For the last 5 years managed service providers have been struggling with the question of "how do I incorporate cloud computing into my managed services practice?" Generally speaking, this is the central issue of our time and if I had to guess, I would say that many MSPs have been caught off guard by this question and still to this day do not have a very good answer.
Cloud computing has been disruptive to the managed services business model, but it has not changed it in any fundamental way. The reason, in my opinion, most MSPs have not been able to address this question successfully is that these service providers do not look at the question of cloud computing in any sort of long term manner. In general, the MSPs I've spoken with tend to look at cloud as a stop gap or transitory technology but not as a longer term strategy for delivering services and making clients happy.
For example, throughout our history, technologies come and go; put more simply, technologies tend to have a lifecycle where they are in demand and lucrative for the MSP, and then as they become less desirable they become less profitable to the MSP. When this happens, the MSP generally subjugates that technology for something else more profitable.
Cloud computing has the potential to be more than just a transitional technology. Cloud is a delivery mechanism for managed services, and even more important, it is a very effective marketing device for explaining the complex to non-technical customers. MSPs need to embrace this device and use it to their advantage. More importantly, MSPs need to use cloud as a means to expanding their portfolio of services. As always, keeping a health mixture of commodity and high value services is important.
Private cloud, for those ambitious enough to undertake the approach, gives MSPs the ability to significantly expand their breadth of services and thereby insulate their managed services practice against commodity price pressures.
If I was a MSP, I would be investing in some form of private cloud capability to make my managed services practice stronger and more appealing to my customers.
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