The Houston effect

re: The Houston effect

Richard — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:12:48 GMT

I'm 800 seats. No way am I touching hosted email with a barge-pole. Just the internet connectivity I'd need for that would kill me for cost. Buying servers is cheaper.

If Gartner had said 200 seats, then I might have taken it seriously.

re: The Houston effect

Amy B — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:11:41 GMT

I have to wonder about the quality of the consulting that the person complaining about accountability of Vlad, et. al. An anonymous post means that they are not accountable for even their words. But more importantly, we're all responsible for ourselves. If you don't like the way that one SBSC is representing, then stand up and represent or go away.

» Is Microsoft Breaking its Partner Model for SMB?

» Is Microsoft Breaking its Partner Model for SMB? — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:23:12 GMT

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re: The Houston effect

Allen S — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:14:26 GMT

While driving around to visit clients a couple of clients last week, we talked about migrating from an on premises server to a hosted solution (they are due for a server/software upgrade).

Well, the idea didn't travel very far. They all wanted to stay with an onsite server. I think many small business owners like to be able to see and touch their assets.

re: The Houston effect

Jim Maher — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:10:32 GMT

Late last century, there were two waves of "service bureau" usage (at least, that I participated in). I also participated in three cycles of centralized vs. de-centralized (the last centraliation AFTER the PC-era). It's a cyclical trend and, as always, I expect the current SaaS craze to be over-emphasized for awhile and then diminish.

Client needs must govern. It's a matter of judgment and risk tolerance whether a client uses in-house or outside resources, per application. And it changes over time. And it's not just infra-structure and apps, it's also personnel. And it's not just IT, it's everything the business does.

We specialize in the IT functions. But we also offer opinions on other functions, especially when they are closely related to IT. Sometimes we do work ourselves, sometimes we sub-contract people, sometimes we out-source. We may do any of those for any given piece of the puzzle, based on the individual client needs.

I'd love to believe we've seen it all and therefore we have the best judgement available; but it ain't true. With every single client, we learn something new. Yea, there's a lot of similiarity, but every undertaking is a new adventure. We mostly get it right, and the other times we make it right.

We are consultants, but we can't help everyone. Right now, we struggle with the uniqueness of every situation and the difficulty of integrating diverse solutions. As a result, our services are only appealing to fairly well-heeled clients. And during periods of economic downturns, those are harder to find.

My inclination right now is that we probably need to get OUT of consulting and into something we can sell and support at a much higher scale. That sure isn't gonna SMB infrastructure!

(But it might be SaaS . . .)