seven blogs

7. More M&A: Project Leadership Associates (PLA) a national provider of business and technology consulting services, has acquired Vital Networks, a provider of managed services and outsourced IT solutions with offices in Sacramento, San Francisco, Boston and Seattle. Financial terms were not disclosed.

6. Big Help Desks: Anybody else notice that EarthLink, Sprint, Verizon and other massive service providers are launching small business help desks? My question: If they can’t make my home router work why would I trust them with my small business end-user support?

5. Special Virtualization Management Deal?:­ SolarWinds has unveiled a Virtualization Manager vExpert NFR (Not for Resale) License Program for eligible VMware vExperts. The program is in appreciation for the community’s feedback in helping to develop SolarWinds’ virtualization management software. My confession: I have no idea what the NFR program involves but I’m intrigued.

4. Getting the Band Back Together: Jamie Dudley has joined Boundary as senior VP worldwide sales; he previously ran worldwide sales at Nimsoft. Chris O’Connell has joined joined as director, product marketing; he was VP product marketing at Science Logic and previously director, product marketing at Nimsoft. Boundary’s CEO is Gary Read, formerly CEO of Nimsoft. Anybody else seeing the pattern here?

3. Apple iOS 6: The Apple iPhone 5 will likely arrive with iOS 6 in early September. But some channel leaders have already upgraded their existing iPhone 4 and iPad devices to the iOS 6 preview. Early adopters include Xirrus CEO Shane Buckley, who is busy telling VARs and MSPs that BYOD is all about wireless user experience opportunities rather than security hype.

2. Didn’t Know That: Yes, HP’s Autonomy buyout has been facing challenges over the past year. But I didn’t realize Autonomy had a big — really big — cloud backup and storage business promoted through the channel. CEO Meg Whitman claims that business now supports about 10,000 customers.

1. The Line Is Gone: By next year, most of the leading MSP software platforms will allow you to manage on-premises infrastructure and off-premises cloud applications. Some tools already offer that capability. Don’t overlook this trend. It will disrupt some laggard tool providers; create opportunities for entrenched leaders; and open the door for start-up market disrupters.

That’s all for now. Thanks so much for your continued readership.