Ericka Chickowski

MSP Tools Round Up 8 PSA Solutions and Alternatives Worth A Look Autotask www.autotask.comOne of the big daddies in the world of professional services automation software, Autotask offers MSPs the ability to automate and streamline customer management, service desk operations, tech scheduling and billing. Best known for its comprehensive Autotask Pro option for larger shops, […]

Consumerization of IT a Double Edged Sword 70 percent of IT respondents are concerned about personal mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones, and Android devices connecting to the corporate network. No Title 84 percent of respondents say their corporate network is protected from devices that are unpatched or poorly managed. No Title One-third of respondents […]

CompTIA has introduced a new business-level credential for managed service providers to prove their use of IT best practices for service delivery and customer interaction. The CompTIA MSP Partners Trustmark certification is designed to give customers peace of mind that they’re not signing on with fly-by-night IT operators. “The CompTIA MSP Partners Trustmark serves as […]

Could IT Go 100 Percent MSP 31 percent of all respondents said they could envision a time when all of their IT would be managed by MSPs. No Title That percentage jumped up to half when asked strictly of IT executives. No Title Among respondents planning MSP outsourcing of IT management functions, service desk/help desk […]

DDoS Attacks Your Customers At Risk 78 percent of respondents reported that they are extremely or very concerned about DDoS attacks. No Title 67 percent say that they expect the frequency and strength of denial of service attacks to increase or stay the same over the next two years. No Title Close to two-thirds of […]

Managed services and outsourcing partners may have work to do in improving their reputations if a new survey out this week is any indication. According to a survey conducted by Lieberman Software among 500 IT professionals, more than three-quarters of IT professionals who work in organizations that use outsourcing say their providers have "made up" […]

Hacking Dirty Dozen Fraudsters Favorite Attack Vectors POS serverServersUsed in 36% of breaches No Title POS terminalUser DevicesUsed in 21% of breaches No Title Pay at the pump terminalUser Devices Used in 18% of breaches No Title Database serverServersUsed in 14% of breaches No Title Web app/serverServersUsed in 9% of breaches No Title Regular employee/end-userPeople […]

Symantec partners will have a lot of new opportunities after the torrent of new initiatives the company unveiled at its annual Vision users conference this week. Announcing a spate of offerings in all of Symantec’s sweet spots, from endpoint security to IT governance and backup to storage management, the firm is revving up to finish […]

Overall IT Spending Gartner predicts that we’ll see overall global IT spending rise a relatively healthy 5.6 percent to $3.6 trillion in 2011. SMB IT Budgets This year SMBs are planning on spending 8 percent more than what they initially expected in the second half of 2010, Spiceworks recently reported . Based on a survey […]

Billbull Created by a law staffing agency, this iOS app tracks time or allows manual entry of time against your phone’s contact list and allows you to export a CSV file to a spreadsheet program for central tracking. www.exparte-staffing.com TimeDroid This straightforward time tracker—with timer and manual entry—is designed for Freshbooks users on the road […]

Cisco Since the start, Juniper Networks has duked it out with Cisco for supremacy in core switching, network edge dominance and more. Now that Cisco’s stumbling a bit, you can count on Juniper to look for new opportunities from its rival’s missteps. HP But Cisco is hardly the only other gig in town–HP is making […]

25 Facts Partners Should Know About Juniper Networks The company was founded by a former Xerox principal scientist, Pradeep Sindu, who came up with the idea for Juniper after a sabbatical working at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center. No Title Sindu started his company with $200,000 in venture capital money and a team compiled of […]