Managed services for Gem Group sparkle

Let's cut to the chase: Ben Messar, IT director at The Gem Group Inc. in Lawrence, Mass., says his desktop and server managed services provider shaves 10-15% off his budget.

Need I say more? In 2009 does one need another reason to offload more services to external providers?

Well, money isn't everything there is in this case. The Gem Group, which makes a variety of corporate-branded merchandise, has significant operations in both the U.S. and China, where most of the goods are made. It wanted the messaging services for its 400 users between sites to be secure with encryption of data during transit and when at rest in storage, both of which were offerings on the MSP's menu. Then there was the additional backup of mobile users' laptops, something that had been heretofore difficult to achieve. Again, its MSP had mobile backup services as a specialty and still delivered the savings.

And a final plus for Messar is that his MSP comes with Dell,Inc. moniker.

"We're a big Dell shop," he says.

Dell has bought its way into the service provider business with the acquisition of a handful of service providers--MessageOne (2008), Everdream, ASAP and Silverback (all 2007). And that's just fine for Messar, particularly given that he was using Everdream and MessageOne services prior to Dell's acquisition of both firms.

Conversations with IT executives like Messar, which I have regularly, convince me that those who insist on believing that cloud computing has peaked are utterly wrong. This is not a bubble ready burst, but an avalanche that is tearing up the IT operations landscape. Expect even more services from more big-name vendors by the end of this year.

Dell, IBM, Sun, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and every other major player is devoting resources to cloud services. They have to. Without cloud services, they will lose customers. Dell, which came late to the services game, has been gaining ground through acquisition. Paul D'Arcy, director of marketing services for Dell claims the company has more than 5,000 customers, most picked up when they acquired the other IT vendors.

Expect to see more SaaS, MSP and cloud computing vendors get bought in the coming year. There won't be any IPOs in 2009, as going public is not a good option in a market like this. And the bigger firms, like Dell et. al., need to offer more services and software from the cloud, so acquisition will be the exist strategy for many startups in the cloud and the go-to-market strategy for vendors with deep pockets.

This could pose a problem for some users, if their service provider gets acquired by a company with a different platform strategy, they may find themselves under pressure to shift to the acquirer's systems approach.

Messar was lucky. He was a Dell shop when Dell bought his service providers. That's not going to be the case for many of us.