Multi-Vendor Collaboration

November 26, 2007

Business Solutions, OpEd - Executive Insight Supplement

Written by: Dan Wensley, VP Partner Development, Level Platforms

The pace of change in the IT industry today is truly breathtaking: from rapidly evolving security threats, to new business continuity concerns — rapid, constant change is a fact of life. One of the strongest business model and technology changes in the industry today is centered on new technologies providing “managed services.” Over the past 10 to 15 years, the solution provider industry with the vendors’ support have driven a product-plus-services delivery model into the SMB market. As solution providers take advantage of these new managed services technologies to further push service delivery into the channel and at the same time seek to adapt to a highly dynamic IT environment, success in the new frontier becomes a question of open vs. closed vendor collaboration.

I recently spoke with a solution provider who, like thousands of others, has dedicated a significant amount of his time working with vendors to build a comprehensive collaborative IT offering. He recognized an important fact: not only were technology partnerships critical to meeting the varied IT needs of his customers, but forming the right partnerships with vendors who were best equipped to manage industry change was essential to meeting his customers’ needs today and tomorrow. No longer could he evaluate vendors on solely what their product could do, but of equal importance he had to consider how flexible the product was in working with other vendors’ solutions. After all, the backup solution that works seamlessly in his customers’ IT environment today needs to continue to work seamlessly as that environment changes tomorrow.

The success of vendor-founded organizations like MSP Partners and the value it provides to solution providers underscore this fact. Nearly all IT vendors these days have developed a managed services offering, but solution providers want more than this. Yes, MSP Partners provides solution providers with independent, third party managed services education to help solution providers navigate through building a managed service business. Just as importantly, it offers like-minded vendors who understand the value of multi-vendor collaboration an opportunity to present their integrated solutions to solution providers. In 2008, MSP Partners will take this concept a step further and introduce more third party research from industry leaders, as well as offer a virtual tradeshow to allow like-minded vendors and solution providers to collaboratively build successful adaptive solutions.

As further evidence of this trend, leading vendors like Microsoft, Level Platforms, Cisco, Intel, Autotask Corporation, Lenovo, and McAfee have developed extensive partner programs comprised of a collaborative network of other vendors. When vendors organize, breakthroughs happen, standards are formed, and the industry matures. At Level Platforms, vendor collaboration is a critical part of our solution. Working with hundreds of IT vendors, Level Platforms has created templates for its managed workplace product so that solution providers can seamlessly monitor virtually any vendor’s product. The value of collaboration is not limited to vendors; distributors like Ingram Micro have introduced Seismic, an entire suite of interoperable products to help solution providers meet the dynamic IT needs of their customers.

To quote an old Canadian rock ballad, “Changes aren’t permanent, but change is.” Successful solution providers today and in the future will be those that recognize this fact and partner with like-minded vendors to build solutions and products as dynamic as the industry they live in.

MSP Partners
PH: (866) 523-6777
members@msppartners.com
www.msppartners.com


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