Managed Services: 7 Blogs MSPmentor Didn't Write, Dec. 16

The MSPmentor team is preparing to wrap up the fifth-annual MSPmentor 100 survey this Friday, December 23. But in the meantime, our bloggers are keeping pace with a range of managed services news and information for MSPs. In fact, here are seven pieces of MSP news and chatter that MSPmentor didn't have a chance to write for the week ending Dec. 16, 2011.

7. Big Recurring Revenues?:  ServiceSource claims its Channel Sales Cloud has helped more than 17,000 channel partner subscribers to manage over $2.7 billion in recurring services revenue since 2009. The ServiceSource executive team includes veterans from OpsWare, Juniper, Oracle and Accenture, among other big IT and consulting names.

6. Crossing the Pond: SpiceWorks, which develops an advertising-driven management platform for VARs and MSPs, will take its annual SpiceWorld user conference to the UK (May 24-25, 2012).

5. Managed Services Career Moves: Several well-known channel leaders in the managed services market are still considering new job opportunities. Firm decisions in three cases are expected before the close of 2011. My bet: two of the three folks will sit tight in their current careers. More thoughts potentially soon.

4. Managed Services Certification: Netelligent Corp. is the latest MSP to earn the Cisco Master Managed Services Certification. The certification recognizes Netelligent’s ITIL expertise. Even after launching the Cloud Partner Program, Cisco has continued to see momentum from VARs and MSPs focused on more traditional managed services. Also, Netelligent earlier this year disclosed that it has standardized on Zyrion's Traverse platform for infrastructure monitoring.

3. MSP Mergers and Acquisitions:North State Communications, an ILEC, has purchased DataChambers, a managed services provider with colocation facilities in Winston-Salem, N.C. DataChambers was an Inc. 5000 company. The records management business, Data-Chambers Records Management, will be retained by the current owners.

2. Banking on HEIT Managed Services: Western Independent Bankers (WIB) is the latest organization to endorse HEIT for managed compliance services. WIB, a trade association for 220 community banks in the Western United States, said it values  HEIT's expertise in managing Dodd-Frank compliance, which is expected to be the major compliance issue banks face in 2012. As you may recall, HEIT is an MSPmentor 100 company that was acquired earlier this year.

1. The Holidays: I realize some readers may he heading out for the holidays before MSPmentor publishes our weekly recap for the week ending December 23. For those who are heading off to spend time with friends and family, the Nine Lives Media team wishes you all the best.