It's official. MSPWorld Conference & Expo 2012 in Austin, TX is finished. In case you missed the event, here is a summary of some of the issues, discussions, and activities that took place this past week.
Cloud
Most MSPs, from what I heard, are taking a blended approach to cloud. Meaning, MSPs are not going to place all their hopes into only public or private cloud computing. I did not encounter one MSP that said they would use one cloud delivery model to the exclusion of the other. In fact, I think it is safe to say that having at least one private and public cloud offering as a MSP is going to be the status quo moving forward into 2013.
M&A
Surprisingly little talk about managed services M&A this event. Compared to past events, I would even say there is a major change happening in the M&A market for MSPs and cloud providers. More on this in next week's op-ed on MSPNews.com
Sales, Marketing, and Verticalization
This was the big winner at MSPWorld. Although we had several different sessions focusing on each of these areas, when you look at these issues as a combined topic, you can see the emergence of a trend in managed services that could be a bid deal to those who pay attention.
As always, the MSPs were very focused (as were the vendors) on how to market and sell managed services to the end user customer. Vertical expertise was the theme here; specifically as a method for easier sales, marketing, and customer satisfaction and stickiness. I'll also be writing more about this soon as it is a significant theme that demands its own column. However, I think we can see application hosting, private cloud enabling, and other vertical trends dominating managed services and cloud discussion throughout 2013.
Community Networking
The networking at this MSPWorld was just amazing. Some of the pictures included below don't begin to describe some of the great discussions and relationship building that I witnessed taking place at the event. This, in my opinion, is what makes the MSPWorld events so unique and valuable.
