Live Virtual Help Desk: Channel Partner Moves Coming

Live Virtual Help Desk, which offers Help Desk and NOC services to VARs and MSPs, appears to be building relationships with Arrow Fusion (the cloud arm of the IT distributor) and ThinkGrid (a cloud services company that enables the IT channel).

MSPmentor has yet to confirm any of the alleged relationships but the grapevine sounds accurate. Both potential moves are worth watching for a range of reasons. Roughly 73 percent of top MSPs offer NOC services, according to our fifth-annual MSPmentor 100 report, which debuted Feb. 15. Some of those MSPs keep NOC services in-house; others outsource NOC and/or help desk services to companies like Live Virtual Help Desk.

Meanwhile, IT distributors are looking to build closer relationships with NOC and help desk providers. Ingram Micro, for instance, has a longstanding relationship with NetEnrich. Now, Live Virtual Help Desk sounds poised to build a potentially similar relationship with Arrow Fusion. Plus, I've heard rumblings that Avnet Technology Solutions may also be seeking NOC and help desk partnerships.

So the lines between distributors, NOC providers and help desk providers are blurring just a bit. Assuming Live Virtual Help Desk and its rivals can continue to scale their operations, MSPs seem to have a growing list of outsourced NOC and help desk options.