By Charles Weaver 

My opinion and analysis of the week’s news and events in a succinct summary format. Feel free to comment.  

Are we Winning or Losing Against Cybercrime 

Join the discussion with retired FBI agent Scott Augenbaum and Corey Munson from PC Matic as we delve into how the battle against cybercrime is really going. It is a candid conversation about the current state of the battle, but also provides some hope (particularly for MSPs) on how they can help turn the tide against cybercriminals.  

Analysis – Kaseya Acquisition of Datto 

All the precursor murmurs we heard about something big happening with Datto, I do not think anyone saw this coming. Now that the news has become public, we must make sense of why this deal happened, what impact it will have on the MSPs, and more important, what reaction will we see from the other RMM vendors.  

Break/Fix Really is Dead 

If it was not a settled question before, this article will put any lingering doubt to rest: break/fix IT services is dead. An article in Security Boulevard explains how enterprise IT professionals are not just seeking external help with their internal security, they want proactive help! What is the big deal? Since the early 2000s, we have been using the word “proactive” as a key differentiator in the definition of managed services.  

The article makes it clear, proactive IT security assistance is what the enterprise IT customer wants. If I had to guess, it is also what the mid-market and SMB customer wants as well.  

Gartner predicts greater IT services pricing 

Our friend John Moore over at TechTarget spoke to us recently on the topic of Gartner’s IT services price increase prediction and whether that might also have an impact on managed services prices. Read his article and see my response.  

More organizations are paying the ransom 

Not good news for our profession but an interesting article you might want to read. Ultimately, MSPs have success based on how much their clients listen to and change behavior based on advice they have received from the MSP. Whether or not to pay a cyber ransom is becoming less of a choice and more of a risk to the customer and the MSP (to the extent they are involved in the transaction).  

Still, the article is worth a read and maybe something you’d want to talk over with your clients.