Tomorrow morning I’m going back on the road for what will hopefully be the shortest conference trip of the year for me – CompTIA Breakaway. It promises to be a great event and while both Looks Cloudy and ExchangeDefender will be there in force, I’m trying to look beyond it much like everyone else. What’s the next big hype that will fall flat on it’s face?

At this very moment, the cloud is a money printing machine.

Aside from that, not much is going on. People are still afraid to make major investments and when they do so they aren’t putting it into traditional hardware and software as you can tell by warnings and financial reports of tech companies. What they are selling like crazy is consumer electronics and that’s happening relatively untouched by the MSP/VAR community because consumer experience is both direct and disposable – lower total cost of ownership.

While I’m quite excited for this years Breakway, I’m also going to predict that it will probably be the greatest one ever – because the conversation is certainly changing. The future of small business IT isn’t in credentials nobody has heard of or an audit board trying to hopelessly chase one fad after another (security, virtualization, health care). It’s this:

This is a retail storefront whose tagline is “PC & MAC Repair” and their draw is a virus removal special starting at $49. They also apparently sell hardware and software, used laptops and generally everything your variety MSP / VAR happens to do.

A decade ago an A+ credential meant something because it was widely recognized as a hardware expertise certification by the IT managers that were hiring IT workers. Ditto for vendor certifications such as Microsoft Certified Partner. Finally bottoming out with Microsoft’s Small Business Specialist logo which separated small business IT experts from attorneys ordering the action pack. But massive new business influx as a result of a new logo – not so much.

OK – Now What?

If you’re heading to CompTIA Breakaway, don’t waste your time getting lost in the vision of things. The current small business marketplace for technology is dictated by the vendors and by the IT Solution Providers that are implementing various bits and pieces of those vendors to deliver their own solution. It’s not the next credential. Or the next vertical. Or the next hype cycle.

Lot’s of people missed the MSP train. They managed.

The Healthcare IT was all air. People moved on.

Many of you will never choose to deal with the cloud. And you’ll be fine too.

Point is to sit down and work on your service delivery and solution – that is ultimately what will make the difference.

It’s you vs. Microsoft/Google/Apple/Dell.

Own Web Now (my real job) makes 90% of it’s revenues from less than 20% of our partner base. We’ve had spectacular growth this year despite cutting our conference budget by 75%. Next year we intend to cut it even more – another half. Not to buy more Ferrari’s but to help you be more successful – there are far more cooler things we could be doing with our cash for our existing partners than spraying conferences in attendees in hope of finding a new partner. It’s clear to me you guys like what we’re doing – the referrals are through the roof and Shockey Monkey, a product with exactly $0 marketing budget, is adding people daily.

One thing I’ve been hearing a lot is:

“Vlad, I’m tired of being the middleman for all this. Just cut me a check.”

I hear you. I’ve been saying the same as well to my vendors – and we’ve been outsourcing stuff aggressively this year. Competitively speaking, you’ve got to pick what you want to be good at and stick to it – but make money on virtually anything. I’m pretty sure that’s the very definition of hustling don’t quote me on it though.

This is quite possibly the best time to be in business IT. The opportunity is tremendous because among all the confusion, people going direct, new hypes and new promises of untapped blue oceans and amazing financing schemes – really hard working people are making tons of money selling the cloud which in turn is fueling their project work and all the other stuff that goes along with it.

To pimpin’

Look forward to seeing many of you at CompTIA – my window there is quite tight – I get in around noon tomorrow and leave after the vendor festival on Tuesday evening. I don’t plan to sleep though so you’ve got 24 hours of my time – easy! Yes, I’ll buy you a beer. No, you can’t have the iPad.  In the meantime, sign up for this:

New ExchangeDefender Archiving Solution Pack

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/275688153

August 4th, 2010 at noon EST – Thursday

Remember, if it’s not something easy that’s going to put $ in your pocket every time you do it, it’s not worth it.

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