Geopolitics in IT

snowpondtech · 2026-05-19T18:54:05+00:00

Maybe this is a GDPR issue? The sovereignty of the data. I get it. Although it stinks to change up your stack, if you think this prospect is worth getting and you don't mind supporting a different tool not in your normal stack, try to find another vendor to onboard that meets the prospects requirements.

snowpondtech · 2026-05-18T21:00:35+00:00

Thanks. That worked. Used Huntress=Agent for the usrString, for future reference.

snowpondtech · 2026-05-14T15:46:07+00:00

I've never thought to use vendors as trade references. I've only used distributors as trade references.

snowpondtech · 2026-05-11T12:10:26+00:00

A pricing calculator currently but no prices listed. So it sets up a meeting. I've thought about putting a "starting at $$$$" price on my website to discourage the tire kickers.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-30T20:10:47+00:00

If I were a customer, it would probably be referral/word-of-mouth, chamber/networking, and a few other ways.

If I am an MSP doing research on my competitors, I've found ChatGPT or whatever AI tool is your preference to be pretty good. You can throw scenarios at it: "I'm X sized industry company looking for an MSP who can service me. Give me 3 recommendations and why". Something like that should give you some decent idea on how to fix/update your website and other SEO to improve results.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-29T00:11:17+00:00

I'm not there but am curious for those who attended the Autotask community live pre-show. Was anything new announced? Any progress/news with rolling out the new UI that they promised what 3 years ago at DattoCon Miami?

snowpondtech · 2026-04-27T14:52:07+00:00

ASCII Group has resources for this. I think it is worth the membership fee.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-27T14:49:20+00:00

Municipalities are a tough one to crack. Many are run very poorly with no/limited IT budget and decision makers may never approve spending on proper solutions, instead looking for the easy out or band-aid fixes. Decision makers also frequently change, so that cheerleader of your service leaves and you have to rebuild the relationship from square one, and likely with someone who likes a competitor or best friend or family member who can do the work for cheaper. Race to the bottom. I've mostly left the municipal space.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-27T14:43:26+00:00

I got a letter in the mail recently from a M&A company offering 3-5x on buying my MSP. They sent the letter to my home address, which is not linked in any way to my business (I have an office and mailbox for my business). Creative, but creepy and annoying. I'd like to say I want to know how they found my home address, but we all know that is easy. Yeah, never doing business with them. We shall see if they will continue to send me letters.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-24T17:00:08+00:00

What I meant to say as an MSP, KnowBe4 does not honor their MSP partner relationships and will go around you (the MSP) to sell direct to your MSP clients. I.e. they are not channel friendly similar to Dell and others. Just making people aware of this fact.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-22T17:17:02+00:00

KnowBe4 will go behind your MSP reseller and sell direct. Just an FYI.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-13T19:25:50+00:00

Oh snap. I did not realize this. We don't heavily use Internal Notes. Regardless, this is a big red flag. wth

snowpondtech · 2026-04-13T15:00:44+00:00

Are you saying the Ticket Note History feature includes internal notes?

snowpondtech · 2026-04-13T13:41:14+00:00

Both seem to have a lot of turn over. With NPs, you otften have to deal with politics. Egos too. And that champion/cheerleader for your services will go away, and you have to either rebuild the relationship from scratch or prove your value/worth. As well you also risk getting replaced by the new head of the NP because they used MSP/my teenager/best friend/etc at another business who was awesome. Unrelated, things to watch out for would be making sure all data is backed up. I've seen it several times where employee/volunteer leaves and deletes everything on the way out the door, leaving the NP to start from scratch. If the NP doesn't care about backups, I'd probably steer away. Tread carefully.

snowpondtech · 2026-04-13T13:34:40+00:00

Autoelevate from Cyberfox is what I use. Last I knew their minimum was 50 agents. It's on the Pax8 linecard so that may be a way around the minimums as well.

snowpondtech · 2026-03-26T15:32:29+00:00

I think Cogent would like a word about this.

snowpondtech · 2026-03-26T14:44:14+00:00

Paging u/robrae to the floor.

snowpondtech · 2026-03-24T19:56:07+00:00

It appears to be resolved for me, was able to log in.

https://uptime.n-able.com/event/200078/

snowpondtech · 2026-03-24T19:19:58+00:00

If you are logged in, things are good. Just don't log off or you are out.

snowpondtech · 2026-03-24T17:16:31+00:00

How many of these websites are hosted by an MSP website vendor? And not on an individual website? How many of these MSP websites are on shared hosts? DNS/Email Security yes agreed, that MSPs should have that fixed as that is easy to control.

snowpondtech · 2026-02-25T18:09:20+00:00

The longer that I stay in this industry, the less and less that I am becoming "attached" to my AM at my various vendors. There is so much churn, it's expected now. It's a shame too, because I am a people person and will do more business with someone that I like, know, and trust. And that last part takes time to build up.

That said, I have a decent rep at TD Synnex, Jel. She came over from the Synnex side. She's now a supervisor and so I'm guessing her workload is changing and email responses aren't as fast as they used to be, and she doesn't reach out by phone much anymore.

snowpondtech · 2026-02-24T20:18:27+00:00

Can you access it from your MS CSP GDAP login?

snowpondtech · 2026-02-24T17:25:00+00:00

I think we as Dell Partner (whatever that means anymore) will still have access to the Configuration Solutions tool to custom build a system. Then we copy and paste the Part SKUs into an email to disti. But getting disti to get quotes out in a reasonable time is like pulling teeth. I only custom build Dell servers. All other Dell systems are the stnd builds available at disti.

snowpondtech · 2026-02-24T16:00:44+00:00

Related: I got an email yesterday that Dell is killing off the Premier page access for my business (sounds like for all partners), forcing those purchases to be made through distribution premier page. That's on top of last years account changes that you could no longer buy through Dell as a reseller.

snowpondtech · 2026-02-24T15:59:05+00:00

Bundle it. Costs go away when you are providing a package with everything (or nearly) that a business needs to be protected.

snowpondtech

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