Charles Weaver's blog

Once again, a major vendor makes an acquisition in the "remote managed services" enabling arena. Reminiscent of the Dell/SilverBack acquisition a few years ago, and the McAfee/MX Logic deal just last year, this is indicative of the major players in our industry consolidating technology capabilities in order to further capitalize on the managed services profession. 

The Waypoint Solutions Group merger with Network Minders underscores what I hope will be a growing trend in the managed services industry. No, I’m not talking about consolidation (please read my other M&A blogs) but I am talking about true professional mergers.

Since its creation many years ago, the Managed Services Accreditation Program (MSAP) has been heralded as the gold standard in best practices for MSPs. Today, MSPs throughout the world have passed the MSAP and many more are currently undergoing this process.

Some of you by now have heard about some of the MSPs in Florida dealing with sales taxation of managed/professional services. While we continue to take measures to help protect MSPs from unnecessary taxation during a difficult economy, there are some things you can do to arm yourself against the tax.

1) If you do sell hardware be aware of how you invoice your non-services offerings.

Now that I have your attention, as well as the attention of your firewall, I will tell you all about this potentially lucrative new area of managed IT services. Actually, I’m not sure how lucrative it really is but it is fascinating from a theoretical perspective.

In response to the FL (and other states) sales tax issue, the MSPAlliance (in conjunction with a national accounting firm with deep familiarity of the managed services profession) will be offering members free consultation on tax issues facing managed service providers.

Last week in Dallas Texas approximately 20 executives from MSPs all over the country gathered to discuss Merger and Acquisition (M&A) trends and issues facing their industry. The workshop covered a wide variety of issues, all M&A related, from deal structure to valuation models currently in use.

Most importantly, feedback on the workshop from the MSPs has been outstanding.

I thought I'd start a blog just for the great comments we receive from members. These two just came in during the last week. We will be adding to this blog from time to time so keep sending in your comments, especially if you've received a value out of your affiliation with the MSPAlliance. We certainly appreciate all of you! 

We had a great meeting yesterday with a CEO of a up and coming unified communications platform company and have some thoughts to share. I say up and coming but they are really an established company with offices in multiple countries and a solid global footprint of resellers and end-users.