Seven Managed Services Blogs MSPmentor Didn't Write: June 25

I’m not sure how, when or why it happened. But this weekly “Seven things…” blog entry has developed a cult following of sorts. My inbox is filled each Friday morning with rumors, gossip and, um… music picks (thanks Gerard…) from readers. And each Friday afternoon, we publish seven pieces of reader chatter that MSPmentor’s blog team otherwise didn’t have a chance to cover. Here’s the rundown for the week ending June 25, 2010.

7. Robin’s Next Move: Robin Robins is working on a new Managed Services Blueprint effort. Sounds like a new web site tied to the effort will launch around June 29th.

6. Twenty Recurring Revenue Opportunities You Might Overlook: A few hundred MSPs who attended our June 23 MSPmentor Live webcast know ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini has developed a list of 20 (or more) potential recurring revenue opportunities for VARs and MSPs.

Quite a few readers are now asking me for the list… I suspect we’ll hear more during IT Nation 2010 (formerly called ConnectWise Partner Summit). But here are some clues about what Bellini is up to…

5. Don’t Look Now… I wonder if MSPAlliance has noticed the growing relationship between MSP University and CompTIA (owner of MSP Partners). The latest example: Register to attend MSP University‘s Boot Camp in San Antonio, and CompTIA will offer you free Breakaway conference registration. Meanwhile, the MSPAlliance’s MSPWorld Conference and Expo is set for Oct. 4-6 in Los Angeles.

4. Are Your Best Employees Preparing to Leave?: Seems like plenty of employees are looking to make career moves now that the economy is improving. At least three sources mentioned to MSPmentor that they are burned out within their current company’s culture: No raises, long hours and constant criticism. I wonder: Do MSPs realize you’ve got to show your best employees considerable love, especially as the job market improves?

3. Beyond Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference: Thousands of partners and customers are heading to Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference on July 11. But Microsoft is quietly organizing Windows Azure boot camps to train government partners and customers on the company’s cloud platform. About a dozen MSPmentor readers have asked me for my thoughts on the event. Frankly, I don’t have much to say (at least not yet…) because I haven’t attended the boot camp yet. But I think Azure — rather than BPOS — holds greater profit opportunities for VARs and MSPs.

2. Can’t We All Just Get Along?: Seems like lawsuits are flying back and forth between Microsoft and Salesforce.com. The feud triggered this classic quote from Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff: “You know you’ve arrived when Microsoft sends protesters to your show. Or sues you.”

Benioff has a point. One of my mentors told me that you know your business is successful if you receive a cease and desist letter… For the record, I think Amy Katz (my business partner) and I received a cease-and-desist letter about three months after launching Nine Lives Media Inc. and our first two web sites. Nearly three years later we’re still here… and we’ve multiplied (the business, that is) to five web sites (thanks to readers like you).

1. Red Hat and Hosting Providers Set to Pursue MSPs?: Red Hat and Rackspace channel team members recently met in Europe during a distributor conference, MSPmentor hears. The Red Hat folks sound like they were impressed to learn that Rackspace’s partner team includes channel veterans from AMD and Extreme Networks.

Pundits say like Red Hat is preparing some MSP-centric moves over the next few months, and plans to work far more closely with a range of hosting providers on Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) efforts. Sounds logical. Earlier this week, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst predicted RHEV would eventually topple VMware the way Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) leapfrogged Sun Solaris deployments. In fact, Red Hat has hired a Novell veteran to help drive the RHEV channel partner push, and Red Hat will use the cloud to move into SMB. More moves are coming. We’re chasing the leads…

That’s all for now. Time to find my wife and ask her why she allows me to blog so much. I hope her answer doesn’t destroy me… Have a great weekend.

Sign up for MSPmentor’s weekly Enewsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. And follow us via RSS; Facebook; Identi.ca; and Twitter. Plus, check out more MSP voices at www.MSPtweet.com.