Recent Articles
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ConnectWise Extends Software Automation into Client Sites
Managed services revolve around monitoring IT devices and applications from afar, but what if you could also monitor the technicians? ConnectWise, which makes business process automation software for channel companies, believes it has just the thing. Don’t worry, though, it isn’t some sort of LoJack for humans or ankle-bracelet monitor. The company’s new DownStream IT…
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Microsoft Kicks Off WPC, Announces Essential Server Solutions Launch
Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) kicks off today in Houston, Texas, and the software giant’s ramping up for the release of Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS) and Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS) which could help partners increase their customer base by 25 percent to 50 percent. SBS and EBS, collectively known as Windows Essential…
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Pulling Through
Mike Minnich, president and CEO of NetGain Information Systems, wanted to avoid the common missteps channel companies make when adopting managed services, so he attended seminars, conducted research and participated in various business groups to educate himself. He spent several months working on pricing, one of the managed services model’s biggest challenges because it requires…
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Basement Ventures Free Conferencing Worth Exactly What You Pay for It
I have no idea what we were thinking. The name of the business is, after all, Basement Ventures. What did we really expect? But the offer of free telephone conferencing for up to 250 callers with no scheduling required was too good to resist. And, as a bonus, Basement Ventures’ free service claims to offer…
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Changing the Managed Services Game
Every now and again a disruptive force shows up in a product category that more or less forces everybody in that category to possible rethink their approach to a problem. So too it is with managed services in the form of an appliance for delivering managed services that is called the IT Control Suite. <!–[endif]–>…
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Microsoft Revamps Partner Program
Solution providers who want to rise to prominence in Microsoft’s partner program will need to sharpen their technology focus and prove their business and customer-service mettle under new program rules being drafted by the software maker’s channel executives. The program changes coincide with an organizational realignment this week that split Microsoft’s U.S. Partner Business into…