank">Read the article here</a><br /><br><br>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-79475196410743268812009-02-12T10:14:00.000-08:002009-02-27T12:19:52.037-08:00Pointivity Ranked Amongst the Top 100 World’s Most Progressive MSPs by MSPmentor<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.mspmentor.net/2009/02/11/the-mspmentor-100-list-heres-where-to-find-it/" target="blank"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 62px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8pOifsQZzbU/SZRb369kwxI/AAAAAAAAACM/oC8vDysKDZk/s400/mspmentor-logo-R-small250x62.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301963677600367378" border="0" /></a>Thanks to <a href="http://www.mspmentor.net/author/joepan/" target="blank">Joe</a> for the great webcast on <a href="http://www.mspmentor.net/top-100-msps/mspmentor-100-ranked-1-to-100-2008-2009/" target="blank">The MSPmentor 100 (2008-2009 edition)</a>. <br /><br />MSPmentor 100 list rankings are un-sponsored and based purely on research by examining the world’s most progressive managed service providers.<br /><br />This year Pointivity was ranked at #20 in revenue, #25 in devices managed and #53 in overall ranking.<br /><br />Instead of ranking MSPs merely by total revenue, MSPmentor calculates an index measurement using such metrics as overall managed services revenue, overall managed services revenue growth, percentage managed services revenue growth, managed services revenue per employee, number of devices managed, and other data points comparing fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2007. This index approach ensures small, midsize and large MSPs from around the world are recognized on the MSPmentor 100.<p></p>Eric Tsaihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00765018129805161171noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8014177610832313388.post-46339956981302141612009-02-10T09:21:00.000-08:002009-02-27T09:22:50.157-08:00Pointivity Services Delivery in 2009We would first like to thank all of our customers for allowing Pointivity to serve your outsourced Information Technology needs. For 15 years, we have had the pleasure of interacting face to face with the majority of our Systems Integration and Advanced Hosting customers. These relationships that we have built are the core of the Pointivity values and we look forward to continuing working with all of you in the same manner in the future.<br /><br />Since 1999, Pointivity has been delivering solutions to our customers that have provided a substantial ROI in comparison to traditional internal IT staffing and capital expenditure. Pointivity gained momentum during the first financial crisis in early 2000 with our offerings and we are now positioned again to leverage our financial knowledge and technology expertise to support our customers through the current economic downturn.<br /><br />In today’s world, we are certain that you have been bombarded with advertisements and information related to new technologies as well as the news that Corporations must cut costs due to the state of the economy and its effects on all businesses. Server Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Consolidation, Collaboration, Security, Outsourcing, and Managed Services are all buzz words that continue to be used to capture the attention of the cost conscience business owner. All of this information likely leaves business owners and decision makers wondering what they can do strategically that will reduce costs and continue to support profitability and growth while taking advantage of new technology.<br /><br />The Pointivity technology strategy is simple: never forget the basics, implement only proven technologies, and reduce costs while increasing productivity for the customer.<br /><br />The Pointivity Outsourced IT Services Platform has evolved over 10 years and consists of flexible offerings that accommodate everything from on-site PC/network support all the way up to a model that provides end-to-end total outsourcing of a company’s IT requirements. Some of our larger customers do not maintain any internal IT staff and rely solely on Pointivity for everything from PC Anti-Virus to custom application development.<br /><br />When it comes to technology support and implementation, the Pointivity solution carries a significant advantage. Our staff manages and maintains all of the aforementioned technologies on a 24x7x365 basis and has been doing so for the past 10 years. In addition, our staff not only implements a technology or service once and then revisits as needed, they continue to improve the technology implementation each and every day for thousands of end users. Although our services are focused on delivering day to day service and support to our Hosted and Managed Outsourced customers, Pointivity is able to extend this knowledge and expertise to on-site implementations more effectively due to our “always up to speed” culture.<br /><br />The Pointivity data center architecture is has been designed from the outset taking into consideration shared resources and consolidation, and is now taking advantage of server virtualization technologies which will allow our customers to enjoy the benefits without making any changes to their existing day to day operations or expenditures. New customers and addendums/renewals for existing customers will continue to be implemented using proven virtualization technologies that will allow reduced pricing and enhanced service features such as disaster recovery and increased redundancy.<br /><br />Pointivity is continuing to enhance its Service Delivery Platform to benefit all of our customers. Whether you are a hosted customer or an outsourced IT customer, we have been adding products that will support your business objectives and/or reduce costs. We have recently introduced some world class product offerings that provide an immediate ROI when they are compared to an on-site implementation and internal with support;<br /><br />Hosted E-mail supported by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007<br />Hosted Mobility with Blackberry and ActiveSync Support<br />Hosted E-mail Encryption and File encryption<br />Hosted Message Archiving for compliance<br />Hosted Internet Messaging and Collaboration with compliance and archiving support<br />Hosted SPAM Filtering with Anti-Virus support<br />Hosted Internet Content Filtering<br />Backup and Disaster Recovery Appliance with or without support for Geographical Replication<br /><br>Paul Scubahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02771560531811828877noreply@blogger.com0