SMBs Wants to Outsource: Remote Managed Services Fastest Growing

A recent study by Techaisle revealed that overall managed services spending for worldwide small and mid-market business is expected to reach $14.3 billion in 2009.

Some quick facts from the study:

• - 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.
• - 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.
• - 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.

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 on-premises self managed IT infrastructure to pay-per-user outsourced IT infrastructure, there is no doubt that the idea of "managed" services is now mainstream and will likely to grow the fastest at 9.2% in 2009 to reach $3.6 billion, according to the study.

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.

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.

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.

We're now offering qualified VARs an unique opportunity to do exactly what we do to succeed in this market - sell a complete solution on a recurring revenue model with our iTOS.



Pointivity's iTOS is an integrated service delivery solution that provides immediate access to a complete computing environment without the costs and risk of building and maintaining it yourself. The solution provides an all-inclusive, fully managed and supported IT infrastructure that requires minimum upfront capital investment.

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!

Interested in iTOS? Call today to get a quote! 858-777-6980.

Proactive Managed Services Still In Demand: Remote Monitoring is Key

Kaseya just released its 2009 IT services Trend and Practice Survey Result which consists of 2,256 VARs, solution providers and IT consultants combined or "fully outsourced IT" described by the report.

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.

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.

Interested in learning more about how to be pro-active in your Managed Services practice? Contact us to get information on how to sign up for Pointivity's training course.

Pointivity Services Delivery in 2009

We 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.

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.

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.

The Pointivity technology strategy is simple: never forget the basics, implement only proven technologies, and reduce costs while increasing productivity for the customer.

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.

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.

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.

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;

Hosted E-mail supported by Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
Hosted Mobility with Blackberry and ActiveSync Support
Hosted E-mail Encryption and File encryption
Hosted Message Archiving for compliance
Hosted Internet Messaging and Collaboration with compliance and archiving support
Hosted SPAM Filtering with Anti-Virus support
Hosted Internet Content Filtering
Backup and Disaster Recovery Appliance with or without support for Geographical Replication

2009 MSP Watch

An interesting article from MSPmentor with regards to Dell aggressively pushing their managed services.

Joe made some excellent points on the fact that Dell is focused on the mid-market while small MSPs gets the SMB space. There is also the argument that MSPs will do a better job servicing their clients vs big guys like Dell which allows a separation in market share.

It will be interesting to see what MSPs will do once Dell gains more ground as momentum shifts to À la carte service at very competitive prices. Hardware and software will continue its commoditizing path to serve the SaaS model, aggressive direct sales will be the focus as time passes. You can't piss off everyone in one go, but you can break them down so only the strong survives.