MSP News Weekly Podcast: September 19, 2014

Vendors Who Go Too Far

File this under the category of bad sportsmanship. MSPAlliance received an email sent by a sales rep for an RMM vendor to an MSP. The rep was trying to get the MSP to switch RMM platforms by saying some very unkind (and possibly incorrect) things about another vendor.

Public Cloud Not Secure Enough?

A recent Ponemon Institute survey of over 1,000 European IT professionals, many of them have serious doubts about public cloud computing. Of particular interest, the survey found that 77% of the respondents did not think their service provider would tell them if they had a data breach. So, how should MSPs respond? We've got some ideas...listen the podcast.

Cisco Invests in Private Cloud

Making good on its promise to invest over $1 billion into its cloud computing strategy, Cisco announced it would be buying private cloud service provider MetaCloud. How will this impact the Cisco channel and other MSPs?

M&A Valuation Models for MSPs

MSPs (and consultants, including some M&A firms) take a far too simplistic approach to valuing MSP businesses. The valuation process is not as simple as taking a single multiplier and arriving at a price. MSP valuations, in order to be accurate, must take into consideration a variety of data points, many of which may not be used in MSP M&A transactions.

Rackspace Not For Sale?

Earlier rumors this year that Rackspace may be for sale appear to be incorrect. According to the MSP and hosting company, they are not for sale and in fact appear to be doubling down on the managed services path. With the appointment of a new CEO, and a renewed focus on high value managed services, while eliminating low value IaaS offerings, Rackspace may be on to something here.

Larry Ellison Steps Down as CEO of Oracle

Oracle has a new CEO...actually two. Founder Larry Ellison announced this week he would be stepping down as CEO and would become the chairman of the board. In his place, two co-CEOs would be taking over the daily operations of the company.