Managed Services: 7 Blogs MSPmentor Didn't Write, April 26

Loyal MSPmentor readers know the drill: We’re packing our bags to attend Kaseya Connect User Conference and the Lenovo Accelerate partner conference. Yet we just got home from CA World, Oracle Analyst World and a Dell Software conference. In between all that travel, here are seven managed services provider (MSP) blogs and news stories we didn’t have a chance to write for the week ending April 26, 2013.

7. Big Names: CA World attracted big service providers like Logicalis, Rackspace and Savvis. We had a sit-down with Logicalis, which is making even bigger bets on CA Nimsoft in particular. Also at the conference, CA Nimsoft’s Greg Donovan hosted a session showing MSPs how to communicate their business value to customers. We’ll share more in the days ahead.

6. Interesting Business: Dell Software President John Swainson told me the PacketTrap business continues to grow organically, attracting MSPs that need PSA and RMM capabilities. Swainson conceded that PacketTrap is not at the top of his radar since it represents a small piece of Dell’s software portfolio. But he mentioned there may be ways to accelerate PacketTrap’s growth with MSPs. Among the models Dell has apparently been studying: SolarWinds.

5. Oracle Cloud Partner Program: Imagine this… Oracle has a channel-friendly cloud strategy that allows gold partners to (A) set end-customer pricing and (B) manage billing. Oracle’s Jeff Porter gave me the details, which impressed me.  Porter is go-to-market director for Oracle’s World Wide Alliances and Channels — including the cloud. I’ll share more details in the next few days on Talkin’ Cloud.

4. There She Is: Amy Luby is a familiar name in MSP circles. The former Master MSP and Synnex veteran is joining MailProtector as VP of sales & marketing, according to industry chatter.

3. Done Deal: Our third-annual Top 100 Cloud Services Providers (CSP) survey has closed. Results coming in Q2 on Talkin’ Cloud.

2. June Triple Play: Autotask Community Live, LabTech Automation Nation and Cisco Partner Summit are all the same week in early June. We’re planning our travel now… For a deeper look at the top upcoming industry events check out The VAR Guy’s Top 100 Channel Partner Conferences: www.thevarguy.com/events.

1. Thanks: Here’s a big-time thank you to readers who have sent me feedback, praise and constructive criticism about MSPmentor’s site redesign, which launched April 23. If you have feedback feel free to email me, joe.panettieri [at] penton.com.

Have a great weekend and thanks for your continued readership.