Bob Godgart, Former CEO Autotask/Now CEO ChannelEyes.com

Looking to learn the latest tips and tricks for making the most of your revenue streams with GFI MAX? Or are you an MSP trying to figure out how to plan for the months ahead? In either case, we’ve got you covered this November with our series of FREE webinars.

Webinar: Managing Workstations with GFI MAX

Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 2PM GMT

In the webinar, hosted by GFI’s Jim Harrower, UK & Ireland Sales Manager, you will hear about the additional revenue streams that you can gain from workstation management and how to structure your business to make it profitable. You will also learn about how to use automation as a valuable tool to increase profit margins and reduce costs. Also covered in this webinar will be the GFI MAX Building Blocks Program that provides the business support tools that you need to make managing workstations a success.

Registration link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/374936482

Our second webinar focuses on how you can prepare your MSP for both the immediate and long term future.

Webinar:  MSP Trends for 2012 and Beyond

Wednesday, November 30, 2011, 4PM GMT

In this webinar, MSP Industry Visionaries Bib Godgart and Jay McBain will report on the trends that will shape MSP landscape over the next three years.  Hear where the money is, what the secret game software vendors are playing and how you can position yourself to win.

Bob Godgart and Jay McBain are the founders of ChannelEyes, the world’s first Channel specific social network. You can register and find out more information at http://www.channeleyes.com.

Registration Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/592127602

Feel free to browse our library of previous webinars: http://www.mspbusinessmanagement.com/webinars at our resource site for MSPs, MSP Business Management http://www.mspbusinessmanagement.com.

Seats fill up fast, so be sure to register today!

A few weeks ago I thought that we should try offering a prize to see what effect it had on the response rate.

However, recent events in Japan have been so horrible that I went cap in hand to the ‘keepers of the marketing budget’ and suggested we do both – offer an iPad 2 as a prize and give a donation to Japan.  Without a minute’s hesitation, they said ‘Do it’!  It’s nice to be able help, even in a small way.

These surveys are really helpful to us and we value your time taken to fill them in.  Questions from the survey come from everywhere, for example, Walter Scott, our CEO, asked for a particular question in this month’s survey.

Participate in this month’s survey

The results are sent to many departments in the company:  Engineering, Marketing, Sales, allowing us to change the product over time to deliver what you need based on your responses so if you’re an MSP or IT Support Company please complete our survey to help us, help Japan and be in with the chance to win an iPad 2.

HandyAndy explained that being an MVP means that:

“someone has recognized the time and effort I put into the community. It means I have been given an opportunity to help shape the future of the technology I love. It means being part of a family of like-minded folks. It has given me the opportunity to meet and interact with folks I would not have had otherwise.”

He goes on to say that it’s the interaction that he has with people which is the best thing about being an MVP, including his meeting with MAX!

[audio:http://www.gfi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/mspuniversity-jun10.mp3]

Download podcast

Just to be clear, I’d suggest that Managed Services is a very distinct risk model from the standard break/fix (or professional services) hourly billing norm.

In Managed Services your IT Support Company takes on the risk.  It does the work to keep IT systems running well and provides an account management layer on top of the work it does.  Essentially, it takes the problem off your ‘customer’s desk’ in return for a fixed fee.

We speak to thousands of IT Support companies who tell us they are very interested in this model but they’re not sure how to do this. They’re unsure about packaging this, promoting this, pricing this, selling this & how to deliver this service profitably.

So our Building Blocks program helps them do this – grow recurring revenue service’s – which is great if you can.

However… Managed Services as defined above doesn’t suit every customer or every customer relationship IT Support companies have.  And it doesn’t suit every IT Company either.

Dead Within 3 Years?

I hear a lot of hype such as ‘if you’re not a managed service provider within 3 years, you’ll be history’.  I think it’s nonsense.

Most IT companies I speak to run a hybrid model (Break Fix + Managed Services) because that’s what their customers demand (and I speak to a lot).

I read stats like only 10% of IT Support companies in the US are ‘true’ Managed Service Providers and I shake my head…. My take on it is that’s because some of the end customers prefer it that way (just now).

I’ve myself proposed and sold both break/fix and managed service relationships and I once tried telling a lawyer who clearly understood hourly billing that I proposed billing him the same fee every month regardless of how much/little work our company did.  He raised an eyebrow, I got the message.

So, do what your customers need you to do.  That’s what’s important.

GFI MAX has also been named as a winner of the ASCII Success Summit ‘Best of Show Awards’ in the Best Channel Programs category. This award is presented to the company that is deemed to have the best channel program for the IT industry. Solution provider attendees at each of the six ASCII Success Summits vote in these awards.

(Part 1) This podcast outlines the Building Blocks program and focuses on the provision of a Managed Service for Servers & Networks.  Doug and Chris outline services which can be easily promoted, sold and implemented into IT Support Companies.  These services build up incrementally towards full managed services.

[audio:http://www.gfi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/MAXRM-Podcast-Building-Blocks1.mp3]

Download part 1

(Part 2) This podcast outlines the Building Blocks program and focuses on the provision of a Managed Service for Servers & Networks.  Doug and Chris describe how customers are using good customer propositions such as a Daily Health Check and Daily Safety Check to build recurring revenues.

[audio:http://www.gfi.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/MAXRM-Podcast-Building-Blocks2.mp3]

Download part 2

GFI has been welcomed by The ASCII Group – the nation’s oldest and most established community of independent managed service providers, system integrators and solution providers.

“We continue to add more benefits for the ASCII community at large and we are proud to have GFI join the Solution Alliance network with their easy, affordable IT solutions. GFI recognizes the market value of the ASCII community and provides IT solutions to help IT support companies build profitable recurring revenues,” states Alan D. Weinberger, Founder, Chairman and CEO of ASCII.

Through its GFI MAX suite, GFI Software provides easy, affordable, hosted IT solutions that help IT Support companies operate a more efficient IT support business, helps businesses scale and helps build profitable recurring revenues. As a new platinum sponsor, GFI Software is working closely with ASCII to provide new ASCII member benefits to IT Support Companies, VARs and Managed Service Providers. ASCII members will meet the GFI MAX team at the Los Angeles ASCII Summit on February 18. GFI will demonstrate GFI MAX features, functions and benefits, explain how monitoring can be set up in less than 10 minutes and help people register for a free 30-day trial of the solutions: GFI MAX RemoteManagementTM, GFI MAX MailProtectionTM and GFI MAX MailEdgeTM.

Ed Harnish, VP Marketing, GFI Software states, “Through joining the ASCII Group’s Solution Alliance Network, we’re delighted to offer ASCII members the opportunity to learn more about how the GFI MAX family of hosted products can help IT Support companies build recurring revenues, win more business and deliver best-of-breed proactive IT support – the easy way!”

These two products form part of the new GFI MAX family of hosted IT solutions and follow the acquisition of Katharion, a leading hosted email security provider in Los Angeles, USA.

GFI MAX MailProtection is a proven, highly effective, and low maintenance Cloud-based email security solution that offers next-generation technology to protect thousands of organizations from spam and viruses while also providing valuable email continuity.

GFI MAX MailProtection uses a multi-layered approach to spam filtering to stop spam, viruses, and other email threats before they reach the network or mail server. Incoming email is redirected to the service’s fully redundant, multi-tenanted network and application architecture, which processes messages in real-time via both traditional spam filtering techniques and leading-edge approaches to message analysis including authenticity checks, message fingerprinting, heuristic rule sets, extensive URI databases, real-time message source analysis, and customizable whitelists and blacklists.

GFI MAX MailEdge is a hosted frontline spam filtering and continuity solution for organizations that require an additional layer of security before email reaches their mail server thereby improving performance.

GFI MAX MailEdge is designed specifically to be used only in combination with an existing on-premise software or hardware anti-spam/anti-virus solution. This hybrid delivery model allows customers to maintain their existing set-up yet also maximize the benefits of having all inbound email filtered first in the cloud. Through its IP reputation filters, connection throttling, directory harvesting protection, and optional greylisting, GFI MAX MailEdge is able to safely block up to 90% of all spam emails and email threats before they reach the customer’s network.

Additionally, both services provide business continuity thanks to integrated queuing and on-demand mail functionality ensuring that customers can continue to access and respond to emails even when their own email server is offline.

GFI MAX MailProtection and GFI MAX MailEdge deliver a number of key benefits to customers, including:

• Dramatically reduced bandwidth and processing power required for incoming email
• An added level of security given the inherent scalability limitations and single point of failure of any on-premise solution dependent on a single server
• A fast and easy setup with minimal effort and training, and no additional hardware
• Full re-branding capabilities at all end-user touch-points, to allow partners of any size to easily and inexpensively offer the service as an OEM solution.

For more information about the GFI MAX range of hosted solutions go to: http://www.gfi.com/max-family.

By monitoring and managing Linux systems, MSPs, VARs and IT support organizations can extend the services they offer and earn more revenue. This new development also enables them to replace the more complex and costly monitoring systems they may be using to manage Linux devices while getting all the benefits of one consolidated monitoring and management system.

“Over the last year we have seen an increase in Linux-based systems in the SMB market as the technology has matured and been proven in the enterprise market. As a result, our customers are looking for us to provide the capabilities that they currently use on Windows-based systems to give them the same control, efficiency and automation benefits upon which they have come to depend,” Dr Alistair Forbes, GFI MAX Chief Technical Officer, said.

“We have embarked upon a programme of development to extend GFI MAX RemoteManagement’s functionality to support Linux and the first output from this is a series of pre-defined SNMP checks to monitor key parameters on Linux such as CPU, memory, disk space and processes. We will be following this up in the first half of 2010 with a full Linux agent that will enable us to provide deeper and more comprehensive support of Linux machines and we will be working with our customers to confirm the feature set that will be provided,” he added.

The new Linux monitoring capability means MSPs will have a more complete view of their customers’ networks – both Windows and non-Windows devices (Linux/Mac). Using GFI MAX’s intuitive dashboard, within minutes, users can extend monitoring to Linux running checks on load, processes, CPU, disk, memory and many others.

Read more about GFI MAX and discover how to take better care of your clients at less cost.