Small Biz Tech Talk ™

Recently Cisco Systems announced it would be making a $150 million investment in virtual IT.  Cisco will be putting money in server virtualization vendor VMWare, and solution providers expect this investment will increase the interest in virtual IT and virtualization.  

This investment makes Cisco the second largest strategic investor in VMWare this month next to Intel.  Intel invested $218.5 in the virtual IT world when it went with VMWare.  EMC also stated it was going to sell a ten-percent stake in VMWare to help VMWaer employees get more value out of the company.  EMC purchased VMWare in December 2003.  

Cisco’s latest purchase of VMWare’s virtual IT Class A shares means it will own 1.6 percent of VMWare’s total stock.  VMWare is in discussions to think about appointing a Cisco executive to VMWare’s board of directors at some point as well.  

The purchase of VMWare stock is consistent with Cisco’s announcement that it would be getting more involved in virtualization and virtual IT, an announcement made at the Cisco Live 2007 end-user conference earlier this week.  At the conference, Cisco stated it is building a data center strategy based on network infrastructure, storage networking and application networking.  These new specializations will not count towards certification for partners, but  will provide training and tech badges for those building practices based on data centers.

For more information on this burgeoning partnership and virtual IT story, visit the attached link.  

Submitted By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

In order to have a successful IT consulting career, you need to have a variety of technical skills.  But even more important than technical skills is business savvy.

Just Say “No”

As you start your IT consulting business, you will get a lot of strange service requests.  People will waste your time with proposals that make no sense and will not have the money to pay you.  Learn to say, “No!” to these people, or you will find yourself struggling.    

Banking and Merchant Accounts

Setting up a business bank account is necessary.  If you want to resell products, a merchant account will be needed so you can take credit cards as part of your IT consulting business.  

Managing Money

You need to get paid well and fast.  You will need to know how to calculate expenses, balance a checkbook, deal with credit and collections and handle a billing and invoicing system.  

Tracking Prospects and Clients

You have to pay close attention to your IT consulting clients and prospects.  Set up databases to track them with off-the-shelf products.  

Delegation is Key

Even if you are going to run your own IT consulting business for a long time, you need to do some skill delegation.  At some point, you will probably work with some business partners, contractors and you will definitely be dealing with vendors.  Know when to pass off work to other IT consulting professionals.  

Submitted By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

Illinois-based solution provider The Mpower Group was named for the second year in a row to Leading Business Magazine’s Top 100 Supply and Demand Chain Vendors list.  The magazine is the executive’s user manual for the supply and demand chain and released the list last week.  

Solution provider The Mpower Group was part of a difficult selection process that included hundreds of applications and almost a year of research to select the best solution providers in the field.  The 2007 Supply and Demand Chain Executive 100 represent leading providers of supply chain technologies in different industries.  Solution provider winners were selected based on their ability to innovate and handle companies of different sizes and types within the supply chain.  

The theme of the 2007 Supply and Demand Chain Executive Top 100 was “Enabling the 21st Century Supply Chain.”  The Mpower Group was chosen because of the work of the  president and CEO, Dalip Raheja that adapted new theories of supply and demand to fit supplier relationship management endeavors.  

Solution provider The Mpower Group has many years of consulting experience and industry experience and is known for providing new theories on how to better manage supply relationships.  The company has been able to help solve the problem for companies of not getting the most value out of their supply relationships and helping them to move forward and achieve success.  The solution provider has been in business for seven years and continues to grow significantly annually.

For more information about the Top 100 list and the theories employed by this solution provider, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

In order to find the best clients for your small business computer consulting firm, you need to be basing your search on the number of PCs they have and their annual revenue.  Your ideal clients will have 10-50 PCs and make between $1 million and $10 million in annual revenue; these numbers are what define the sweet spot of small business computer consulting.  (If you are outside of the U.S., you can convert the dollar amounts to your currency to determine your ideal clients.)

Be Careful with the High End of the Sweet Spot

When you start dealing with small business computer consulting targets with more than 50 PCs or more than $10 million in annual sales, you will typically find real IT people on payroll and thus competition for your services.  Your client will start to add up services invoices and figure out if they can do a cheaper job in house.    

Your Small Business Computer Consulting Clients Should Have Real Servers

The sweet spot will be big enough to have “real,” dedicated servers.  If businesses need a real server, they will need lots of professional services to manage it and will likely not be able to handle this management without the help of an outsourced IT department.  

Find Companies with Multiple Locations

Sometimes a sweet spot small business computer consulting client will only have one location.  But other times, it will have a main office and some other offices.  Branch offices give your small business computer consulting firm additional opportunities for support because they will need the ability to share data in real time and increase communication between offices.

The Main Idea about the Sweet Spot

Qualify your small business computer consulting clients carefully to find out if they fit the criteria for the sweet spot, and pave the way to increased opportunities for your firm.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

IDC Canada recently conducted a study that recognized the top Canadian solution providers.  Above Security, a Montreal-based managed security services vendor was honored as being the top solution provider in the security services sector.

According to IDC Canada, the solution provider is the only in the country that specializes in information security.  The managed security services offered by Above Security covers compliance management to standards, diligent log-keeping, analysis of vulnerabilities and detection of security breaches in real time.

IDC’s study evaluated a variety of managed security services vendors and discovered Above Security to be the solution provider with the most leadership potential within Canada.  The analysis hypothesized that the security market, valued at $85 million in 2005 will grow about 18% to $195 million by 2010.  

For more information on this story about the Canadian solution provider Above Security and to learn more about the study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) Canada, visit the attached link.

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

When you are working with sweet spot customers in IT consulting, you will need several different types of skills.  You will have to have hardware, software and networking skills in order to offer the best services. 

Which networking skills specifically should you have to best serve your IT consulting customers?  Where networking software is concerned, you should know some client server messaging packages including Microsoft Exchange Server, Novell group wise, client server and sequel database applications.  Microsoft sequel server will play a large part in your IT consulting business. 

Accounting Applications

To provide the best IT consulting solutions, know Microsoft Business Solutions and Great Plains’ Best 90. 

CRM Applications

You may want to make CRM applications a specialty.  Get to know Best Software and Microsoft Business Solutions.  Microsoft Business Solutions can fit well into your IT consulting solutions.  Also establish some knowledge of web servers, administering Microsoft IS and Open Source Apache. 

The Bottom Line About Skills for Sweet Spot Customers

When it comes to offering the most comprehensive solutions to valued IT consulting customers, be prepared to have some basic skills in terms of networking software, accounting software and CRM applications. 

Submitted By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Software company Mulesource announced a new partnership with IT consulting firm Estafet Open.  This consulting firm offers services to the European market and recently joined the MuleSource Partner Alliance program.

Spokespeople for the IT consulting firm Estafet Open stated they had seen a lot of companies turning to MuleSource to fulfill software needs because of their increased offerings.  More consultants in the firm are gaining experience with the software and realizing that the platform works well.

MuleSource software has been used increasingly in project from proof of concepts to different applications.  The demand is increasing for developers, solution architects and others to service the IT consulting firms and businesses in need of support for their products.

A spokesperson from IT consulting firm Estafet Open further added that proof of concept projects are getting larger in scope, and there will be a greater demand for consultants that have experience with the Mule platform.  The IT consulting firm is excited about its partnership with MuleSource and the opportunities it will provide in the future.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit

If you are thinking about a career in computer consulting, you are probably currently working in a PC support position in a company either large or small.  What do you need to know to handle computer consulting startup?

There are hundreds of people starting their own computer consulting businesses today, and all of them have decided they both need and really want to go out on their own.  You shouldn’t invest lots of time getting IT and business training and spending a lot of money on computer consulting startup unless you know you really want to get started.  

Why Computer Consulting?

People have differing reasons for getting into the computer consulting field.  Your reason for getting involved might be gaining more control over your own career, the satisfaction of creating your own business from scratch or a dissatisfaction with your current job.  

Take Action!

To get started with computer consulting, get a piece of paper and write “The Top Five Reasons Why I Have To, Need To and Want to Become a Computer Consultant.”  Listing these will help you get a handle on your passion for computer consulting.  

A Deadline is Key

Once you’ve decided to get involved in computer consulting by listing your own personal reasons, you need to outline specific steps that will help you achieve your goals.  Before you create a plan, set a deadline for getting it all done.  Get calendar out and decide to make your computer consulting business happen by writing the specific date down on your paper.  Print it out or rip it out of your notebook and put it on a bulletin board next to your desk so you look at it every day.  

Added By:  Computer Consulting Kit

Computer business and virtual IT player 3Com Corp. announced last week it had dropped to $15.2 million from the previous figure of $15.2 million.  The company announced it would sell shares in its TippingPoint network security subsidiary.  

The loss reported was through June 30.  Sales rose 22 percent to $310.9 million, in spite of the loss.  Virtual IT industry company 3Com has not shown a profit since 2000, when it marketed the first Palm Pilot, which eventually spun off into its own business.

3Com president and CEO Edgar Masri stated that he was unable to offer any details about the first public offering of TippingPoint stock.  However, before the announcement, the company had stated it would start selling shares by December 2007.   Masri declared he believes selling TippingPoint stock will help the company improve its virtual IT offerings and focus on its finances and profitability.   

In the last quarter, 3Com spent $91 million in order to buy 49 percent of its joint project, H3C from partner Huawei Technologies.  The purchase price was $882 million, which makes 3Com the second-largest equipment maker in the virtual IT and computer business behind Cisco.  

Despite losses, Masri assured the public that the company had reached profitability goals for the quarter and that H3C would help 3Com improve in the future and become a stronger force in the virtual IT market.

For more information on this virtual IT story, visit the attached link.

Blogged By:  Joshua Feinberg