Going Forward

In January I ran the WDW Marathon and 26.2 miles, which truly kicked my ass. Having completed my winter tour of flu, cold, stomach bug, AIDS, west nile and possibly other tropical diseases, I got back to my physical training in anticipation of bringing back the Ironman for the rest of the season. I wanted to offer everyone an honest heads up about what is going on at OWN and put the announcements you will be hearing over the next few months into some context.

Own Web Now has been a big geek firm for many years.

Unfortunately, for many of those years that is all it was.

Fortunately, we did a very good job with it.

Now, this is where it gets a little complex. Rising tide lifts all boats, some with real IT solution providers, some with good salesmen with a few missing planks. The partner demand had shifted, the focus changed from building technology to deploying and consolidating it and we played a huge part in it. We’ve been so successful at it as a matter of fact that we’ve pretty much lost a year to bring our business processes to the level needed to support what we were doing. We also had to step up our game as the IT space became more consumerish (and by that I mean nobody RTFMs any more) and that lead to some shuffling of the talent within OWN.

Basically, the demand for the “technical” company went up to midmarket and enterprise where we do exclusive contract work. Meanwhile, the SMB part of the business required more professional handling and management. This required a change in the way we approach SMB and grow it along with the way our partners are growing. We’re not just a backoffice anymore.

Unfortunately, this means my role in it all becomes a lot more limited. For example, I used to handle all partner relationships. But these days we’re fielding idiotic questions from people who ought to know the answers (“So, what’s the hosted Exchange like?”) and that now has a dedicated team that sits around and demos our solutions to the solution providers that need to learn how to position, sell and deploy the solutions.

Frankly, I don’t have the time for that.

You’ve already seen some hint of what I’m actually up to through the SPAM Show. This year we’ll be sponsoring the entire MSPU circuit. Today we lined up to sponsor the SMBTN event. Towards the end of March we are sponsoring the Autotask event and showcasing our integration there, and at the end of August we’re doing the same with ConnectWise. In the middle we will be getting more involved with HTG groups which we just started sponsoring and will have booths at Microsoft WPC and a few ASCII events as well.

Why? See previous line. I want to stay in touch with the partners and continue to help when I can, but my time is progressively being taken up by meetings and product development, so my ability to pick up the phone and explain business cases and what I’m hearing from the IT field out there is going to be rather limited.

I think all this will benefit our partner base significantly.

You will see a few things show up on this blog over the next few months, all of which relate to my professional side of life.. If you work with us this will make you more money and make you more profitable, so I urge you to get involved. Serious upgrades to ExchangeDefender are around the corner. There is a lot of new stuff coming down the Shockey Monkey tree. We’re bringing additional products and services.

I talk a lot of shit. But you have years worth of archives that back up what I’m saying and what we’re doing about it to compete. You’d very hard pressed to find a more open company or a more partner friendly one at that. We haven’t had technical issues creep up in months, no discussions over ExchangeDefender delays, the offsite backups have been flawless, our technical support has been getting stellar reviews and new communication, billing and automation are getting congratulations around the world. At a time where most IT / Software vendors are cutting jobs, we are growing.

Not to be curt, but this is a partnership. If you aren’t interested in making my company more profitable, don’t expect a warm welcome when you ask for things like Shockey Monkey and Offsite Backups – those are meant for our loyal partners – not for guys looking for a deal while propping up our competitors at every turn.

I look forward to working with you all in the coming months as we set ourselves up for a fantastic 2010. Yeah, we’re kicking ass right now, but if we take our eyes of the ball that will certainly change. Moreso, I feel like we have this huge competitive edge and I’ll do all I can to make sure we take advantage of this economic chaos and the need to slash IT budgets. I wish there were more than 24 hours in a day so I can bring everyone in at the lowest level, but the ugly truth with huge audiences is that the intimacy gets thin, so in the meantime I sincerely hope you support what I’m doing to keep us and our growing enterprise on the right track.