independenceIT Promotes Lippie to CEO, Bostock to President

Written by samdizzy
August 6, 2013

independenceIT, the cloud-centric desktop as a service (DaaS) provider, has promoted key executives into key leadership posts. Chief among them: Jim Lippie shifts to CEO.

independenceIT, which promotes cloud and desktop as a service (DaaS) solutions to channel partners, has promoted Jim Lippie to CEO and Seth Bostock to president and chief operating officer (COO). Founder and former CEO Charles “Chip” Buck shifts to the chief technology officer (CTO) post. The move comes as independenceIT strives to make cloud-based DaaS a mainstream solution in the IT channel.

Lippie joined independenceIT in 2013. He previous was CEO and president of Thrive Networks, a top 501 MSP owned by Staples. During the interview process at independenceIT, Lippie didn’t necessarily see the CEO post as a near-term opportunity. “I was excited about the team and the talent from the start,” said Lippie. “One thing I learned at Thrive is one person does not make an organization. Our focus is on having the right people on the team — occupying in the right seats on the bus.”

Lippie’s top three priories involve products, program and presence.

Products: Lippie believes independenceIT already has a fantastic product.
Program: This is another strong area that the company has “already developed and honed,” he said.
Presence: This is the key area where independenceIT is looking to march forward. “If channel partners are looking for DaaS, we want them to know us,” said Lippie.

independenceIT already works with a range of VARs and MSPs that target 10 to 250 customers seats. Some new platform and partner enhancements “allow us to engage bigger MSps and telcos that have their own data centers,” said Lippie.

So what makes independenceIT unique? “We own our technology and we’re a pure channel company,” he said. “When you scour the market place, from where we stand we can’t find anyone else who can say they own their technology and focus purely on partners.”

Among the world’s Top 100 Cloud Services Providers, roughly 40 percent already offer some sort of DaaS solution. But in the broader IT channel, DaaS has been a hit-and-miss opportunity. Many VARs and MSPs stumble with hosting, software licensing and service level agreement (SLA) capabilities. independenceIT hopes to eliminate those complexities, giving channel partners a fast, reliable path into the DaaS.