Yes, it’s a tip to Iron Maiden and the prophecy behind it.

I’ll be back in two weeks. Taking a long needed mental vacation from the past few months of mind breaking journey that has been the globalization of the OWN’s US-only businesses: virtual hosting, virtual services, exchange+sharepoint services, enterprise storage network, security tokens, enterprise services and something we only call Karl. At the first of the year the only true global OWN services were ExchangeDefender and Shockey Monkey, now we’ve got our most profitable lines of business in Europe, Australia, Canada, Dubai and Hong Kong. Next quarter is all about announcing and positioning all that to the greater benefit of everyone involved at OWN.

One of the downsides of mortality is that you don’t get to live forever and you get to change your mind about which parts of business you work on. The past two quarters, or the seventh monkey of the seventh monkey, were all about teaching folks around me how projects, business lines, relationships and processes get built. It took twice as long but it’s always nice to fail right away than to fail down the road when you can’t fix it easily.

New year doesn’t start in January, new year starts in August. If you’re not on that same page yet, go read this. I was talking to Dave the other day about the advances we’ve made in internal documentation, the issue with the body of knowledge is that it should not be limited to one single person. No one single point of failure should be the holder of any critical knowledge of the corporate service, we sell commodity enterprise services, not specialty blown glass vases.

So with the stuff all complete, running and buzzing, I’m taking some time off till after the SEC championship (Dec 8th) and am coming back with something you’re really going to enjoy hearing. In the meantime those of you working with my staff will be getting the news about what all this means to your bottom line so fax back those NDAs if you want $$$$.

Mythology: Seventh son of the seventh son is European mythology for the special healing powers the seventh son of the seventh son is supposed to have.

Yet another day goes by with me coding during the sunset and then watching the sunrise still wide awake and cranking out code. You may wonder just what kind of a lifestyle that involves. Picture is worth a thousand words:

That is code monkey rocket fuel, baby.

I’m doing about 4 hours of sleep a day, give or take. This involves going to work at about 8-10 AM, working through approximately 1-2 PM. Meetings, phone calls, conference calls, staff meetings, quotes, feedback management, strategery.

At about 1-2 PM, after the lunch almost puts me into a coma (you’ll see why in the next paragraph) I head on home and sleep through 7-9 PM. Seeing how my wife  makes it home between 6-8 PM I don’t miss out on much. We hang out, watch TV, play on the computer, etc till about 11:30 That is when the code-monkey session comes on:

11 - 2 AM: Layout. While I am 100% sober and alert and can actually think I lay out the objectives, functions, layout, etc. Basically everything that requires a brain gets done here. 2 AM - 6 AM: Code grunt. This is your average coding session, filling in the blanks and making stuff actually functional. Then I wrap it up, upload it, and let my guys test, fix, optimize, etc. I love it, coding - without all that annoying frustrating stuff.

This of course means that any simple carb that enters my body takes approximately 20 minutes to put me in a slight coma. It comes at an advantage too. The other day I was driving back home at 110 Mph on I4 and didn’t even notice - it didn’t even occur to me to look at the speedometer - I just wondered why everyone was moving so slow. Hey, something is gonna kill you, at least this way it’s not prolonged.

It’s pretty exciting. What I’m working on now likely won’t see the light of day for a few months but as you’ve seen from Amazon last week and Microsoft PDC this week, the world of computing is getting it’s biggest paradigm shift in the lifetime of many of us that have only been a part of the “Internet” got pushed into mainstream. Being able to participate in the evolution of communication as big as the printing press or stone tablets is simply amazing - the world without people bolted to the table, tied to the wall and a computer that is constantly crashing or the server that requires a major surgery to keep going and an equivalent of sex change operation to upgrade to the new release…. this next generation of IT people can’t wait to put a tombstone on that kind of an experience and make electronic communication as effortless and taken for granted in reliability as the power, sewer and water systems we enjoy today.

It takes a strong gut to look at the financial investment statements these days, even more so to start ramping up the training, hiring and R&D in these tough economic times. And if it’s really looking tough you probably have to take a hard look at your game plan and probably admit defeat, cut losses and move on before you lose it all.

If you’re wondering where I’m standing at this point then you’ll probably be surprised that today I’ve seen the first return on the largest single HR investment in OWN’s history since I stopped being a one man shop.

Gutsy?

I don’t think so. I’ve been very open about what we are doing, at times even to the detriment of competitive advantage, and where we are placing our bets. And unlike my usual batting percentage of 60% (with 40% of ideas ending up in the garbage) nearly everything I’ve done for the past 2 years has become a huge success. Even things that might appear to have fallen off the face of the earth, like SM, have not just added thousands of partners into our portfolio but have also created a huge surge in business done with OWN by the companies that signed up. This just builds on the ExchangeDefender brand that is on an epic climb, Exchange+SharePoint killer-combo, data center solutions and enterprise services.

Gloating?

Far from it. This wasn’t easy. I’ve held on for about 3 months as we looked at our indicators trying to figure out which direction the economy is going and which markets we focus on.

Then we started executing the plan and I’d like to sit here and pat myself on the back about the revenues and month-to-month of skyrocketing profits but I’m not Scrooge McDuck, I don’t sit on top of the money bin or get joy out of counting coins. At the end of the day, I’m just a geek that went to business school and never stopped trying to be better.

So as the revenues grew and our staff didn’t….

Well….

I’ll only say this once. It’s a bitch going to bed every night seeing how far you’re getting backed up, just to wake up in the morning and hear about how much you suck.

So a little while back while looking over the projections and estimates we decided to hire ahead of the demand and radically transform our support infrastructure. It has been a tough month, taking away from production to invest into training and documentation building and focus on more than two goals.

In case you’re wondering, they used to be “write great software partners need to make money” and “always be closing the sale”

If you were at the UG meeting in Seattle or spent some time with me at the MVP deep dives you probably know the next vector of OWN that I’m in process of implementing, not to mention the one that comes after that.

As you will read in my first little piece of serious writing in just over 24 hours, the time for planning, thinking, conceptualizing and figuring things out is over. If you don’t have your marketing, leads, pipeline and project processes narrowed down you’re basically just counting down to extinction as the IT services become a commodity and a utility.

As for me, I know my role. My role is to build the software and services that help people integrate their solutions for their customers. Which I’m glad to say a LOT of people are making a killing on. Thank you all. Moreso, I want to thank those of you that have put up with us through the little rough patch if things didn’t work out perfectly right away as they should. That’s business. But if you’ve been looking at this blog, the folks that work with me and help me realize my objectives tend to be compensated greatly.

The new big OWN support teams went online today and in the first day we have been able to cut the open issue reports in half. The support and network ops and development are clicking along and the backend side of this (which you will soon see out in the open) is back.

It’s Monday, October 6th, and the Ironman is back.

tan dan tan dan tan dan tan dan.. Moooortaaaalll Kommmbaaaaat!

Never in my life have I imagined I would see a live human reenactment of the final move in a Mortal Kombat video game. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m in Redmond this week getting the deep dive SBS 2008 training with some other fellow MVPs. This is a scene from earlier today, and in my opinion it is fairly remarkable. I never thought I’d be able to capture the very moment when the persons soul leaves his body at the exact moment he loses all hope for humanity and his vocational contribution to it:

SBS 2008 developer, who wrote the console.exe management interface for Cougar, checks for his pulse while Jeff Middleton, of SBS Migration fame, attempts to explain how a simple schema change would only require 3 lines of code.

Bonus points for the dev for keeping his carcass vertical

Microsoft MVP program, contributing to Microsoft Developer attrition since 1997.

Which brings me to an interesting symbiosis software developers (me) and very passionate users (MVPs) have when it comes to social interaction. In digital interaction (forums, bug sites, trouble tickets) the responses are raw and nearly primal - “This is broken - fix it” with the response “It’s like that by design”. In plain terms the users are telling developers that their software sucks, and the developers are telling the users to stop bitching and go away because it won’t be fixed. It’s a conversation that repeats often so today I asked:

Dana Epp: I bugged it and the bug was closed as “By design.”

Vlad Mazek: How come you guys never let me get away with that?

Dean Calvert: Because we know where you live.

There is something to be said about the personal connection the software has to the way business gets done and value is contributed to both the person designing the software to solve the problem, person implementing the software to help the end user be more effective at their task and the end user who ultimately makes a significant impact with the software to improve something else.

When all three of these individuals connect and are on the same page the results are astonishing.

This is why OWN invests so much in remaining a partner-only company and why Microsoft pours so much money and time in the MVP program and why people continue to put up with difficult problems and people to improve the entire chain.

At Own Web Now we have a picture of Nick Whittome, which I am not allowed to publish, that I put in my IM icon every Friday when we do code reviews. Nick is my residential code review scarecrow - every time you take a shortcut Nick will find it and kick you in the ass about it. Why? Because people like Nick Whittome and Howard Cunningham and Dave Sobel and a few thousand others constantly give us feedback on our solutions. They aren’t paid for this role, nor do their clients pay for them to work with us, nor does this go under the line item under any of the financial reports. And when my team looks at these kick in the balls tickets and bug tracks it is hard not to de-humanize the feedback as a complaint and reflection of personal incompetence. It is hard to differentiate where “you suck” starts and “this would fix the problem” begins.

This, in my opinion, is why working with the vendors, partners, end users and everyone involved in the software consumption cycle is extremely important. Once you get beyond taking the criticism personally you can move on to the positive side of what everything you’ve dedicated at least 8 hours a day goes to. It’s very motivating, in my opinion moreso than money. 

Ok, I guess it’s time to quit this biz. When you’ve made it into Dilbert you’re pretty much done

Oh dear lord….

Are you going to the ConnectWise summit next week?

Own Web Now is sponsoring the ConnectWise Summit next week so if you work with us please drop me an email. We have some special SWAG for our partners that will be at the event so if you’re going drop me an email with the preferred shirt size (polo). Then just stop by our booth

I’ll be there for a few days so if there is anything you want to chat about look for a big purple sign with the ExchangeDefender logo. We’ll have some show special pricing, bunch of SWAG, some prizes.

And will you stop snickering already. It’s called business for a reason.

Since I’m entitled to only one good post a month I won’t bore you with the extended details of just how dedicated we are at OWN to helping our partners become successful and profitable in IT. But today we launched the most significant upgrade to the Offsite Backup product that Own Web Now only sells through our partners and does so at cost. Yeah, you read that right.

Why?

Because there are many products that OWN as a business sells in our consulting and project engagements and even through our partners that people pay a nice premium for my team to have nice wages, latest software, kickass hardware and access to everything they need to do their jobs. Plus the Buy-Vlad-A-Ferrari-In-Every-Color fund that is near and dear to my heart.

And sometimes, out of the size and underutilization on our network we are able to create special offerings that are not key to our business or to our profitability but they can be used by our partners to create immensely profitable lines of business.

I look at it as a little perk for the people that could easily just nitpick the cheapest or best solutions but still come to us for everything and trust that even if we are not the #1 on the block, we will still work very hard for them and for their clients.

So some of my partners lost accounts to the competition which supposedly had a better archiving solution and wasn’t limited by the old LiveArchive’s 7 day rolling start. My partners brought this to me, I felt the pain and we did something. So with ExchangeDefender 4.0 we opened up a virtual can of whopass in terms of archiving, teaming up with Microsoft, SuperMicro and Western Digital to deliver 1 year of archiving. Free. Yes, FREE. My partners now have a leg up on everyone in the market, not to mention the shot in the arm in profitability that nobody can match.

Now we are doing the same with backups. Lot’s of people want to be in the backup space, but they are pure-play backup providers and they just don’t have the network infrastructure experience OWN does - so they have to implement things like dedicated hardware purchases, long term support contracts, tie-ins with other products. One even goes out to cripple their software so that you can only backup a fraction locally compared to what you get to upload to the cloud.

Today, we finished network upgrades to our offsite backup. Our existing clients will keep the same cost structure, grandfathered, for all existing and upcoming account. In case you’re curious, that’s $1/GB offsite backup and $6/mo/agent (which can be installed on multiple PCs in the same organization).

Is this some shabby USB hard drive we’re reselling? No, it’s an enterprise-class redundant storage array, backed with two replication grids in Chicago and Los Angeles.

Oh, and for our EU partners we’ve built the same product in Europe between UK and Neatherlands so you can take advantage of the backups at the same price, with the cloud redundancy and without the fear of the USA Patriot Act.

Oh, and if you’re a Shockey Monkey or ConnectWise user, you might want to keep your ears clean around the 18th of the month for yet another announcement in this gig. In October the Autotask kids will get the same treat.

Competition…. smoked. And we don’t even compete in this solution portfolio!

I like it Vlad, but….

…. but do you have to sound like such a self-righteous asshole?

In a nutshell, fuck yes.

I realize very few of you reading this blog actually work for me or work with me as partners and don’t get to feed off the same energy that I instill in my company and in our relationships with the people that really want to work with us.

That, to me, is what partnerships are all about.

It’s not about paying lip service.

It’s not about a logo.

It’s not about a long term contract.

It’s about businesses recognizing the assholes in this business who are willing to work hard to make each other profitable. Folks around the world use our Hosted Exchange, ExchangeDefender, SharePoint, Web Hosting, PSA, Offsite Backup and other solutions every day. They help their clients solve problems and tell them just who they trust with the data.

And at the end of the day, all of my partners could just say - screw Vlad, it’s all about me and my bag of toys - but many, many, many, many don’t.

And when you’ve got my back like that….. there is no extent to which we won’t use our competitive advantage to give you an edge.

That may offend the sensibilities for some, or their religious dogma or their sense of purpose. Tough. I run a business, not a church or a hug group, and if you’re on that same page there is a way to remain competitive in the technology space.

As my buddy Erick would say, thats how I roll.

P.S. Ok, so the exuberance is partially due to the new backup software… but most of it is due to the September #’s that I just got. I am || close to doing the mexican hat dance and throw money in the air.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been rather quiet about the ExchangeDefender 4.0 upcoming feature set. For a product scheduled for launch date of August 19th it’s pretty unusual for me to be this silent about it.

So you know this is going to be big

And when you see what we’ve been working on for the past eight plus months your thoughts are going to be… “I get all that for that price? How can they possibly make money on it?”

Pssst. We’re gonna make the future users of ExchangeDefender pay for the enormous infrastructure expansion bump you’ll see. And the new pricing will be announced on the 20th. And it’s gonna be higher. Significantly higher. But every service provider in by the 19th will be locked in to the current pricing. So if you aren’t in the partner program, today is a day to get in and sign up for the Service Provider account. It’s $150 for the first 100 accounts, $1.50 per account after that. You get first 60 days free. You can make a good $ on the markup of that alone, and on Aug 19th when ExchangeDefender becomes a product onto itself you’ll be able to damn near build a business on it. If I’ve written about anything on here is that you’ve got to spot opportunities when they present themselves - this is your opportunity. No exceptions will be made after the 19th.

So tomorrow I go to Dallas to inspect and sign off on ExchangeDefender 4.0. We are so badass that the head of this monster is split between three data centers

On Sunday I board a flight to LAX to visit the live geographically redundant data center doing the same thing in DC. God willing, in December there will be one in London too. And then Australia. And then Elbonia!

So that is what I’m up to. Join us

P.S. To my blogging friends and tireless advocates that have been just amazing partners in the Own Web Now business I want to ask you not to blog about this last offer. I feel that enough ass has been kicked and I’ve given both the IT world and the IT community enough of what I and my OWN family are all about. And while I appreciate that you want to give that one additional kick in the ass, even I thought about not posting this. So the comments and trackbacks are disabled, this is the biggest business favor I can offer my readers and I’d like to keep it as such.

We’re now up to the fifth podcast in the OWN Partner Call series and joining me today is Dana Epp, CEO of Scorpion Software. Dana has been on our SBS Show before and as the Microsoft MVP in Security he is no stranger when it comes to the podcasts, blogging and SMB Conferencing in general.

So why should you bother to listen to the nearly 50 minute long discussion over TFA/OTP?

Because we sat around and had a security sales conversation. Learn how to intelligently discuss the security without fear mongering your clients, establish it as a point of differentiation and give your clients the flexibility of adding the extra level of security one user at a time. With customers always being reserved towards arming their entire staff with the latest and greatest gadgets, security does not have to fall into that category - Dana and I partnered up to bring a fully managed AuthAnvil solution at $20/month per employee.

Yes, $20.

Think you can make money offering that?

Now think about my spin on this - I’m now the only one able to offer cloud services with two factor authentication forever ending the paranoia of “But if it’s on the Internet anyone can look at it, right?”

Oh, and its being built into Shockey Monkey. Quick, does your PSA have integrated two factor security? So that thing you keep your passwords, customer credit cards, remote VNC access to the clients portals.. anyone that can sniff your password has access to it?

Year in the making folks, we’re here to kick some booty, stop playing around and pour some jet fuel onto your marketing. What in your offering makes you any different than the 200 other indianinabucket.com resellers in your city? I’ve got a whole stack of things, are you interested? AIDA!

Download it, listen to it, think about it…

Son, you have to earn the pimp hat. I am not sure how young you have to be to start moving software but Tim is getting an early start: effective immediately Own Web Now in partnership with Scorpion Software is bringing you safer small business computing.

One person at a time.

At $20 a month.

Complex? See below.

Game changer? You bet. Where do you sign up? Here.

Passwords are the most frustrating thing for system administrators and MSPs to manage. Make them too easy and you get hacked. Make them too difficult and the staff complains, forgets their password and opens trouble tickets which eats into overall profitability and security of the organization. We can fix that!

With Scorpion Software AuthAnvil and one time password authentication you are issued a token, a keychain, with a constantly rotating short password. When you try to login into your organization you are prompted for your password but you are now also prompted for another password which you copy from the security key. This allows clients to have simple passwords and passphrases and never worry about being hacked with a password that was compromised, guessed, keylogged on a kiosk or sniffed over the air. For $20/month per employee you have one less thing to worry about!

We are partnering with Scorpion Software to make this affordable.

We are doing it one person at a time. Yes, just one. Got a small client where only one or two people travel and need additional security for SBS Remote Web Workplace? You can get it one at a time!

We are integrating this into Shockey Monkey and ExchangeDefender.  We are working with Scorpion Software on integrating this into Exchange 2007 and will have discounts for the companies that subscribe to the above services.

Most importantly, we are making this EASY. We will configure the service for you. We will install and deploy the configuration. You can use it on any server or as many servers as you want to. Going forward, you will have ability to use the same technology with other popular services including some you will see on this very blog

I told you we’re changing the game. OWN is here for you, what are you waiting for?