Here’s a look at seven key trends from the MSPmentor 100, a first-of-its-kind research report identifying 100 of the world’s most progressive managed service providers. We’ll publish the complete MSPmentor 100 list and analysis on January 28, In the meantime, here’s a preview of our findings:

7. Global Reach: The transition to managed services is not limited to North America. Our MSPmentor 100 features companies from Australia, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa and the United Kingdom, just to name a few.

6. Growing Footprint: More than half of our MSPmentor 100 member companies at least doubled the number of customer devices or network nodes they were managing in 2007 compared to 2006.

5. More Than Remote Administration: Our MSPmentor 100 member companies focus on managed security (89.5%), managed storage (71.1%), software as a service such as email or CRM (63.2%), and hardware as a service (60.5%), among other areas.

4. Emerging Opportunities: Newer areas of focus for our MSPmentor 100 member companies include unified communications (36.8%) and video surveillance (10.5%). Side note: we’ve been blogging extensively about managed video surveillance services in recent weeks because of strong reader feedback.

3. Million-dollar Payoff: Nearly 25 percent of our MSPmentor 100 member companies generated at least $1 million in new, incremental managed services revenue in 2007. And a dozen member companies generated at least $10 million in new managed services revenue in 2007.

2. Doubling Their Revenue: Nearly half of companies on our MSPmentor 100 at least doubled their managed services revenue in 2007 compared to 2006. And 27 of the companies on our list at least tripled their managed services revenue in 2007.

1. Next Steps: You can check out the entire MSPmentor 100 list and accompanying report on Monday, January 28. You’ll find the list and related data in our MSPmentor 100 center. Or, you can download a complete PDF of the report from our Resource Center (registration required).