Seven Managed Services Blogs MSPmentor Didn't Write: April 22

The weekend is here, which means it’s time for the MSPmentor team to re-charge and relax. We’ll be back online if any big news breaks. But in the meantime here are seven managed services blogs the MSPmentor team didn’t have time to write for the week ending April 22, 2011.

7. British Invasion: A major European MSP is preparing to make moves in the U.S. Could the effort involve a merger or acquisition? Not likely. Instead, I expect the European MSP to partner up with one or more U.S. managed services providers.

6. Setting Sail: Can MSPs manage customer networks while pursuing blue ocean opportunities? Anchors away… I’m shaking my magic 8.0 ball and the answer is “highly likely.” For those who don’t quite follow… stick around. This offshore riddle could be solved in the next two weeks.

5. Crazy Prediction: The managed services market will consolidate to six major players, predicts Global Telecoms Business, a media site. Um, I respectfully disagree.

4. VPs on the Go: Several more high-level executive moves will be announced in the MSP market sometime in April. Three of the moves involve software industry executives flocking into MSP-centric software companies…

3. Meet the Parent: TIme Warner has completed its NaviSite buyout. NaviSite is a managed hosting provider and cloud provider that works closely with SaaS partners also hosts Level Platforms for MSPs.

2. Embracing MSPs: Give Microsoft credit. During recent Windows Intune demonstrations in Chicago and Boston, Microsoft specifically mentioned MSPs as target users. A year or two ago, I think Microsoft would have overlooked MSPs in the audience at both events.

1. Lingering Pain: As of early Saturday (eastern time) April 23, Amazon Web Services was still suffering from partial outage problems. You can track the status of Amazon’s cloud here. Meanwhile, the Sony PlayStation Network cloud remains offline following some sort of alleged hacker attack. Not a good week for the cloud…

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading MSPmentor and joining the dialog.