September 14th 2019

MSP & MSSP Industry Notes

Accenture Acquires Pragsis Bidoop, Boosting AI Capabilities, Big Data Portfolio and Talent

• Pragis Bidoop founded in 2004 in Spain, operates in big data and AI markets. Offers innovation data solutions
• Accenture is a global professional services company, servers 6,000 clients in 102 countries. Employees 482,000 worldwide and two hundred offices in 52 countries

Bespin Global Receives 'Google Cloud Platform Managed Services Provider' partner status

• Bespin Global Corporation headquartered in Soul, South Korea, global cloud management company
• Holds over 100 plus Google Cloud certifications in Korea and China
• First Asian Pacific headquartered partner to achieve Premier Partner and Managed Services Provider with Google Cloud
• Bespin Global is an end-to-end cloud IT company dually head-quartered in Beijing and Seoul.

Cisco Awards Carousel Industries the Highest Certification Level in its Customer Experience

• Carousel located in Exeter, Rhode Island, national IT provider with managed services and cloud provider
• Carousel is one of only a small number of Cisco partners nationwide to receive Customer Experience Certification
• Achievement of the Advanced Level Specialization Certification in Cisco’s Customer Experience Specialization Program
• Employees 1,300

Vaco Continues Exponential Growth with Expansion into Montréal

• Vaco headquartered in Nashville, TN. Founded in 2002, has 1,000 employees
• Prvides “boutique” level of service with global reach for executive search permanent placement and strategic staffing
• Markest include accounting, finance, technology, healthcare IT, operations, admin and international managed services

Vision33 Completes Acquisition of SAP Gold Partner, B1 Systems

• Vision 33 located in London, England. Global IT professional services consultancy
• Privately owned with more than 65,000 clients
• Offers SAP Business One
• Runs on the SAP HANA platform. SAP Business One used in over 150 countries, deployed on Premise
• "This acquisition brings a host of talent to Vision33 in the UK, supporting our goal  to transform businesses and ensure they experience value from having the right technology, implemented the right way.” States Neil Feingold, Managing Director of Vision 33

TierPoint Introduces 'Connect Point' Resource

• TierPoint located in Saint Louis, MO. Provider of secure, connected data center and cloud solutions
• Launches Connect Point which is a online resource that facilitates multi-dimensional searches for capabilities and connectivity options across TierPoint’s footprint of 40 plus edge date centers
• Has over 40 world-class data centersin 20 U.S. markets and 8 multi-tenant cloud pods, connected by a coast-to-coast network.

Hargray To Acquire Infinity Network Solutions

• Hargay Communications located in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
• Founded in 1949, regional telecommunications that provides advanced communications and entertainment services in southeastern United States
• "By partnering with Hargray, we strengthen Infinity's place as the premier IT services company in the communities we serve while also pursuing a better future for our clients, partners and staff.” Brian Betzel, President of Infinity
• Infinity to keep operations in Macon and Covington
• Infinity offers information technology and solutions to small to mid-size businesses throughout the state of Georgia

NEXVORTEX INTRODUCES MANAGED CONNECT: IMPROVING GROUND-TO-CLOUD CONNECTIVITY

• NEXVORTEX located in Herndon, Virginia. Offers cloud communications along with SIP Trunking and Hosted Voice
• Introduces new service Manage Connect (Connect), a purpose-built SD-WAN solution for small to medium business market place
• Uses patent-pending QAV technology to improve cloud experience
• Wes Rogers COO and Founder states: “mConnect and the underlying technology is very exciting, very cool. It addresses a pain point that many small business owners have today and moves nexVortex into a central role in the user’s operations.”

TMC Names TPx a 2019 Communications Solutions Product of the Year Award Winner

• TPx located in Los Angeles, California. Provides managed IT services and managed connectivity to approximately 30,000 clients
• TMC is a global integrated media company that offers education, industry news, live events and social influence to global buyers
• “We’re honored to be recognized by TMC as a 2019 Communications Solutions Product of the Year,” said David Zahn, Senior VP Marketing at TPx
• TPx complete provides bundle managed IT services
  • UCx Hosted Unified Communications as a Service
  • Virtual Fax
  • MSx Managed SD-WAN
  • Managed 4G LTE Failover
  • MSx Managed Firewall
  • MSx Managed Endpoints

Wipro Positioned as Global Market Leader in Digital Workplace Services by ISG

• Global information technology company located in New Brunswick, NJ and Bangalore, India
• Recognized as Market Leader in Digital Workplace Services by ISG
• Wipro employees more then 175,000 employees across six continents
• Kiran Desai, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Cloud and Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited said, “We are excited to be positioned as a ‘Leader’ in ISG’s report. It is a testament to our workplace consulting capabilities, our industry leading offerings such as LiVE Workspace™ and VirtuaDesk™, our investments in next generation workplace automation platforms like Wipro HOLMES™ and our strong partner eco system.

SES to Deliver Cloud-enabled Solutions

• SES world leading satellite operator with more than 70 satellites in two different orbits
• Provides clients with global video distribution and data connectivity services
• Offers new Cloud-based managed services
  • Azure ExpressRoute Satellite Connectivity
  • Azure Broadcast-Grade Managed Video Service

Small and Medium Sized Businesses Prefer Cloud-First Print Management with Edge Computing

• Y Soft Corporation releases data from global independent survey for cloud and cloud-based print management for small and medium sized businesses
• Y Soft develops intelligent Digital Transformation office solutions for enterprise, SMB and Education that empower employees to be more productive and creative.
• Founded in 2000, the company is headquartered in Brno, Czech Republic, with offices in North and Latin America, Europe and Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific region (APAC).
  • Public cloud application use is ubiquitous – 93% of SMBs use public cloud applications, typically Microsoft® Office 365 or similar
  • 50% of SMBs have a cloud-first preference and 10% will only use cloud applications
  • Security is a concern for SMBs across all applications; 52% cited security as a top concern whereas 61% cited it as a top concern for cloud-based print management
  • S.-based companies and companies with more than 50 printers, are the most bullish on cloud-based print management. Over all respondents, 29% are planning to purchase cloud-based print management services within the next 12 months.
  • 35% of SMBs already use edge computing and 56% prefer cloud print management services used with an edge device in place.

• The edge device as described in the survey would enable print jobs to be processed locally on the company’s network.
• Considering SMB’s concern for cloud-based print management security, (61%), this indicates that the additional security peace of mind that comes with edge computing and its other benefits are desired.

PDF document is attached!

-=Good Selling=-

I thought that keynote speaker Chris Messina (technologist and inventor of the hashtag) was awesome!  I guess I’m a technology geek at heart and his talk track about the past, the present and the future of user interface technology coupled with AI was enlightening.  I posted a few of those talk tracks on Linkedin earlier and since I’m using my iPad tonight it won’t be as easy as I thought to capture and post them tonight.

According to Chris user interfaces change almost every ten years and the next great enlightening is voice recognition with the likes of smart speakers (Alexa & Google). According to a new report from Canalys the global smart speaker market grew 55.4 percent in the second quarter of this year.  More and more users will be interact with AI to buy products and services in the next 10 years.  It could be as simple as, “Alexa order me some batteries”.  I’m sure at some point in the near future businesses will be able to order products and services the same way.  My first thought and I expressed to Mike Stramaglio (President/CEO at MWA Intelligence) was where does that leave copier dealers. Will I be able say to Alexa, “order an MFP for with two paper trays, a cabinet and a stapler”. My next thought was how do I get a piece of that action?  In my eyes I thought Chris was one of the best keynote speakers I’ve had the chance to listen to because he was able to give a picture of the not to distant future.  

Another interface that is being worked on today is one where the human brain will interface with a computer. In other words you’ll be able to “plug in” and let your brain act as the interface.  I had heard of this technology before and the reinforcement of that technology provided another question.  Could someone hack my brain or even worse could I be subject to ransomeware attack. Ya, it’s some crazy stuff but the future is coming sooner than later and faster than we might think.

I had the chance to visit and support Print4Pay Hotel sponsors also. Spent some time with Polek & Polek, Arlington, NEXERA and Muratec.  Over the next few days we’ll be posting some video’s of those sponsors from tomorrow.

There was one educational track today with tips about acquiring net new business and that was hosted by Darrell Amy.  I found the subject pretty darn good and was on point for most of the panel discussion.

The evening ended with a social time with beverages and food.  As I write this many were heading out to the attend those fantastic restaurants in New York.  Hope you all enjoyed this and I’ll be posting pics and possibly another blog over the weekend.

-=Good Selling=-

It's been awhile since I had some extra time to write about some of the latest and greatest MFP's from Ricoh.

Just this year Ricoh dropped the old naming convention of MP and replaced it with IM. The IM stands for Intelligent MFP. These new intelligent devices operate with the RICOH Smart Integration platform (RSI).

RSI Remote In

For those of us who have been in the industry for sometime, we can remember having to walk clients through settings on the user screen interface and or helping the client resolve and issue with the copier. I can still remember saying to the client, "Okay, I'm blind and you are my eyes" as I was speaking to them on the phone. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  When it didn't meant that it was time to dispatch or tech or I would have to go on-site if it was a user issue.

All of that has now changed the awesome features of RSI.  RSI allows service engineers to connect remotely to the copier, control the operator panel and guide clients in real time!  That's a fantastic feature because the client can have the same type of support for copiers as they have with PC's. Let's remote in baby!

RSI Firmware

Another kick butt feature with RSI is that the copier can check for and download firmware updates Once the download is complete the copier will then start the update process with the latest firmware update.  You may ask what's the benefit to the client?  First there's no need for a tech to be on-site to update the copier(s) which incurs downtime.  Secondly, it facilitates a better client experience. 

Features I Like

Convenience Stapler:  I think I can make the statement that in my almost 40 years in the copier business I've never been able to offer a convenience stapler as an option. In fact I've never been able to offer a convenience stapler standard either other than buying an electric stapler and Velcro the stapler to the copier.

The convenience stapler is offered as an option and has the capability of stapling 20 sheets of paper. We can do a traditional top left hand corner staple or the ability to put two parallel staples at the left margin.  Pretty neat because it creates a document that will open like a book.

Paper Mismatch:  We've all experienced it and we've all hated the experience.  That's when you send legal size print job to the letter size paper tray.  The result is one big pain the butt! I can remember clearing the mis-feed, closing the covers and the same thing happens because the print job is still in the copier.  Thus there was another mis-feed. Eventually we learned to pull out the paper tray before we closed the covers to reset the copier.

Thus this new features will sense the mis-match, feed the sheet out of the copier and then alert the user to change the paper in the tray.

Google Cloud Print Ready: This means that the device is ready to be shared on the web using your Google account.   Once the device is registered on the cloud print platform, users are able to print from any internet connected device. Great feature for a company that has a mobile workforce.

Scanning:  Yay! Single Pass Document Feeder and it couldn't have happened at a better time. Why mention print speeds anymore, most don't care about print or copy speeds.  Especially copy speeds because no one copies anymore!  Letter size will scan at 40 images plus per minute at 200DPI and 80 images per minute at 200DPI.  Note that 200 DPI is fine for scanning text type documents, higher resolution is only needed with very small print or fine lines.  I've always wondered why the scan speed is referred to images and not pages. I'm thinking because one sheet of paper can hold two images one on the front and one on the back.  Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

Built in LED cleaning:  For those not familiar with the term LED it stands for Light Emitting Diodes. For years Oki used LED print technology for their print devices rather than laser.  It's said the LED print technology offers better print resolution. For the life of me I don't see a difference,  however I will take the experts word.  Right, so every time a cover is opened on the MP 430f there's a built-in brush that will clean the LED. Something different and something most reps won't speak about.  Just the reason why you need to mention it.

-=Good Selling=-

It Sure Is Quiet Out There! It almost seems as though the Imaging Channel has no hardship. It appears that everything is just fine. Who could have ever imagined that some of the mighty could fail? Who could have ever imagined that Private Equity would evacuate ahead of schedule? Who could have ever imagined that the glory of Managed Print Services would not be so glorious after all?

Just because things are quiet doesn't mean all is good. As the weather teaches us, there is the calm before the storm, and the storm is on the horizon. Over the next year as realities set in. The Imaging Channel will witness causes which hopefully will alarm its complacency. I am pretty sure most of the channel's leaders are logical and realize the feeding frenzy on the bull market of buying growth in a declining deliverable had to come to bear sooner than later.

Soon the need for scrutiny to the realities of the market will reach the ears, the minds and the hearts of Private Equity, venture capital, and yes even the independent dealer's banker. I recently went back and read some articles regarding the reasons why Private Equity decided to invest in a declining market. It seems a few bought into the hype of the expected growth of Managed Print Services. As these investors are now discovering every printer in the world will continue to print less. So, regardless of the number of devices the devices out-put will, in fact, continue declining.

Will more Private Equity look to exit ahead of schedule?  

As Private Equity exits the value for those remaining will continue falling and of course, the more evacuating at the same time, the faster the falling of value. Private Equity really needs to evaluate what its end game is. I believe five or six years ago things were less clarified then they are today. Those grand visions of an industry as presented in 2015 of what 2020 would be. Are not aligning as thought and the realities of the actual market are now concerning Private Equity, and many of the industry's actors.

Who will buy from Private Equity? It seems that most of the Private Equity roll-ups are intending to sell to another Private Equity Firm. Will manufactures buy these roll-ups? As Ricoh clearly showed they have no intention of buying dealer distribution. Our friends at Sharp are currently buying dealers they obviously know a strategy Ricoh missed. Xerox is cleaning up their distribution, I don't see Xerox buying more distribution outside of something very strategic. Oh, HP well, they will more than likely buy Xerox not a dealer roll-up. Maybe it's a DEX Imaging strategy in their sale to Staples Private Equity hopes for.

So, this game of Private Equity musical chairs could prove fatal. As we are all currently witnessing, a couple of organizations in the industry struggling to sell and buried in debt. Their outcomes could be a pretty good barometer of what the future might bear. 

Somewhat troublesome is when we listen to some of the visions of today describing 2025, they still see more of the same. My friends, the industry must replace their memories with their imaginations as they look toward the future. The industry must have the ability to think and respond to how the market realities are affecting the current circumstances of the print equipment and services deliverable. Those who can do this will, prosper. 

The struggle will be building a sales engine which aligns with the realities of the value propositions of its customers. Today there is a massive percentage of customers whom I believe are misunderstood and out of alignment with today's sales strategies; strategies which, for the most part, have not changed in decades. The Imaging Channel must modernize its approach to the market. Since the industry's birth, they continue to sell, communicate, and service for the most part as they always have. All while the customers they sell, communicate to, and service have changed and in some cases drastically in their appreciation of the print equipment and services deliverable.

As the world prints, less the resellers must diversify, and if not, they must without a doubt have a plan to cut cost dramatically and deliver equipment and its services through an innovative approach. The industry must take the A4 opportunities seriously and develop a strategic A4 deliverable. The industry must respond to the data and stop insisting that their past can continue uninterrupted. The obsessions of A3 over the realities of A4 will be costly to those unresponsive to this shift in equipment realities. 

It's time to shift shift the thinking and align with realities 

Is it now time for the industry to stop getting in debt to buy growth which is declining? Yes, Instead, the industry should invest in the ability to deliver and service in a disruptive means. Invest in leadership executives from outside the industry who can inject unbiased innovation, invest in e-commerce, and updated technologies more in line with today's commerce realities. Many in the Imaging Channel are still using ERP systems-built decades ago which are useless to innovation, and many are not using data to clearly define the facts of not only their external customers their internal customers as well. 

My friends' none of this will be easy. However, if the industry works together and works toward progress, all things possible become probable. No industry or its leaders want to face the wrath of progress. Instead, they strive to be the wrath of progress to those competitors who ignored market realities or misinterpreted the silence in the storm.  

 One thing we all know is this.

 "Status Quo is the killer of all that will be invented."

Ray Stasieczko, Send an invite if you wish to connect also I welcome you to subscribe to my YouTube Channel here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/channe...A?view_as=subscriber

Sorry for be late with these. Up half the night, figured I would do an auto post in the AM.

Enjoy these awesome threads from ten years ago this week!

MSP & MSSP Industry Notes

September 7th 2019

Spectrotel awarded 2019 Visionary Spotlight Award for Managed Services

• Spectrotel based in Neptune, NJ provides national integrated solutions and managed services for enterprise businesses
• ChannelVision Magazine awarded Spectrotel
• Ross Artale, President & COO, “We are honored to be recognized by ChannelVision for offering one of the most comprehensive end-to-end soluitions”.

Red River Acquires CWPS

• Red River located in Claremont, N.H. technology transformation company
• CWPS located in Washington, D.C., specializes in managed services network, collaboration, data center, cloud management and security
• Rick Bolduc, CEO and Chairman with Red River, “The need for managed services platforms that can scale to meet the dynamic requirements of government, military and commercial organization is high.

eQuorum Announces Release of ImageSite 10.3

• Based in Atlanta, Georgia, eQuorum is the developer of the ImageSite suite of products, including Engine-Box.com cloud solution, an enterprise-wide workflow and content management software with departmental level pricing
• Major new features in Version 10.3 of ImageSite
• ImageSite is flagship workflow and document management solution
• ImageSite geared towards manufacturing, architects, engineers, utilities, universities and government

DataBank Enhances Data Protection Services with Turn-key Disaster Recovery as a Service Offering

• DataBank located Dallas, Texas. Provider of enterprise-class data center, connectivity and managed services
• Announces enhancements of its data protection services and the addition of Disaster Recover as a Service (DRaaS)
• DRaaS allow workloads, applications and systems to be recovered in minutes rather than hours or days

Docupace Now Integrates with RIA in a Box's MyRIACompliance Software to Offer Single Sign-On

• Docupace headquarters in Los Angeles, California. Technology provider for wealth management firms
• RIA in a Bx LLC, located in Cleveland, Ohio. Provider of compliance software for the ealth management software
• The Docupace storage add-on, advisors using MyRIACompliance can upload sensitive client documents to a secure cloud that is SEC-compliant.
• "Secure, digital storage of sensitive documents and information is paramount and one of the highest priority issues facing many advisors today," said Richard Thoeny, VP of Product Management for Docupace.

CloudJumper Appoints IT Leader & Enterprise Architect Richard Helms as Director of Managed Workspaces

• CloudJumper located in Garner, North Carolina
• Provides software and services in the Cloud Workspace and RDS enablement markets
• Announces appointment of Richard Helms to Director of Managed Workspaces
• Before CloudJumper Richard served as Data Center Operation for Attain, LLC
• “The global virtual desktop market is touted to touch USD $5 billion at a notable 9% CAGR over the predicted years through 2022,” noted a 2019 report by Market Research Future (MRFR)

RDX announces new CEO, other executives

• RDX based in Pittsburgh, PA provides IT infrastructure, cloud and database administration managed services
• Mark Clayman appointed to CEO
• Mark Clayman former President and CEO of TriCore Solutions
• Gina Murphy appointed to President and COO
• Murphy levels up form former position of Senior Vice President and General Manager of Rackspace
• Art Green appointed to Chief Financial Officers also formerly with TriCore

Martello Partner and Early Adopter 4Sight Communications Improves Remote Fix Rate with Mitel Performance Analytics

• Martello Technologies based headquartered in Ottawa, Canada with offices in Montreal, Paris, Amsterdam, Dallas and New York. Provide complex IT infrastructures
• 4Sight Communications provides business telecommunications and managed services for public sector and private businesses in the United Kingdom
• Announced 4Sight Communications, a Mitel Gold Solutions Partner in the United Kingdom says it has improved its remote fix rate to 98% after standardizing on Mitel Performance Analytics (MPA).
• 4Sight began working with Martello in 2013, recognizing the importance of proactively monitoring and managing Mitel communications platforms, and today more than 800 devices are under management by Mitel Performance Analytics

Tequity Inc.'s Client, intellinet Technologies Inc., Has Been Acquired by Coreio Inc.

• intelliNet provides computer, network products and professional technical & managed services to many innovative and institutions in Canada
• Coreio based in Toronto, Canada offers IT services, infrastructure and operation solutions for enterprise-scale companies across North America
• Tequity is an M&A advisory firm with core expertise in Enterprise Software and IT Services companies. Strategic mergers, exits, and carve-outs for technology companies are our exclusive focus.
• "The acquisition of intelliNet Technologies enables Coreio to enhance our Managed Services offering and expand our reach to smaller enterprise and corporate clients, which is an extremely exciting development for us" said David Naiman, President and CEO of Coreio.

Options Announces New Cloud Connectivity Services With Equinix Cloud Exchange (ECX) Fabric™

• Options technology provides cloud-enablement managed services for the global financial services sector
• New services will combine Options’ hybrid cloud offering with Equinix Cloud Exchange (ECX) Fabric
• Provides businesses with one streamlined and secure platform to quickly deploy hybrid digital infrastructure anywhere in the world.
• “We are excited to welcome Options to the growing number of cloud service providers who have joined the Equinix Cloud Exchange.” Stated John Knuff, Vice President, Financial Ecosystems, Equinix

Versiant Designated Among Top Third of World's Premier Managed Services Providers in 2019 Channel Futures MSP 501 List

• From Charlotte, North Carolina, Versiant is an international provider of managed, professional, software and support services for enterprise IT infrastructure
• "The 2019 MSP 501 winners are the most elite, innovative and strategic IT service providers on the planet, and they stand as a model of excellence in the industry," says Kris Blackmon, Content Director of Channel Partners and Channel Futures

CGI Acquires Sunflower Systems - Leading Provider of Asset Management and Services

• Founded in 1976, CGI is among the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world.
• CGI provides end-to-end portfolio of capabilities, from strategic IT and business consulting to systems integration, managed IT and business process services and intellectual property solutions.
• Annams Systems Corporation d/b/a Sunflower Systems, a leading provider of asset management software solutions and services, based in San Ramon, California with offices in Arlington, Virginia.

see attached pdf format

Wow, what a week?  A couple of weeks ago I realized my funnel was sucking wind for September.  With August ending on the 23rd by the time Labor Day was finished I'm already 28% into my month. In addition this coming Monday I have a charity golf event then Thursday and Friday of this coming I'll be in the Big Apple for the BTA East event.

What's a sales guy to do?  One is to prospect your ass off and the other is to try and make up some days. Thus everyday this week I was in the office by 6:15AM. Today was the banner day, I didn't close any deals this week but I was able to add $40K to my funnel for September. It did lift my spirits since I'm now halfway through the month. Monday morning back up and working by 6AM, I can get another 4 hours of prospecting in before I need to leave.

Enjoy these awesome threads from 5 years ago this week!