Perficient, a St. Louis-based IT consulting firm and Microsoft National Systems Integrator, this month acquired Charlotte, N.C.-based Exervio Inc. in a $13.6 million deal.
With the acquisition, Perficient will absorb the 100-employee management consulting firm with footprints in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., and Dallas. Exervio's enterprise customers include AT&T, Bank of America, the Boy Scouts of America, Coca Cola, Duke Energy, Family Dollar, Lowe's, Piedmont Natural Gas and Wells Fargo. Exervio co-founders Jon Nance, Mark Heisig and Edward Pounds will all join Perficient. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 15, 20110 comments
There were a lot of significant aspects to Microsoft's release this month of a Bing app for the Apple iPad tablet.
It's clearly a shot across Google's bow as an attempt to move the search paradigm forward. Media industry observers are atwitter about the Bing app's possibilities as a next-generation newspaper. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 15, 20112 comments
Several managed services provider tools vendors are making parts of their software available for iPad-wielding MSPs through the Apple App Store.
This week, LabTech Software put new versions of its LabTech Mobile remote monitoring and management (RMM) application for iPhone and iPad on the App Store. According to the Tampa, Fla.-based vendor with about 1,000 MSP customers, the application offers the ability to work tickets, access client data and work with scripts. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 14, 20110 comments
A lot of attention has been paid to the cloud end of cloud computing -- the applications and for-rent infrastructure that run in megavendors' megadatacenters. The Chinese computermaker Lenovo has taken steps to address the other side of the question: What would an ideal cloud client look like?
The default answer so far has been that the cloud client can be any device. So long as the client has a fast Internet connection, the server farm can do all the work. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 14, 20111 comments
The Q1 2011 numbers are in for one of the key indicators of the health of the IT industry -- PC sales -- and the diagnosis is not good.
IDC said this week that PC shipments contracted worldwide by 3.2 percent and in the United States by 10 percent. In discussing the U.S. results, IDC noted the strong gains through all of 2010 and called the drop "yet another inflection point in the rubber-band effect of the demand cycle that has become prevalent over the past two years." More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 14, 20110 comments
Scribe Software, a data integration provider with a special focus on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, this week launched a cloud-based platform for integrating CRM and ERP data with other business applications.
The 60-employee, Bedford, N.H.-based ISV made the announcement during Microsoft Convergence in Atlanta, where Scribe also saw eight of its customers and partners win Microsoft Dynamics customer excellence awards. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 13, 20110 comments
KineticD acquired ROBOBAK this week in a merger of cloud backup providers with different channel models.
KineticD is a Toronto-based SaaS backup company specializing in backing up micro SMBs of up to about 20 employees. ROBOBAK -- the letters stand for "remote office/branch office backup" -- does agentless disk-to-disk-to-cloud backup that the company positions as a hybrid approach appropriate for SMBs into midsize companies and enterprise branch offices. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 08, 20110 comments
The marketing drumbeat in favor of getting businesses onto Facebook and other social media has been pretty heavy (from RCPmag.com, as well, here, here and here), although there are some signs of backlash, such as the recent Fortune magazine article "Facebook: Where marketing efforts go to die?" and RCPU Editor Lee Pender's blog entry, "5 Reasons Why I Hate Twitter."
In a column for the February issue, I wrote about the struggle to balance personal and professional contacts in Facebook. Jeff V. Pulver, an IT consultant with Intercomp Design Inc. in New Jersey, e-mailed a thoughtful response about why he doesn't recommend Facebook to his clients. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 07, 20112 comments
More than 50,000 users at MSP and VAR companies are using ConnectWise PSA for professional services automation, the Tampa, Fla.-based company reported this week.
Jeannine Edwards, director of the ConnectWise Community, said in a telephone interview on Thursday that those licenses cover nearly 4,300 solution provider organizations. "We have anywhere from a one-user company to our largest partner is 450 users. Our sweet spot is probably 15 to 20 users," Edwards said. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 07, 20111 comments
Microsoft normally plays it close to the vest when it comes to saying how many of its 430,000 enrolled partners have qualified for various competencies.
We recently got a rare glimpse into some of those numbers on the database end of the Microsoft Partner Network. In reporting the RCP "Partner's Guide to Cutting-Edge SQL Server Engagements," Alison Diana spoke with Betsy Pridmore, director of partner marketing for the Business Platform Marketing Group at Microsoft. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 06, 20110 comments
There's no question that getting gold competencies in the new Microsoft Partner Network is tough -- but it's less of a challenge for a partner firm with 12,000 consultants and 13,000 Microsoft certifications.
That's the baggage Avanade brought with it when it came time to qualify for the new MPN competency requirements last fall. More
Posted by Scott Bekker on April 06, 20110 comments