OnForce Seeks Chief Operating Officer
OnForce is seeking a chief operating officer to work closely with CEO Peter Cannone. The move comes amid a few changes at the online marketplace for VARs and solutions providers.
Among the recent changes: Senior VP of Marketing Maria Battaglia has left the company, as has a top person involved with product development, confirmed an OnForce representative. Both Battaglia and the product head continue to consult for the company, the representative added.
Meanwhile, CEO Peter Cannone says it’s “business as usual at OnForce.”
Facts and Figures
The OnForce online marketplace is an eBay of sorts for VARs and solutions providers. OnForce allows channel partners and service providers to bid on customer projects in the business and consumer markets across North America. OnForce.com saw its online transactions rise 15% in Q1 2010 vs. Q1 2009, Cannone noted. And for April 2010, transactions were up 20% vs. April 2009, Cannone added. He identified point-of-sale (POS) projects as a bright spot for many marketplace participants.
In recent months, OnForce has been building a range of relationships to potentially integrate with various MSP dashboards. One prime example includes a growing partnership with Autotask, the professional services automation (PSA) software provider that recently acquired VARStreet. The VAR Guy expects OnForce and Autotask to announce closer integration work within the next few weeks.
Competition Coming?
Still, there are signs that OnForce could face new, disruptive rivals in the months ahead. The reason: The VAR Guy has received phone calls recently from venture capitalists who are probing the IT services marketplace … looking for opportunities to potentially automate how VARs and solutions providers bid on service engagements.
Some potential OnForce partners also have some competitive overlap. ConnectWise, for one, has the ConnectWise Network — which allows VARs and MSPs to partner up for multi-region customer engagements.
Meanwhile, OnForce has had some turnover in the marketing and development area in recent years. Before Battaglia’s exit, former VP of marketing Matt Johnston joined uTest in December 2008. And former Senior VP of Marketing and Product Paul Nadjarian left OnForce in 2009. Nadjarian’s LinkedIn profile indicates that he’s “founder of a cool new consumer Internet company.”
Memo to Nadjarian: Tell The VAR Guy more…
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VarGuy – thanks for the update. OnForce is near and dear to my heart as it made a sincere outreach into the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) a couple of years back. The ideas was that an OnForce member should be/had to be a SBSC to participate in the labor market (I can not remember if it was optional or mandatory – I’ll check my notes). The idea was the SBSC titled validated the OnForce worker bee’s skill set.
There is activity on the labor market front and another player in the field is iYogi. I also am hearing the the original OnForce founder might be getting back into the game at a near-term future date.
Keep up the good work…harrybbbb
Harry: There are a few million reasons why your sentence about the original OnForce founder sounds accurate. The VAR Guy also respects your point about iYogi as well. Our resident blogger will watch both nuggets of info closely.
-TVG
join us at http://www.onforcesucks.com
A number of technicians who came before us were brave enough to stand up to OnForce and point out their unfair practices. To retalliate whenever anyone stands up to them or bring up their unfair practices, they suspend or kick them off their so called marketplace.
I have been with OnForce since they were computerrepair.com and I watched them becoming a sweatshop. A number of small businesses and individual see the platform as a way to make a quick buck, but they miss the larger picture. Company like Pomeroy and ATamp;T could have hired an IT force to complete their work orders or subcontract directly with small IT firms. Instead they turn to the OnForce sweatshop. In months to come we will boycott all IT companies that do business with OnForce. We will spread the word about their unfair practices and injustice and how they have destroyed the IT profession.
We will expose the secrets behind this giant sweatshop. We will provide other alternatives to OnForce, companies like Gurus2Go and others deal with technicians directly.
We are taking a stand, we say no to OnForce, no to IT Slavery, no to flat rate fee, no to IT slave master like Pomeroy.
The VAR Guy welcomes constructive criticism and a healthy dialog in the comments area. But we don’t condone personal attacks and smear campaigns — especially from anonymous sources.
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-TVG