Brian Sherman Posts

Spam and virus aren’t going away, nor are hacking and other threats to your clients’ systems and data. Much like malaria and other illnesses that mankind attempts to control, IT security concerns may typically be managed but never fully resolved. Despite significant advances in technology to deal with the more traditional threats to a business’ systems and data, new and more complex security issues are introduced on an almost daily basis.How can solution providers deal with the ever-changing thr ...

Both the speakers and audience at this morning’s MSP Partners Community meeting during CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting kept coming back to a common pain point that many IT solution providers experience. Despite the high level of automation and remote processes followed by many industry experts, others continue to struggle to improve their organizations’ business and process efficiencies. As the company grows, what was once a small issue can snowball into a much greater problem that gets harder t ...

IT is everywhere… that reality will help ensure successful futures for the IT solution provider community, as well as the many companies with a role in the IT channel. CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux kicked off the 2012 Annual Member Meeting (AMM) yesterday by touching on where the industry has been over the past few years, and then stressing some of the most lucrative opportunities that lie ahead.The economy has affected the industry tremendously over the past few years, just now getting back to th ...

One highlight of today’s IT Services and Support Community gathering during the CompTIA Annual Member Meetinghttp://www.comptia.org/amm (AMM) was the presentation by IT Services Marketing Association President and CEO David Munn. Starting out with a review of Google results for “solutions,” he demonstrated how generic the term has become. With millions of hits across a variety of different categories, the descriptor is clearly favored by businesses throughout the world.According to Munn, today’s ...

Business technology isn’t what it once was. A little more than a decade ago, the system infrastructure consisted of servers, work stations, network components and the software manually loaded in each machine. The support process was primarily on site, with the occasional call center to walk users or the company’s IT staff through some primary diagnostics and repair steps.A lot has changed, with the new business system environment encompassing extensive cloud platforms, a wealth of mobile devices ...

Dell is on a tear this week, scooping up Wyse Technologies and Clerity Solutions and adding thin client and even more cloud solutions to their ever-expanding portfolio. The former hardware-centric vendor obviously has a plan to transform its business model, rapidly expanding into areas formerly supported by channel organizations. The moves help the company continue to reduce its reliance on hardware, shifting to more profitable and higher growth segments of the IT industry.But Dell’s strategy is ...

Life certainly doesn’t stand still, and neither does the IT world. Ten years ago, who would have thought that Apple products would be found in more than half the households in the U.S. or that mobility devices would be crucial business tools? Change is inevitable, but the technology we employ in our personal and corporate lives seems to be advancing at greater speeds each and every year. Some of those advancements have come about so quickly that they have become commoditized almost overn ...

When was the last time a client asked you to implement a unified communications (UC) solution? Chances are, it doesn’t happen often, but that doesn’t mean convergence isn’t in demand. Often times, business owners and managers know the goals they want to accomplish, but don’t know the platform to get there. If their objectives focus on improving customer service levels, creating greater sales team efficiencies or enabling remote workers with more access, unified communications should be part of t ...

This is the second of a two-part article commemorating the latest members of the IT Hall of Fame, who will be inducted April 11th at the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting in Chicago. The first honorees were the solution providers who helped found Ingram Micro’s Venture Tech Network (VTN), represented by Jane Cage, Steve Harper and Ted Warner. Today, we celebrate the work of the late Jacob “Jack” Goldman, a scientist with the vision to start one of the world’s most innovative research facilities.     ...

This is the first of a two-part article commemorating the latest members of the IT Hall of Fame, who will be inducted April 11th at the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting in Chicago. The first honorees are the solution provider founders of Ingram Micro’s Venture Tech Network (VTN), represented by Jane Cage, Steve Harper and Ted Warner.  From my first encounter with the VTN (VentureTech Network) community at their invitational meeting several years ago, the importance of the peer group to its solution ...