Recent Articles
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Own More of the Solution Than You Can Afford
As the managed services world is still defining itself, Green Beacon Solutions is redefining its corner of it. Green Beacon, a 4-year-old CRM (customer relationship management) solution provider, is rolling out an offering—PAMS (Professional Application Management Services)—that is neither a solution delivery nor MSP (managed services provider) contract. Part consultation, part monitoring, part implementation, PAMS,…
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Process Improvement v. Outsourcing
Process improvement caused a fair amount of excitement a few years ago in the business management community. Thanks primarily to efforts by such corporate giants as General Electric, process improvement methodologies such as TQM (Total Quality Management) and later Six Sigma became standard approaches to assessing existing processes for improvement opportunities and as a basis…
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Company Urges VARs to Push Maintenance
Unrelenting margin pressure on IT product sales should make channel companies more diligent in providing maintenance services, but that often is not the case, according to IT services management company MaintenanceNet. The number of companies capitalizing on maintenance contract opportunities is far lower than it should be, the company said in a report released this…
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Ingram’s OfficePac to Give VARs Easy Services Option
IT Distributor Ingram Micro made available Monday its OfficePac service offering, a package of service suites that its VARs may resell or tag onto hardware and software sales. Aimed at VARs in the SMB (small and midsize business) space, OfficePac taps the IMSN (Ingram Micro Services Network) to deliver warranty extensions, upgrades and out-of-warranty services…
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IBM Predicts 2006 Security Threat Trends
IBM recorded more than 1 billion suspicious computer security events in 2005, despite a leveling off in the amount of spam e-mail and a decrease in major Internet worm and virus outbreaks. Enterprises should expect to see the same level of malicious traffic in 2006, even as online criminal groups shift to stealth attacks and…
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Novell Frees Upgrade Contracts from License Agreements
Novell is restructuring its corporate licensing framework to make license agreements more flexible and accessible to users. Beginning March 1, the Linux software company will no longer force users into CLAs (contract license agreements), which attached service and maintenance agreements to the software deal. Customers may now purchase VLAs (volume license agreements), which are purely…
