What’s the fastest way to become a managed service provider? Are there certain steps you can take to accelerate your success? I weighed those questions while meeting with Virtual Administrator, a Master managed service provider, at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 (WPC09) in New Orleans this week. Here’s a recap.

Generally speaking, Master MSPs host applications and design SaaS (software as a service) offerings for peer VARs and MSPs. Competitors in the Master MSP industry include Do IT Smarter, Ingram Micro Seismic, MSP Services Network, and Virtual Administrator. In theory, Master MSPs can help VARs speed the transition to managed services because the VAR can leverage existing NOC (network operation center), remote management, monitoring, security, storage and other tools from the Master MSP.

The Strategy

Business models can vary dramatically from one Master MSP to the next. In the case of Virtual Administrator, the company wants to help VARs quickly walk on their own in the managed services market. In other words, the company is “an on-ramp” of sorts to managed services, as Virtual Administrator’s Chris Amori states in this video:

Key Points

As I spoke with Amori, I realized Virtual Administrator has some unique qualities in the Master MSP space. Two prime examples:

Look Before You Leap

Please note: VARs and MSPs should do careful research before selecting a Master MSP as a potential partner. I’ve seen far too many Master MSPs come-and-go in the past two years. Plus, there are a lot of “pretender” companies that claim to be Master MSPs in a weak attempt to cash in on buzzwords.

Also, make sure the Master MSP is really licensed to host the software and services they offer. I’m aware of at least one alleged case where a Master MSP was offering hosted Kaseya software to peer VARs without the proper licenses in place. In the case of Virtual Administrator, I can confirm that they have a longstanding relationship with Kaseya.

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